final run

Unless something untoward happens, I’ll be done grading by tomorrow. By noon, I say, by noon!

I’m giddy at the prospect. I worked today against all odds (from Ed: Nina, do you want to set up a Google calendar? – he has no shame...).

As usual, I needed to take my work from one spot to the next. You can never grade too many exams in a single setting. You want to keep each person’s answers compartmentalized, distinguished, clear in your head. When, like me, you have well over a hundred exams and papers to grade each semester, this is the ultimate challenge.

So my day is one of long periods of concentration and short breaks.

Of the type where I go out and note that things are topsy turvy out there, needing my attention... Sorry, not today, not today...

And later, in the afternoon, I trot out to our new orchard, to watch Ed plant more of our odd assortment of started-from-seed tomatoes. Isis is our buddy, our loyal companion.

You know why these tomatoes are doing so much better here than the ones in your vegetable bed?

Yes, there's no shade: they have twice the sun hours here.

And what else?

I know not to take this further. Ed has a scientific curiosity to him that is sometimes best left alone. So long as it causes no harm, I'll let him study the soils and deliberate on improvements without interference. 

We are, this spring, in a season of butterflies. Just like some years mosquitoes have ruled the summer months, so too, this spring, we have had more than our fair share of these beautiful bugs:

And so I watch them, admire them, smile at them...

And then I return for the final push, the final big work effort before tomorrow, noon, when, if all goes well, summer will officially begin for me.