It’s been full spring this week, mild and sunny until yesterday when we finally got the rain we needed. Many daffodils are open along with intense dark blue hyacinths, bright blue scilla, white snowdrops, yellow and purple crocuses, gold witch hazel bush, the first red tulip, blue anemones. I washed the window screens on Wednesday and we put them up. I planted garden cress and then florist anemones I was given [strange irregular shaped bulbs with many stubby arms] – the latter in pots in the greenhouse, not outside till May. Woody bought me dark blue pansies with faces --the kind I like-- and I put them in long containers on the front porch to greet us when we go in and out. It’s hard to make myself work inside, but I have to. For some reason, the new poetry book is getting more attention than any for a long time. We drove in Brookline Tuesday and I read from it at the Booksmith. We went in early enough to avoid rush hour traffic and ate dinner at Legal Seafoods. We love that place. Everything is always perfectly cooked. But it’s too expensive for us. However, Knopf didn’t have to pay for a hotel since we drove back after the reading, getting home about 10:30. So they agreed to pay for our meal. I have done three interviews this week alone. One with a literary magazine, two with newspapers and one for a radio program. I don’t like doing so many interviews but that’s like complaining about too much dessert. Any interviews for a poetry book are wonderful. Any attention is great, and I love this book. Spring came on so suddenly after such a long intense difficult winter that I was caught by surprise and suddenly had nothing suitable to wear. I have been switching clothes – woolens, cashmere sweaters [I can’t wear regular wool next to my skin, only cashmere, cotton or merino wool] warm coats, warm sox, heavy sweats, velvet tops and skirts—all into the hall closet or into old suitcases long since retired from traveling. I have been bringing out lighter clothes and jackets, cotton sox, lighter pants, etc. I do a certain amount of hauling each day. But I only want to be outside. I guess that’s what is called spring fever, but instead of lolling about, what I want to do is plant, thin, uncover, prune. I could do little in the garden the last two years but especially last year. My knees wouldn’t let me. My right knee still hurts occasionally during the day, but I can do so much more than I had been able to that I’m eager to get at it. I felt in exile from the out of doors – unable to walk in the woods or at the harbor or around town -- not to even to walk around my own land. I bop in and out of the greenhouse several times a day to do little chores, check the temperature, make sure the seedlings are not drying out. It’s a small greenhouse built from a kit, but I love being there. It makes working on the seedlings easy. When we had only a hot bed that became a cold frame in the ground, it was difficult to reach anything, so I tended to do far less thinning of the seedlings I’d started. They are much happier in the greenhouse and the chipmunks don’t go in there to bite the tops off. Spring totally energizes me as I suspect it does most people. Today is sunny and as soon as I finish writing this, you can guess where I’m headed – to clean up some perennial beds and weed them. See how the peonies are doing. If they all survived. It will be some time before I can tell if the rose bushes made it. But the peonies are coming up like little maroon pricks right now. the last hardy seedlings I started inside are the two parsleys, curly and flat Italian, and it’s past time for them to get into the ground. the very last seeds I start inside – zucchini and various basils – should germinate today or tomorrow and go out to the greenhouse Of course I plant zukes from side in the ground, but starting some inside gives us produce much earlier. A huge box of poems came from LILITH, where I’m the poetry editor, and I started on them last night. Don’t want to do it during the daylight hours.