It is finally spring but a cool and often very windy one so far. The greenhouse is full of seedlings, but the soil has to warm up a little even to put the hardy crops like broccoli, bok choi and red cabbage out. When I say the greenhouse is full, I do mean it. We’ve resorted to putting little peat pots on the stools I usually sit on. I’d like to bring the few hosue plants out there, but there’s absolutely no room until we can plant some of the seedlings.I was pushing so hard on trying to finish my novel before I have to start on the mss. from my June juried intensive poetry workshop, that I got eyestrain from spending so many hours every day on the computer. I ahven’t been able to write sine Tuesday unitl today. I didn’t waste the time but tried to begin catching up on all the things I’ve been neglecting as I tried to finish what I hope is the last draft of THE HOUSE AT HOPES END.In addition to the novel, Ive’ been reading 2 books a week. I have to slow down. Not only ae my eyes on strike but my back got very sore sitting so long.We have at least a hundred daffodils and thirty pale blue anemones in bloom, as well as the miscalled Cornelian cherry, actually a yellow dogwood more bush than tree – but sizable. It had grown there where I panted it for decades not doing anything. Then it blooms furiously last year and now it’s doing it again. I had really forgotten it was there, part of the boundry that marks cultivated land from land left wild. But it has come into its own and there’s no ignoring it. From my office window as I sit at the computer as I am doing right now, it’s dead centr in my window although a distance off, past the stairs, past the main garden, part the wisteria that is tryng to conquer the word, pass a grassy area. There it is bright yellow as a school bus, not the neon of forsythia but a mellow gold.This is an unusually long time for me to go without writing, Tuesday through just now, except of course when I used to travel every two to three weeks to do gigs. I never got to write much on tours or gigs, just notes for a poem at best. The only exceptions were when I traveling with a ms. of mine going over it to revise and making notes.Much bird, squirrel and chipmonk activity. Why are they called chip-monks? Both Willow the cashmere kitty and Xena the Warrior Queen are both in a bit of pseudo heat.. Willow is incredibly seductive and rolls around the floor. She’s one of those unusual cats who likes to have her belly rubbed at any time. The boys are obsessed with her, especially Schwartzie. Xena, who is a very serious cat and wants to own me, has decided I must actually at times rub her belly. This is not a cat with whom one takes liberties, but I am the one she adores with her whole heart and being. I overslept on Thursday and she had fits. When I finally woke, she made an enormous fuss and kept telling me – and this is a cat who rarely meows – how scared she was.Bought a new mattress yesterday that should be delivered next Thursday. I hope it helps me sleep. Very firm. Tonight we go to a friend’s house, Martha’s, for supper with other friends. Two of them spend winters in Puerto Rico, where they inherited a condo years ago. The day they were to fly here, the entire island went black. They managed to get to the airport – no traffic lights of course—planes were delayed and there was no air conditioning and it was HOT. They travel with a dog which makes things even more complicated.