Memorial Day birthday

On this Mermorial Day weekend, some members of my family attended a wedding, some attended a funeral. One of us has a birthday today. And I chose this day to commemorate Henry, my strong and beautiful dog whose life ended tragically I think in March.

I'll start with that, because in fact Henry began my day. I had his ashes with me (or in the garage since March) and I had decided that the best place for them would be in our favorite county park, by the old oak, because Ed had once said that would be a perfect place for his ashes, and I thought I would like to join him in that. Henry loved Ed almost as much as he loved me, so I thought it would be fitting.

After breakfast...

(morning book: sticking with the animal and nature theme: How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery)

I let Millie rest in her crate and drove over to the park. Teary eyed, with a head full of Henry images, I took out the urn, noted that it came with a paw print (that will go in my garden), and got ready to do the ritual of scattering ashes.

Except I couldn't open the container. I tried everything: prying it open, banging, twisting, yanking, prying -- no go. There I stood with Henry, firmly lodged in a plastic bag and in a metal container, which came with a velvet bag -- not able to get to his final resting place. Is there some symbolism in this? I cannot tell. 

Decisions had to be made: I change the location to the farmette. 

(the big bed... very green, but with peonies now starting to bloom)

 

 

Despite the early hour, Ed is out already, planting tomatoes.

And he, too, pried, banged, tapped the container -- with no movement. Finally we both carefully scrutinized it and decided that it must be a screw top -- one that is tightly shut. Ed has the grip and strength. I held, he turned. It opened.

Ed joined me for the scattering: I did it by the fir trees he and I planted when they were just an inch tall. Now they're twice Ed's height. I figured even if the farmette lands become a yet newer development, the trees will likely remain. No one likes to cut down huge spruces. Henry will stay here, in a place he knew, the home of people he loved.

*     *     * 

I had errands to do immediately after. First, a visit to K&A Nursery. Last night I had got my very patient landscaping person to agree to pull up some more sod in the back yard (if you can call two squares of very sad looking lawn on the sides of the driveway a back yard) at Steffi's House on the day before I leave on my trip. Theoretically I could put in something in that space before I pick up the kids that day, and celebrate another birthday, and pack my suitcase. That would be the plan. But I didn't think a cottage flower garden was right. I needed something bolder that would take the eye away from all the garages and driveways in the alley. I had no idea what that could be. Leafing through pages of perennials late into the night, I found nothing to be quite right. So I drove to the nursery for inspiration, and I found it! K&A has a great selection of shrubs.

And a strong one of perennials too.

 

 

I chose some rather unusual shrubs -- or at least unknown to me:  a native Sweet Cherry Tea Ninebark that has great foliage and interesting blooms that came back for a rerun. And then -- tall perennials and biannuals. Hollyhock. More lilies of the oriental kind. And a false sunflower or two. And malva. And just a few daylilies as the short guys of the bunch. I already have roses that would border the fence. I think that'll work!

From there, I drove to Madison Sourdough to pick up Sandpiper's cake. The  boy is five today!! A celebration will follow!

 

*     *     *

Here's a puzzle for you: what do a very very late, way too late Thanksgiving dinner, a very dry set of potted flowers, and an untrained dog have in common?

Answer: they all belong to a person who does not have enough hours in the day to do what she set out to do. 

It struck me that I pushed too much into the next weeks. The trip belongs there. And indeed, much of the work for that is done, because I insisted on starting very very very early. But honestly, raising a puppy, celebrating a bunch of birthdays, planting new flower fields from scratch, moving -- really, Nina? How is all that supposed to work?

*     *     * 

In the afternoon, Ed and I drive over to my daughter's house. Sandpiper, the lively, joyful, affectionate, airplane loving boy (who sometimes calls himself Barkley -- when he feels like being part of the canine world) is celebrating his fifth!

 I stay mostly outside. I need to keep Millie on the deck because she is totally untrustworthy with scattered toys and, too, this is her first visit to my daughter's place, and first time visits are always potty risks for pups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So warm today! Breezy but warm.

Sandpiper plays with his toys, I sit back and take it all in -- the warm wind, the background noises of children enjoying themselves, the dogs, baiting each other with play.... It's all quite special.

As is the cake!

 

 

 

Though the wind is so strong that my son in law cannot light the candles. We suggest just one for now, for that birthday wish and even there, Sandpiper has plenty of help from the wind.

Happy, happy birthday, little one. Can I still call you that, even though youa re now five?

 

 

 

with so much love...

 

know when to stop

To plant new flower fields, to bring dogs into your life, to load up on books to read, so that the proverbial stack by your bed reaches the ceiling, to break off squares of chocolate in the evening, to plan ocean crossings -- you have to know how to stop. And this is a skill that I do not have. 

It's not merely a question of preserving retirement resources: the library is free and will load up on a tablet effortlessly. Plants divided or transplanted from the farmette cost me nothing. And I can afford chocolate bars. The Lindt ones I tend to favor these days (dark, with sea salt) wont empty out my savings. (I will not comment on dogs. They don't have to be pricey, but sometimes they become that through no fault of theirs or yours.) So, forget for a minute about cost. It's a question of learning to be satisfied with good rather than better yet. Why queue up all those books, why expand flower fields (on paper so far) every few days, why look at photos of dogs available for adoption, when everything is so good now, in smaller amounts? (On the dog issue -- I'm not actually getting a second one. Millie is satisfied with a human centered existence and I see no benefit in adding more expense and work, even though the available pups are so adorable!)

I think I've always aimed higher than I could reach. Packed more than the suitcase could hold. Filled a glass to overflowing. And I've reaped the benefits of this: the flower fields at the farmette were frustrating (too many weeds, too much shade, lots of effort) but they turned out to be really spectacular in mid-summer. I loved each and every dog that lived with me this year. And I think I had the best reading spell in a long time, in part because I had so much good stuff to choose from. And travel sustained me, always. There are a few trips that I think added not much to my growth, but most have have enriched me tremendously.

So now, as I plan out Steffi's garden, I find it hard to stop. I've expanded my growing horizons there again and again, so that the person that's working with me (in terms of sod removal and dirt replacement) is getting really tired of my texts asking for just a bit more. (She'll be getting another one today.)

 

The morning is still cool, but not for long. Breakfast in a fleece, the rest of the day? Short sleeves and shorts.

Millie is playful. Super charged with the zoomies, When she tires, I brush her. She is so used to this routine and she cooperates. Until she tires of being docile. And still, she is small -- I can flip her, hold her, position her in a good way. I wonder how I would do this were she a full grown doodle instead of a mini...

(there, all brushed)

 

We go for a walk over to Steffi's House. I want to  eyeball the land and see if the plants I have (70 by now) match the space for them. And on our walk to it, I meet some more neighbors. Lovely people who express relief that the house is inhabited because they surely haven't seen anyone there. I have heard that story before!

I study the back-of-the-house patches of grass. Truly, I'd like to remove them all. I like grass in the enclosed area where Millie can play and I can sit and read my stacks of books, but the rest of it? Worthless. And I am such an incompetent grass grower anyway! I've fertilized it, reseeded it and still it looks pretty darn awful. I have no interest in learning about it, nor in making it look like astroturf (densely green), but honestly, couldn't it look less... starved for care? I measure off more strips out back that I could transform into flower fields...

 

In the early afternoon, Millie rests in her crate and Ed and I do one of my very favorite outings: by bike, over the mile long bridge that cuts across the Yahara as it flows into Lake Waubesa, then to the town of McFarland, where we pause for a snack at Grace Cafe. 

It is, finally, that perfect day -- sunshine, warmth, late May loveliness everywhere you look. Happiness is that ride, with Ed for company. The whole thing doesn't take long -- maybe 40 minutes each way -- and therein lies the beauty: it's perfect. It cannot be improved upon. I want to add nothing to it! You see? I can be satiated.

At home, Millie and I have some training to do. I work on commands, but also on getting her to break the habit of playing with treats. I can't believe I have to make my dog love snatching up rewards, but they're a real training assist. So we practice. And she's willing. She must be undergoing a growth spurt, because her attitude toward food is improving. Or maybe it's the elimination of kibble? She doesn't explain her behavior so I can't tell.

 

(dream of Paris?)

 

Evening quiet. So much to look forward to in the coming month! I return to my book with a smile. And not because it is funny material. It's just that kind of an evening.

with so much love... 

a retreat?

I learned to collect books not from my academic now ex-husband, but even earlier -- from my parents. My father did it because it gave him the sense of immersion into the political and historic commentary of others. All those titles on the shelves! My mother did it out of a yearning to be part of an intellectual community that was never handed to her in her impoverished childhood and young adulthood. And to her credit, she read much of what she owned. I did it because I was always more hungry than the stomach would allow. I collected tantalizing books that I was dying to read. I'd say I managed to get to maybe half of them. 

Oh those days of bookstores with appended cafes! My absolute favorite hours of leisure were ones spent with a stack of books and an inevitably cooling latte at Borders. Indeed, after my divorce, I moved into a particular condo deliberately because it was across the road from that Borders -- a store that closed soon after my move. Damn it. 

But my reading habits have always been those of a restless person. If I did not like a book, I did not finish it. I felt the waste then. And I did not like reminders of that poor selection -- I got rid of books that weren't to my taste quickly. I kept those that I fully intended to someday read or reread. And my collection grew. And grew some more.

And then along came Kindle, my wonderful reading device. Books are substantially cheaper on Kindle. And for a frequent traveler, kindle is just such a joy! No more weighty tomes that I may or may not like once I got going. A Kindle can stack and keep for you a whole library full of books. And slowly, I left the physical book completely, in favor of tablet reading. And when I moved -- again and again and again -- I got rid of books that I knew I would never read or reread. I pared it down to just a shelf full and I expect even that will diminish with my next move. I'm a Kindle person, right? Kindle print is great for my old-person eyes! The brightness is there, the boldness of the font (why are books printed with gray lettering these days?!), the slightly larger print -- all of it, fabulous and easy to stick in my purse or take up to my bed in the evening.

But every once in a while, I get a book as a gift. This happened with Raising Hare: A Memoir (by Chloe Dalton), a book that I read this past week. It's a beautiful story and reading it was like a walk on a path of stunning natural wonder, where you've forgotten about human intrusions and opened your eyes to the riches of plant and animal life. I loved the book and I loved taking it with me to the breakfast table. And it felt somehow meaningful to be reading it on real paper, in print. I suppose you could argue that it's just a simplification of what it means to immerse yourself in the real world, as opposed to the one imagined and created for our convenience on a Kindle. But I do believe that some books are better read in their printed format. This was one of them. I have this idea now that I'll go back to real books sometimes, when it seems (to my imagination) more fitting. As if I haven't quite succumbed to convenience for everything I do (even though here I am, ordering a "real book" online, one about nature and growing things, and expecting delivery... tomorrow!). 

That notwithstanding, during the day and especially in the evenings, I go back to whatever I am reading on my Kindle. And what exactly am I reading there? Well, the NYTimes suggested that for the summer, we challenge ourselves some by broadening our reading horizons. One idea: read from a genre you don't usually touch. And I have one! I am actually picked up a romance novel -- a genre I haven't touched since I was a young adult. And I mean a really young adult. Why do it now? I blame the dog book ("The Best Dog in the World") from last week. I liked the essay by Emily Henry, so if I'm to read a romance book, her's would be a good choice. "Book Lovers" is witty enough, but not not enough to hook me. I skipped the middle and sailed to the predictable end and there you have it. 

All this on a day that was supposed to be sunny and finally warmer and it isn't that -- not in the morning anyway. Nonetheless, I take my breakfast outside. The birds are deliciously loud, a fleece protects me from the morning nip in the air. 

(farmette irises)

Millie barks at strange movements in the alley...

 

 

... and spies on neighbors.  

It's a really good morning. And I promised I wouldn't write about plants today so I wont, though I will say that my longing to take my plants out of the porch and into the open grows with each day. Steffi's House doesn't have a screened porch and I think that's a good thing. Birds, insects have no access to the stuff I hide here behind big screens. In Steffi's House, I want to blur the lines between the outside world and the one where I eat breakfast. If I put up the portable gate on the entrance to the front porch, Millie can join me there for breakfast, though her space will be smaller and her movement in and out of the house restricted. There is no such thing as a perfect solution to living among plants and with an animal and here's another issue -- living in a world of bugs.

One reason why the farmette is so nostalgically beautiful for me right now is that we are in the one brief period of few annoying bugs. We do have a high tick count this year, but I've not encountered many and in any case, they do not immediately detract from the pleasures of being outside. In mid June, that all changes. The dense farmette foliage, the flowers, the nearby wetlands make the place a haven for mosquitoes and they are insufferable!  The farmhouse porch was a lifesaver for me: I could be outside yet without the presence of that menace. Will mosquitoes be less dense at Steffi's House? I hope so. I'm not about to add a screened porch to the place! The new development abuts the same wetlands and yet I've noticed in past years that there are far fewer bugs here on a summer day.

 

What do Millie and I do on this afternoon? After her very long morning nap, I take her on an adventure. The sun is out, the day is getting to be quite warm. I'm thinking of taking her to the park Ed and I hike so frequently. 

Millie and I dont take very many long walks, in part because she doesn't require long walks and especially not on days where she has hours of play at doggie daycare or a half hour run at the dog park. And still, I want her to enjoy a wider range of experiences. She has never walked along a forested path!  New scents, new sights, new sounds -- all there to experience and love. Yes, I know she likes the tried and true, she thrives in set routines, she shakes at the thought of going somewhere, anywhere by car. And yet I think she is made stronger by adventures that challenge her somewhat. So I pack her in the bike  and we are off  (it's only a 20 minute ride to the park).

I should have known that she would not be okay with this! I haven't taken her in her bike seat for many weeks and whatever recollection she would have had of this would not have been favorable anyway. Several times along the more windy stretches, she attempts to climb out. It's not terribly difficult to rein her in, to reassure her with a constant hand rub, but still, I can't say that she has one iota of fun on the ride.

In the park, we meet up with Ed (who has been out giving blood or he would have biked with us). Millie is quite happy to be on the ground again.

 

 

 

But at the same time, she is cautious. Tentative. The forest feels strange to her. Too many sounds that she does not understand.

 

 

Me, I'm dazzled by it. It's my favorite time in the woods -- the greens are youthful, without a trace of summer exhaustion. Ed points out the invasive buck thorn everywhere and of course this is the season for the horrible (albeit so pretty!) Dame's Rocket, but still, how can you not appreciate all that the forest has to offer us? Right Millie?

(she rests, taking it all in...) 

 

When we come out into the prairie, she pulls toward the parking lot. She's not usually a leash puller, but this time, she knows home is that-a-way. There's only so much stimulation a young pup wants in an afternoon.

And the bike ride home? So much calmer for her, now that she knows that at the end of it, we wont be swallowed by monsters and dragons or some angry dogs.

 

 

In the afternoon I did some plant work -- both with the outdoor stuff (I cannot wait to put it into the ground next weekend -- the pots are small and the plants are fragile) and indoor stuff (I made lists of plants by height). I'll say no more. Well, only that it was such taxing work that I rewarded myself with the center of a cinnamon roll, just before dinner. Millie looked on, appalled.

My dearest pup, doggies who live in glass houses! You, my girl, will pick up anything outside to munch on. Anything, any time. And inside? You balk at treats. With a firm no to those handed to you. You prefer them placed on the floor by your feet, so that you can examine them minutely before you try a nibble. Water bores you. Canned food? Only sometimes and if freshly opened. Talk about original eating behaviors! Yours, not mine!

And still, Millie is growing. She weighed in at 14 pounds today. When she first came to live with me seven weeks ago, she was a mere 9.  How she has changed in this very short time! But not in her enthusiasm for people, for other dogs, for kisses and belly rubs. For her her walks, her toys, for life itself.

with so much love... 

overambitious?

Isn't it obvious that in spring you grow, expand, imagine something better, and in fall and winter, you contract and recede and resist change? I made the decision to move to Steffi's House (maybe permanently) back in the fall. Sure, I had to wait until the current resident moved out, but otherwise I was set. Determined. I booked movers then! But I did nothing else to prepare for it. I mean, why do anything at all in the winter for a move that'll take place at the beginning of summer.

Along comes spring. I'd pass by Steffi's House, and the tiny plot of land looked so... not like something I would like to care for. I added a fence for a dog run. Fine, that ate up one fourth of the land. A playground for a pup. And the rest? Just grass and some incredibly boring bushes out front? No, I cannot let that be.

Being of limited means, I could not launch any big scale transformation. Landscape people are notoriously pricey. Besides, I don't want landscaping types. I just want good land where I can plant stuff myself.

I compromised and hired someone to rip up most of the garbage out front, replant a couple of the items that weren't garbage in some spaces out back, pick up the stupid fabric that's there, oh, and the painted chips (ugh), and throw down some decent soil. All this on the elevated space over boulders that currently is pathetic and would look much improved with flowers. I let her pick plantings for half of it, and I gave myself the lovely job of planting the other half. And still, it gnawed at me -- why keep that strip of lawn at the base of these two soon to be created flower beds? Can't I put flowers there as well? By myself? My daughter had hired some college kids to dig holes and plant trees. I could ask them to remove some sod, no? When I told my landscape person my plan, she offered to do the job for me at almost college kid rates. This morning, we met up at Steffi's yard so that I could explain to her what I had in mind. (It's simple: rip out the entire front lawn and put some dirt there instead for planting.)

I already mentioned here, on Ocean, that I purchased some plants for my evolving project, but the truth is, I also want to move some stuff over from the farmette. Many of the lilies, for example, suffer from overgrowth. They should have been divided a long time ago. (When they get too dense, the number of blooms goes down. Same with daffodils, but I'm not going to touch those.) And so the plan for today is to go to the farmette, weed some, cut a few more irises, and maybe dig up another lily. 

After breakfast, of course. I do believe this is the last of the cold mornings. No, really: this time I am almost positive!

Millie plays. She did not build that tower of Towers. She's not that handy. 

...And then she naps in her crate while I meet up with my landscaper to talk dirt, and after -- I go to work in the farmette flower fields. But by lunch time, I am with my sweet girl again. We have a date with Ed at Tati's!

 

 

 

Back at Sallly's House I do some gardening! Well, of the kind where you move plant pots around, spill some dirt all over the steps to the porch, check on the moisture of the soil around all the flowers that are just waiting to go into their permanent homes. Many plants makes for a complicated routine. 

I'm sure some of you may be thinking that this whole idea of reducing my farmette work load was just nonsense.  What exactly have I reduced? I still do some work there, especially when Millie is not with me. I cannot ignore all those flowers that I planted over the years. Not entirely anyway. And I have added another project at Steffi's House. Have I jumped into something that is overambitious?

No I have not. I don't feel compelled to maintain all eleven farmette flower fields. I haven't bothered at all with the road facing one, or the one by the sheep shed, or the one to the west of the porch. All three have frustrated me in the past because I could never get a handle on them. The weeds always won by the beginning of August. This year, I'm trying to shrug more and work less. But oh, when I see how well the clematis is doing, how many buds there are on the dozen peonies scattered everywhere, oh, it just tugs at my heart... 

 

 

... and I gently pick up the vines of the clematis, and pull out some of the creeping charlie, and tell myself that the bare minimum can't be too big of a job, can it?

Tomorrow I'll take a break from garden talk. And garden work. I feel like dirt is spilling out of every corner of my car, the porch, my computer even, as I look at plants, think plants, and, as you can see -- write about plants. Occasionally, you have to take a pause. Tomorrow, I'll take a pause.

with so much love... 

never mind

Forget the prognosis of a heat wave. Not happening. Not this week, anyway. It's nippier today than it was yesterday and the sun has retreated, perhaps embarrassed by its repeated absence this May. On the upside, Millie slept in this morning, for once not feeling overly warm in her crate upstairs. Up at 6:45! Lovely.

This morning, I didn't even open the porch door broadly. Just a crack to refresh the air inside. During the one minute of sunshine. Millie barked, possibly because she would have liked taking her usual prowl in between the plants. Or maybe because she found the presence of a tomato plant so close to the house offensive. (There to ward of the night chill.)

Breakfast inside. Note the two vases with farmette irises. A plant person will recognize that the one on the left is a bearded iris and the one on the right is a siberian iris. I have to say, I am enjoying bringing some of these guys indoors. Ed doesn't mind (or notice) and I feel the warmth of farmette blooms here, at Sally's House.

What next? Well, every day has in it some form of preparation for my three big events that will take place between May 30th and July 3rd. Never mind such small potatoes as two kids birthdays, end of their school year, help with weeding at the farmette, never mind even smaller potatoes, like keeping track of Millie's food supply and texting with the fence installers at Steffi's House. Those go by the wayside (well, not the kid birthdays -- but I've prepped for those already), because my focus is so much on the big three items. In chronological order -- the planting of the new flower bed at Steffi's House (weekend of May 30th), the family trip (it's a two weeker and it has many many moving parts to it), and finally the move to what I hope may be my permanent home (that's set for the first two or three days of July). 

Each one of these is a huge project, and I mean HUGE!  I still have to imagine the placement of 60 plants (how many times can I use the Scarlett O'Hara line?). Tomorrow, I'm going to review the border of the new beds. But that's trivial. The issue of what goes where is not for the faint at heart. 

And the trip? That's even a bigger event and planning for it began for me in December. Wait, that's wrong -- it started last August when I made the first bookings. Eleven of us are going together and I'm in charge. Of everything. Yes, I have some help from my younger daughter, but ultimately the buck stops here, at my front door. It takes me back to the days when I planned travel for a group of randomly selected people, having set up the website (long since shut down) Field to Table, back in 2001. That was tense. I did two trips -- one with people known to me (to Alsace and Paris) and one with strangers (to Provence and Paris). You may be surprised to learn that the one with strangers was easier, because I knew nothing of their personalities and inclinations prior to our travels. Had I any idea, I would have been terrified. The people who signed up for it had nothing in common. I still don't know how I pulled it off! Organizer, driver, guide -- I did it all. In the hilly terrain of Provence, France. I'll not easily forget our second day in Avignon when I went to pick up the van I was to use for shuttling everyone all over the region. I realized it would fit the passengers, but there was no room for all their suitcases. Lucky me -- the rental company agreed to remove one of the seats in the back of the van, if I found a place to store it for a week. Yep, I found a place to store it for a week.

This June trip will have 11 people traveling together, with additional bodies thrown in at various points. One meal, for example, will have 32 people at the table. Another? just 7. Yet another? 15. And the rest? Mostly 11. 

Older and wiser, I relegated what little driving there is to transport companies that supply a van and a driver. But the rest? I'm still working through the details, made harder because I know what these people like, and I know the weaknesses (and the strengths of course) of each traveler. There is some overlap and some divergence. And still, I want everyone to love it all, and I want there to be adventures, and I want those two to be not mutually exclusive. 

But please think about the complexities involved! Because I surely think about them now as we get nearer to the date of departure.

Then comes the third item: the move. Uff! On the one hand, isn't it the same stuff that got moved to Sally's House in February? Well no, it isn't. For one thing, I have all those porch plants, an extra couch, a bench for the garden. And I have Millie who is way more fragile than stoic Henry ever was. I do have Ed to help with some of the transport, and I have movers to help with much of the stuff, but coordination is key here, especially since the person moving OUT of Steffi's House is an enigma: no one has seen hide nor hair of him and he has been unresponsive to texts and messages from those who manage the rental of the premises. I would not be surprised if I moved into a building that had a meth lab in the basement. I mean, who knows what's going on there -- all the shades have been pulled down for two years now and the neighbors report no movement in or out.

So, when I write here that I had a quiet morning after breakfast here at Sally's House, I don't really mean quiet. I mean, my head spins in all directions, and lists are made, and plans are drawn and then changed and then adjusted once more. 

(Millie, in her more independent moment, found a way to watch the action outside...) 

 

 

Eventually, I give Millie her daily brushing -- a ritual that I love and she does not mind...

 

 

... then pack her up and drop her at doggie day care. From there, coffee, and off I go to do the round of kid pickups. 

It's market day locally and we make a stop there first. Ed is there, waiting. You can tell it's cold -- Ed's wearing his one an only jacket and Snowdrop asks to borrow my fleece.

Sparrow is pretty cold, but he wont admit it. I had told him to take his jacket. 

("no Millie, you cannot have even a crumb of my brownie...")

("no Millie, you cannot have any of my cookie...")

From there, to Sally's House. 

 

 

A quick exhale and a short reading session and then they go home and I'm left with just Millie. 

My evening is now always my quiet time. I write, edit photos, watch a show, and push bedtime to indecently late hours, because I treasure these hours so much. Millie usually falls asleep around 9. I no longer have to watch out for naughtiness then. (I watched a documentary on dogs yesterday and learned that apparently something like 70% of dogs have ADHD, compared to 15% of American people; Millie is just a puppy, but it would not shock me to learn that she has some of that jitter in her.) I lose myself then in some detail of a project, or in my reading, or in a text exchange. The pace of life will accelerate at the end of the month. And it will not slow down, not even for a minute, until the 4th of July. But tonight, all is quiet.

with so much love... 

it was like this

A chilly morning, as expected. But a blue sky changes our feelings about everything. It doesn't seem cold if there's sunshine on the porch. Come on Millie, let's listen to the birds in the lilac tree! (Over breakfast.)

I almost don't believe it, but Millie is actually settling into a walking schedule. Two days without accidents! (Update: make that one day without accidents!) And the new fresh food from Farmer's Dog disappears from her bowl every time. My fussy eater loves her new meal plan. So far, the age of six months seems to have been a turning point.

(time to brush you, little one...)

 

Wednesdays are typically chore days for me. I do not have kid duty, so my time is mostly unscheduled. Today, I crate Millie and head out to the farmette. I have three goals: to weed some of the flower beds, to dig up some day lilies that have been hidden from view by unruly, spreading neighbors, and to help Ed repot the gigantic orchids that I have handed over to him because they're so big that they do not fit into a normal residence. (We keep them outside in the summer and in the sheep shed, where they bloom profusely all winter long.)

As I work on the weeding and digging, I get that feeling of enormous pleasure, knowing that the flower fields will benefit from my efforts. It's vigorous work and I haven't done much of that this spring. And I am surrounded by nature. Suburban gardens are lovely and I'm looking forward to planting the yard at Steffi's House, but working in them doesn't feel the same as working at the farmette, where you are not fully in control -- the land, the seeds, the saplings, the roots and weeds are all powerful players, and their word must be reckoned with. My friend in Australia used to tell me -- don't try to tame the landscape. That's not the point. She was right of course. In the new development, on the other hand, things are mightily tamed. Us humans have bulldozed, dug in it, transformed the place into something suited for our needs. Whatever I do in a garden there will be a small trifle. Nature has already lost the battle to the humanization of the land.

So again I feels rather sad to turn my back now on the farmette fields. But am I really turning my back? I tell Ed I will return later in the week to weed some more.

With Millie still in her crate, I can head out to my next item on the list: a haircut. It's a fun one today. Lyndsy, my very long time hair trimmer, has just gotten a puppy of a doodle variety and we are full of dog stories as we relay months of dog and puppy issues. It's great to talk about dogs with a person equally immersed in the process of rearing a puppy. I am not actually a chatty customer in settings like these -- it's an enormous effort for me not to groan when I'm asked -- "Got any plans for the rest of the day?"  I do not want to be rude, but nor do I like to be engaged in what has to be the most superficial form of discourse. But with Lyndsy, time flies. And when she shows her doodle pics and I show her mine, I feel a kinship that is born of being with a person who understands strong attachments to these animals.

(At home, with Millie)

Eventually I take Millie to the small dog park. It's a brilliant day for it. The slight chill gives a zest to the air that's lost on us on hot summer days. A perfect moment to take in the beauty of the plant life all around us.

 

 

 

Millie has learned to stay close to me, liking to trot by my side or run to me after sniffing out an enticing something or other, even more than playing with the other dogs.

And we stop over at the farmette after our park visit. It's on the way!

 

 

("Mildred, do you see that animal coming up the walk? We better hide!" "You're darn right, Martha. Can't trust those furry beasts!")

 

 

I had forgotten to drop off some stuff of Ed's and, too, I had some printing to do. Millie rests.

 My evening is one of returns: a tree I purchased on line? Sick. Another plant? Half dead. A pair of pants for travel? Too thick. A barefoot rose for the garden? Never sprouted. This is where working with reliable vendors helps. It's horrible to save up for something and then to have it be a dud. So I call, I write, I print labels. In the meantime, Millie cavorts from one room to the next, feeling more confident now in her explorations. She is still quite the velcro pup. I haven't used the bathroom once since she came without her lying down besides me there. But she also tests stepping into spaces without me. So long as she knows I am on the couch, she feels free to poke around. My girl is growing up!

Tomorrow, the warm up begins. Slowly at first, and then boom! We will be in the thick of summer weather.

with so much love... 

half a year

Surely this is a "careful what you wish for" type of spring. I'll be bringing in the tomatoes the next two nights. Too chilly for them out on the porch. If left alone, they may develop a stunted growth. But after that? Summer, full blast. Hot days, coming up. Hot nights too. I'll be turning on the dreaded AC, that's how hot it will be. So maybe I should revel in the cool morning! And the quiet outside! No dirt moving today! A lovely breakfast on the porch.

And Millie learns a lesson: eat the dirt in the tomato pot and you will throw up! Perhaps she'll stop now, right, pup?

I give some thought to the garden I will be planting in about ten days. I like, but do not choose to replicate the typical herbaceous border. I prefer the English cottage look. So, no orderly plants in clusters, spaced, artistically presented to recognize each species. And not even the French Giverny style of grouping flowers by their color. I love, instead, a blend of flowers. This, unfortunately, is hard to do well and I've made all the mistakes possible in my previous borders. (I've worked on this in three different properties over the decades, each one bigger than the previous, each one more complex. This will be my fourth.)

To my credit, I never had a strip of land, with good soil, plenty of sunshine and an unchanging size to work with. (I will have that now.) And over time, I really pushed day lilies, as any reader of Ocean would well remember. (I still love them, but I no longer want them to dominate.)

What's the biggest challenge? Combining plants very well. I purchased (and additionally will move from the farmette) some 60 plants of varying heights and blooming times. They need to fit in beautifully together. I suppose the skilled gardener would first draw a flower map and then buy according to its dictates. I did it in the opposite way: I purchased the flowers first (for reasons explained earlier) and now I have to think about how to place them. For this, I looked up each of the 60 plants, wrote down their height, color and period of flowering.  This basically took up the whole morning. 

I'm not sure yet how to place them. It's hard to imagine 60 flowers all at once. Some rules are obvious: tall in the back, short toward the front. But most are in the middle range and they all have to be in harmony with their neighbors! 

As Miss Scarlett famously said -- I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.  

When I'm done scribbling notes, it's time to take Millie to doggie day care for her three hour romp with other pups. This is when I go to a nearby coffee shop to read and rest before kid pickup.

 

I think about gardens. I think about Millie. I think about the numerous texts I got from a grandchild this morning worried about something very trivial. What do they have in common? They all need a thoughtful response. Maybe these days I can pause and do things with greater care. 

This is the beautiful thing about being older: there is more time to think through all your options. They are more limited now of course, but perhaps that's not a bad thing. I can look more closely at what's before me. At breakfast this morning, I saw that the house finch came back to the nest in my lilac tree. The partner finch was perched on the roof top. The squeals come from up there. Is the bird is looking out for enemies? Birds, kids, dogs. Flowers, nature. I'm reading a book now ("Raising Hare") that I put off until I was done with my Irish run of Maeve Binchy. The hare book is about a woman who, during the Covid years, rescues a day-old abandoned leveret. I'll admit this: until this week, I did not understand that a hare and a rabbit are two entirely different species of animal. I had made up a song for the grandkids when they were little about a bunny rabbit hopping. I still sing it to Millie. I may have changed the lyrics around a bit had I thought about the animal that figured so prominently in my silly composition. 

I lived the first years of my life in the deeply rural part of Poland. With my grandmother who took care of the inside, and my grandfather who took care of the outside world. When I began to seriously plant flowers 30 years later it was because I had a pull toward working in nature born of those early years. But I didn't think about it much. And now that I understand its importance, I want to be deliberate about it. Birds, kids, dogs, flowers. I have a chance to study, to work with all of them.

 

Kid pickup: I bring Sparrow home. I bring Snowdrop. 

Millie and I are home now. I recognize the signs of growth in my pup. She's bigger, not a mere fluff ball, more graceful. And I am starting to understand her eyes now. What she is signaling through them. What she needs from me now. 

A milestone has passed: Millie is six months old today.

with so much love... 

shifting Monday

Adjustments had to be made. The weather is bringing us an erratic week of rains, heat, chilly nights, with the possibility of strong storms. When I wake up just after six, I see that there is a big rain shower coming straight at us. Best to walk Millie soon, before we have another downpour. Up early? The girl is more than happy to oblige.

 

 

 

We eat breakfast on the porch. Warm enough.

And now I have to think through the day: at 8:30 the landlord is doing some kind of an inspection of Sally's House. It's best to get Millie out for that. We go to the farmette.

(It's the month of Allium)

I notice that Millie is positively shaking when I take her for a "car ride." She is no longer getting motion sickness, but she does seem to have a fear of the unknown. I can reassure her, and label destinations, and still she shakes.

Once at the farmette, she's happy again.

I had planned on separating some daylilies and hauling away a few, to be planted in a couple of weeks at Steffi's House. But this plan is just not working for me today. The grasses are wet. Everything is wet. When I loop Millie's leash around a post, she does sit down patiently to wait, but in so doing, she, too gets wet. And she nibbles on the surrounding plant life. That's not good! It may well be toxic. 

Basically my babe is a distraction. I can't focus and make decisions, and dig out plants with her there. 

We go inside and she relaxes on the couch as I chat with Ed. We decide to postpone the digging until Wednesday. Maybe I'll crate her, maybe I'll take her to day care. Today is just not a good day for it.

After a while we leave and I drive over with her to K&A Greenhouses. To look at their perennials. Maybe to pick some out. Millie is welcome here!

It feels very strange picking flowers for a brand new flower bed. For years, I've just added stuff in corners or expansions. Over the decades (I've been doing this since I was about 30), I have worked my way through many hundreds of perennials sold around town or sometimes in distant nurseries. I've watched some fail over the winter, despite my appropriate zone, some spread where I did not want them to spread, some topple without stakes or cages, some die off with bug infestations, some turn a ghostly white with powdery mildew. I know which ones finish their blooming season quickly, and which ones get smothered by their neighbors. Decades of growing perennials have left me a bit hardened. I want to avoid trouble. And so I pick carefully. Garden design will come later. Right now I just want plants that will thrive in our growing season and give repeat blooms for a good many weeks. I want strong color and textural variety. This isn't a time for impulsive cart loading. And because K&A's selection is a fraction of what the Flower Factory (where I shopped most often until they closed down a couple of years ago) offered, I walk away with very little.

I bring it all home -- the perennials, cut flowers from the farmette...

(iris, false indigo, and a peony bud)

And I give Millie time to recover! 

 

 

 

And then, just after noon, I take her to doggie daycare. Now we are in our standard Monday pattern: kids, Millie, Sally's House. 

In the meantime, the construction company that's putting up houses across the street from Sally's House has chosen to dump soil and rocks on the lot right next to me. The noise is horrible. The dirt covers everything on the porch. Time to write those letters of complaint! Blissfully, at 7, the dirt dumping stops. The noise stops. I open the door and look sadly at the nest a finch family built in the lilac tree I placed temporarily just outside the porch. The birds gave up on it with the arrival of the construction monsters. Such a shame. It was grand to listen to them early in the morning. Even Millie quieted then, dozing next to me to the sound of chirps, flutters, squeals. But of course, who can blame the birds for moving on. It's no place for a mama, looking for a restful home for the little ones.

Tomorrow? Who knows. The weather, like our political climate, is shifting frequently in directions that make no sense and give little ground for optimism. Though at least with the weather, we know that splendid late spring days are just around the corner. Short term troubles. Unlike in our nation's capital. 

with so much love...