A normal spring and the return of the snowbirds

Last spring, the entire summer and early fall, we were in drought that was truly frightening. We were afraid we would lose our well. I did lose rosebushes and some perennials. This spring, we’ve had enough rain. I don’t think we’re completely out of drought, but we’re certainly labeled as light drought now. Doane’s Run has overflowed its banks for the first time in at least two years. The ponds look higher than they’ve been for a good while. The spring peepers have no trouble finding vernal pools for their loud orgies. Every day the seedlings in the garden grow higher. it’s almost time to start thinning the spinach. Woody is working on a new raised bed for me, a narrow one in the kitchen garden right outside the front door. Since I can’t kneel, it had gotten very scraggly. Yesterday morning, Woody dug out all the plants in it. We discarded the weeds. I put them all in plastic tubs and watered them while he finished the bed. Just about everything that closed to the winter – some restaurants, motels, inns, some stores – have reopened. It’s a good time to eat out since nothing is crowded yet. The snowbirds have returned from their hot and sunny escapes – Mexico, Florida, Caribbean islands, Puerto Rico – and are back here, having of course missed not only the snow but town meeting and many town controversies. The election for selectman or woman is this coming week. Woody has to go to town meeting because he’s on the financial committee – the Fin Com—as are two of our friends. He has always asked me, since many years ago when he became a selectman, not to go. This week it was excruciating and ran three days until after ten every night. Tonight is a party at Martha’s. She asked me to make an hors d’oeuvre. Since I’ll be working all day on the raised bed and also on the questions sent me for a PEN podcast, I’m just thawing shrimp and making a cocktail sauce. That’s the least time-consuming hors d’oeuvre I can think of. The participants in my 2017 juried intensive poetry workshop in June have all but one sent in their 15 poem mss. for conferences and their checks.   As soon as I get back from the PEN international conference in New York at the New School, I’ll start reading and annotating their mss. I also have to go over every day’s lecture, examples and assignments. May is also the month we put in the tender garden: paste,cherry and maindrop tomatoes, bell, frying and hot peppers, two kinds of eggplants, three kinds of cucumbers, many pole beans from seed, two kinds of pumpkin plants and then winter squash seeds. Also many marigolds I started, zinnias, cosmos. A hundred things to do in the garden, a hundred things to do for the coming workshop, and so forth.