Yesterday I gardened.

I raked out the tulip beds beside the front door and discovered that some previous owner had planted hyacinths.

In the bed along the side of the house (e.g., the weed patch I reamed out last fall), I uncovered my garlic; dealt with some damage the electricians had done when they were installing a new meter; and then prepped and planted a few short rows of radishes, spinach, dill, cilantro, lettuce, and arugula.

In the new big bed (half the front yard), I covered the turned-over sod with the leaves I'd raked off the other beds, and then I ordered a truckload of composted soil, which will be delivered, I hope, at some point this week. That new soil, over the layer of leaves and sod, should make a decent base for a first-year planting.

Of course, I still have the other half of the front yard to think about. And the packed-dirt back yard. And the mess along the stone wall.

After gardening, Tom and I went for a long walk in the neighborhood, and then we drove to a friend's beautiful poetry reading in Cape Elizabeth, and then, on the way back, we stopped for a walk along the Western Prom and goggled at the mansions and their industrial view of oil tanks and container ships and interstate traffic and landing airplanes. I daresay that was not exactly what the lumber barons and shipping magnates had planned when they commissioned those houses.

And then we came home and ate macaroni with bacon and listened to a basketball game on the radio.

That's one thing about living in town: you can do all of these things in the same day without dying of exhaustion or spending every interstice in the car. But I am still missing my Harmony crocuses.