a slower day

Two cool days offer a chance to catch up on indoor garden work. I'm always tempted to plunge and plant, but this year, my planting is limited -- maybe half a dozen new perennials and 15 new day lilies. Seeds in the meadows, annuals in the flower tubs. That's probably a fifth of what I usually put in, expanding beds, filling in gaps. This year though I'm realistic. I have only two, maximum three weeks to put stuff in and the beds are doing well enough to be left in their current state.  But this means that I have to think carefully about what goes where. So today I'm thinking. (I also have some two dozen lavender cuttings that we overwintered on a winter sill. They're looking good, so I will also be expanding the lavender bed pretty soon!)

When I do go out to feed the animals...

I keep my eyes out for that first daffodil bloom. I don't see it yet. So far I'm just dealing with crocuses. But even though you may think of it as a bare landscape, to me it is already bursting with growth. 

The frozen tundra-like farmette lands are a thing of the past.

Breakfast -- with tulips, because April and May are my tulip months! (Inside at this point. The outdoor ones, as every year, have been decimated by either the groundhog or squirrels. Some later ones will likely survive but the first buds are cut down to the ground. This is where one has to practice patience and understanding.)

This morning I scramble some cheeper eggs for Ed, who is being a good soul by trying to make a dent in our egg supply. I tell you, those Bresse girls lay like there's no tomorrow!

We then assess our tomato situation. The seeds we planted just before I left for Greece are a huge disappointment. The germination rate is just so much lower than what we usually have. I'm trying a new (for me) seed company and I am deeply regretting this experiment. 

Some of the tomato varieties are to be planted 5- 6 weeks before the last frost and so these should go in right about now. We get to it.

We'll see what happens going forward.

I then have to take a break and go out to the hospital to do the pre-op stuff for my knee replacement. It's a funny thing about that knee -- it was so out of whack a month ago, that I called my doc and asked if I couldn't maybe schedule the replacement for an earlier date. I could barely move! (No such date was available.) Then came Greece and I put that knee to a real test and honestly, it feels pretty okay now! I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole here -- today it's fine, tomorrow it will pop up  and tear my leg apart. So, I'm moving ahead as scheduled, if only because I know that when it acts up, I'm totally incapable of doing anything that requires a functional limb. 

And after the deliberations and discussions at the hospital, I pick up Snowdrop, who again is forging her own style in dress choices! I'm so glad that she has shed much of her reluctance to move beyond hoodies!

It's true that at some level I don't care what she wears. Clothes do not a person make. At the same time, I care that she retains her adventurousness and channels it into her daily life, so that she can free herself to experiment and feel happy with her choices.

At the farmhouse, she almost always starts off with a round of some game or other with Ed on the computer. I dont object. It beats throwing pillows at each other.

Evening. I still get sleepy early and most movie watching results in me dozing off for a while. I blame the movie selections. Well, and Europe jet lag. And my getting mighty close to being seventy.

With love...