Monday

On a top ten list of things I love about retirement I would include this: working outside in good weather. If you are a person who absolutely must plant things in spring, you look forward to days like this one --sunny and warm, breezy and mild -- so that you can do a lion's share of your work in your garden or wherever it is that you're planting stuff. It's a real let down when such perfect weather comes on days you have to spend in an office, at your desk, on in front of a class bitten by spring fever. You just want to be out planting. But then comes retirement! You are not constrained by anything except your stiff joints and your own schedule -- one that presumably has some flexibility so that indeed, on perfect days you can be out there, not in here. Out in that breeze, that sunshine, out getting your hands dirty, out adding all that you feel must be added to your planting space.

It's a ridiculously warm day. A high of 81F (so 27C). And it's going to get even warmer. The flowers love it! Want to visit some with me?

(The west field now filled with daffodils.)

(The shade garden always looks best in spring, when it is hit by dappled sunlight through tree branches that are not yet fully canopied.)

(Happy seems.... happy!)

(We do a lot to encourage bees here, but daffodils don't typically attract many pollinators...)

Breakfast -- of course on the porch! Of course!

And then I put aside my camera and take out my shovel and I help Ed with the tomatoes, but mainly I plant the great bulk of the seeds: in the new orchard (where the plum and the cherry are blooming!)...

... and in the various spaces we have tried to clear in the new peach orchard east of the barn. 

And I weed. The whole roadside bed. Phew -- that one's a toughie!

A whole day of outdoor work.

It's work that makes you tired in the best of ways. And because I'm retired, I can take an afternoon pause on the porch and look out and feel the deep contentment that comes when everything begins to fall into place for you.