We have occasional days of milder weather, but winter has really set in.  It is very cold.  It’s also a grey winter most of the time, which we’re not used to here.  Normally we get a lot of sun in every season.  We have at the moment an inch of snow on the ground.  I am pretty much done with my seed ordering. Still waiting for one order to arrive.  The rest are sorted.  I’m doing our plant and summer bulb ordering now, but more slowly and on my own.  Woody isn’t interested in those orders.  I am picking out perennials and bulbs [like allium] that pollinators like. I want to bring as many bees of all kinds and butterflies and hummingbirds to the pollinator gardens that run now right along the east fence of the main garden and just across the path from my garden.

 The cats and I are getting used to the loss of Mingus. Woody is less affected as I was closer to Mingus and spent more time with him during the day and at night. But we’re all adjusting in our own ways.  Missing, but adjusting.  Willow who was grief-struck the first few days has returned to almost normal but is suddenly very clingy. Schwartzie looks for Mingus at night and in the morning. 

I have been very busy this week with some help from Woody getting the private Facebook group for my annual June juried intensive poetry workshop organized and getting the chosen poets into it, since that’s how we answer queries, give information on lodging and travel and the workshop itself, and the poets can post work if they wish.  Now we’re in the process of getting two new poets into the group.  Two poets have already dropped out.  One wouldn’t go on FB, which means it wouldn’t work.  The other has a sister diagnosed with breast cancer and wants to take care of her.  I had two alternates and put them in.  I did write two poems this week, rather short ones, and revised them both twice already. 

One task we had been putting off for almost two years: we went through the refrigerator freezer. We know pretty much what’s in the stand-alone freezer but the refrigerator freezer was a mess and I couldn’t find anything. We threw out unidentifiable meats, ancient pizza slices, frozen herbs and aged frozen yogurt and ice cream that had gone bad. I have a lot of frozen dill, cilantro, hot peppers and little bags of cilantro and dill.  The recent ones I kept, of course. But we filled the compost pail with the discards.

I’m reading Terry Bisson’s novels and short stories, since the two of us are in a section together just au two, of the weekend City Lights panels.  I had only read FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN.  So, I needed to read more. 

Friday night we had friends over, dinner for seven.  We had pigs-in-blankets, brie, and roquefort for appetizers; I roasted a leg of lamb—sesame lamb—and it was perfect.  I also made bulghur wheat casserole and roast asparagus with olive oil, mashed garlic and parmesan cheese.  Everything was delicious.  We had good bread from the boullangerie.  Dale made a fine lemon Bundt cake for dessert.

It was a lively evening.  Today we’re both rather tired, looking forward to mostly leftovers except for a new veggie and to the first two playoff games.  I’m rooting for the 49ers. I know San Francisco is completely changed from my time there when it was full of artists, jazz musicians, poets and other writers and everything was cheap.  But I have a sentimental attachment and I’m not fond of Rodgers.