Summer in May

SUMMER IN MAY AND SATISFACTIONI’m not a lover of hot weather, but after all the rains, sun was welcome and needed. Just about everything in the gardens is growing fiercely. The main garden and my rosa garden are completely planted and now have the row covers off. Down below I’ve transplanted the two kinds of pumpkins and put in seeds for butternut and several other winter squashes in my 3 raised beds. Then it was up to Woody to plant pole beans in the other three, which he has now done.But it’s hot. And humid. We’re eating salads and spinach with regularity. I think I may have frozen too much spinach last year as we had a bumper crop and traveled so much we didn’t eat it fast enough. We’re getting fresh spinach while I still have several packages I froze last spring. I’ve planted my new raised flower bed except for a few perennials I mail ordered that haven’t come yet. I plant a lot of pots as I can handle them – I can’t kneel on my replaced knees. I’ve filled 9 pots so far with ornamentals. A few more to go. Two more planned for today. I have been planting a lot and weeding some. I want to get everything out of the greenhouse this week. It’s past time. I put out the dahlias and calla lilies I had started in pots and the begonias. it’s gorgeous right now with so much in bloom – white and purple lilacs, pink and white dogwood, dark crabapples, wood scilla, bleeding heart [I like oldfashioned bleeding hearts], fruit trees and violets, pansies, the first begonias. And now pink and red peonies. Xena likes to stick her face deep into them and occasionally take a nibble. Also after taking so long with the PEN panel speech and preparing for the juried intensive poetry workshop [I’ve read 5 mss. so far and put together four of the five days of lectures, examples, assignments], I’ve managed to get back into writing poems. That makes me glad. it doesn’t ever take a lot to make me happy and getting the gardens together and getting back to writing does it. I’m afraid I’ve neglected the cats terribly while being so busy, so I’m trying to make it up to them with lots of petting, playing, brushing, treats. They respond. My giant girl Xena is playing hard again. But Willow has fallen out a bit and needs special attention. Woody put the screen doors on and replaced most glass on the sunporch with screens. Four more to go but there’s no hurry since it’s SUPPOSED to cool down this weekend. I hope so. I wilt in this heat. The cats find the screens exciting with the windows wide open, especially the screens that have replaced the glass on the sunporch. That room sticks out into the woods so it’s particularly fascinating for them.Stimulation is good for indoor cats. Now, since I wrote above I’m halfway through the poetry mss. that I’m reading and annotating for my workshop June 12-16. I’ve been reading Neil Caiman, now into NEVERWHERE. Woody says he doesn't like fantasy but if it’s well written, I find it relaxing. The temperature did drop during the night and it’s seasonable and lovely today. More potting and hot peppers – cayennes – to transplant. I just put the scrawny purple basil plants into the raised herb bed. tThe lovage is flopping over onto the savory and sweet majoram I started in the greenhouse. Must tie it up to the fence before it kills the seedlings. Tonight mushroom soup with salad from the garden and a good bread.