Back Again

I missed two weeks of writing my weekly blog. I’ve just been very busy. I’ve entirely planted my vegetable garden, planted 90% of the herb bed, planted calla lilies in a longish pot, and done a lot of thinning of seedlings I started that are growing in the little greenhouse. Woody prefers that I do the thinning as he is not ruthless enough and tries to plant every single seedling, which doesn’t produce healthy plants since they will be too crowded. So, I thin and thin.

Next, I have to finish off the herb bed with two small rosemary plants that came through the winter in pots on window sills in the dining room. Then I have to turn to the three narrow pollinator beds, weed, see what survived the winter and where I might plant zinnias and cosmos that are getting impatient in the greenhouse. I also want to plant the three six-packs of marigolds I started – one tall, one medium height and one short. I’m hoping to get to at least half of that today. Tonight, the Preakness. I came down with something this week, a gut thing, so had to cancel a dinner party.

We’ve been getting regular salads from my garden: several kinds of lettuce, arugula, garden cress, red mustard, cos, salad bowl.  Then we started to harvest enough young spinach for wilted spinach salads. We’re also getting bok choi and looseleaf Chinese cabbage I use in stir fries. So, we’re finally done eating store bought salads and into the good fresh tasty greens. We’re at war with the rabbits. The other early evening when Woody went out to the greenhouse to shut the door for the night, there was a big happy rabbit inside. He wasn’t scared of Woody and didn’t want to leave. Woody had to literally kick him out.

I love when trees leaf out. It makes me happy.  Lilacs ae blooming and many wood scillas. Daffodils are finally done but we had them for at least 6 weeks so can’t complain.  We enjoyed the Derby with a couple of friends but have not been socializing much, between gardening, bringing out lighter clothes, and stowing  winter and transitional clothes.  I still haven’t brought out enough tee shirts . 

I’ve been writing poems through this stretch while my agent peddles my new book THE HOUR OF MY DEATH. Woody transplanted various zucchinis and also pattypan (skillet) squash, frying and bell peppers to his garden. He has to plant the other cucumbers I hadn’t room for in my garden.

I can’t believe how in previous years, we had to do all this and I still had to prep for my juried intensive poetry workshop, reading each 15-poem submission twice, making two or three pages of notes on each poet’s work for the conferences, going over each day’s work and making any additions or subtractions to the brief lectures and long handouts. I enjoyed the workshops very much, formed friendships with some poets and almost all got books accepted in the next two years. But it had become difficult – I  was down for two days after the last one. I felt I wasn’t’ carrying my share of the outdoor work and too much was falling on Woody.  I had to relinquish doing the workshops. I miss it but the time had come to stop. I still get applications to join it.

I caught a bug or ate something bad this week, don’t know what, but I had a bad two days with my gut in an uproar.