All the peppers and the eggplants have germinated and are now in the living room bay window.  Although they have screening on top, it’s hard to keep Shaman out of them.  All the cole crops in the greenhouse are doing fine, as are the lettuce seeds and the curly parsley and cilantro. I started five kinds of paste tomatoes and calendula for the pollinator garden, Brussels sprouts and summer savory.  Then one six-pack of sungold cherry tomatoes to climb on the garden fence. The tomatoes and summer savory are on heat mats. We’re cutting back a bit. I’m only starting 5 six-packs of paste tomatoes instead of six.  And only seven types of maincrop tomatoes instead of ten. But Woody is building two new raised beds. He thinks they’ll make it easier to keep the critters away. We’ll see.

I’m still trying to find a copy of The Pillow Book in translation but without luck. People write me on FB that it’s here or there, but when I check out those sites, it’s no longer available.  Ever since I found out I’m writing my new book THE HOUR OF MY DEATH in a Japanese form called zuihitsu, I have been trying to find the original work that invented the genre.

Yesterday, I got into the garden at last. There’s so much to be done all at once.
I started clearing my pollinator garden, three narrow beds along the fence of the main garden and across the path from my herb garden.  I plant only those plants that are attractive to bees, butterflies or hummingbirds.  Most of what grows there are perennials, but I always put in some annuals, like calendula and zinnias. 

It feels wonderful to be back doing my own writing again.  I had a good appointment with my cardiologist and the pacemaker expert.  I don’t have to see either of them again [unless something goes wrong] before the fall.  Then I have to undergo an ultrasound of my heart and a full spectrum of tests.

It does feel, even though it’s early March, that we may be in early spring.  We might get a bit of snow this week, but it doesn’t sound like much is coming at us. Mostly wind which could, of course, cause a power outage. The wind has been busy this week, but it finally rested on Friday letting us into the garden.

Woody has been watching HBO series The Last of Us, but I haven’t.  I don’t have much interest in apocalyptic movies or series.  I feel like living through the heating up of our world is quite enough for me. I feel we’re living an apocalypse.  Everything seems to be breaking down.

Friday morning the cats demanded, all three of them, that I open the tunnel from the bedroom onto the sunporch so they could go out there, something that hasn’t happened since December.  I don’t know what got them excited, but all three promptly ran out into the cold. Willow didn’t stay long as she doesn’t have the bushy fur coats of the boys.  They stayed out much longer.