Today we are celebrating my birthday and those of my friends Stephen, Paul and Dan. The party for everyone is at Paul and Dan’s house. We are having light snow, but I don’t think it will stay. This has been a week of wonderful melting. Last night two friends, Sally and Louise, took us out to supper at the French restaurant to celebrate my birthday. It’s not really till Tuesday, but that’s not a convenient day to take off or go out. Woody has his program and I have to work. Woody and I will have our private celebration on Sunday, tomorrow. The crocuses continue to give me pleasure whenever I look at them. Male goldfinches are changing into their bright mating plumage. I heard geese honking as they scull through the night overhead, heading north. We have more and more patches of bare ground in contrast to heaps of snow where it has been thrown. One of the gardens is completely bare. We’ve been working on the main garden. Woody breaks up the ice and either throws it and the snow underneath it over the fence or spreads it out and I go at it with the hose. One day it was warm enough to work outside without even a sweater. Most days, a sweater or a peajacket is sufficient. I started maincrop tomatoes on Wednesday, 10 kinds, mostly heirlooms like Black Krim and Brandywine and Caspian Pink but also some new hybrids like Berkeley Pink. They are all downstairs now on heat. When they pop, they’ll go into the bay windows in the livingroom to join the eggplants and peppers, and the paste tomatoes I started last week will go out to the greenhouse. I worked in the greenhouse Tuesday and thinned the seedlings. Bok choi and salad bowl lettuce and Italian parsley were big enough to add into our salad that night. Everything in the greenhouse looks good, but I have to keep a sharp eye on it when it’s sunny as all the tiny seedlings could easily cook. Thursday I made a new dish for me, a Greek chicken with dried and a pint of tomatoes, spices, orzo and Parmesan cheese. It’s a recipe from the island of Chios and delicious. We had the leftovers for lunch yesterday after working in the cold to further clear the main garden. Having sent off the Hannah Senesh essay, I was able to get back to poetry and have written four poems this week. That felt very good. Melenie printed out my hagaddah after I finally stopped fiddling with it, but since then I’ve written one poem I wish I had included. I might read it anyhow at the seder. I’ll think about it. Puck is showing his age, although he is feeling better this week than last. Going to the vet for dental work seemed hard on him. He finds mice but doesn’t have the stamina any longer to pursue them for hours from one hiding place to another. So Xena, our youngest, biggest and only remaining female cat is teaching her little boyfriend Mingus to hunt. She was very patiently showing him the night before last. He was very excited and seemed to be trying hard to learn what to do. Last week Xena had a jumping mouse which took them three days to kill. We live in the woods, so mice would be a constant problem without the cats’ hunting skills. Years ago when both cats I had were elderly, the mice took over and dropped turds in the cereal and crackers and kasha. We were constantly having to throw food out.I’m grateful to our cats for their skills.