We had one final little blast of winter last Wednesday and it was great.
By midday the snow was almost gone and I’m sad to think that might be it for another eight months. I live in the wrong place.
The yard was filled with birds all whooping it up and I watched a Blue Jay repeatedly dive face-first into the snow and wriggle and flap around in it, like Glen does on the couch when he’s hyped up.
These birds were more dignified:
Gardening activities are ramping up with every passing day. I sowed more peas, lettuce, chard, basil, tomatoes, calendula and strawflowers. I cut back raspberry canes, pulled weeds and started clearing away last year’s dead stalks. The bulbs are making progress, with tulip and daffodil leaves poking through and crocuses getting started:
Foster and I did our usual round of errands (farm market, Little Free Libraries, regular library, mail collection) and he scored two first edition Stephen King hardcovers from the early 90s. It isn’t every young man who’s willing to hang out with his mother when he could be doing something more exciting and I’m always grateful for his company.
MLB season started on Thursday and I’m ready for another few months of frustration and disappointment. Thanks to all the extra tv time, I finished the baby blanket for the gift stash and am three-quarters of the way through a toque, also destined to be packed away until someone needs a hat. My goal is to create a cache of items so that if I drop dead tomorrow, my survivors won’t have to worry about their source of knitted accessories for a long time. I have no fortune to leave, sadly, but I do have lots and lots of wool.
Aside from baseball, I watched a very good three-part series called Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator on PBS. The parallels to another orange-hued dictator-in-the-making were depressing. Will his peers stand up to him the way the Roman senators did? Doesn’t seem likely.
I’ve been reading Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood, Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz, Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen and The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell.