Yesterday may have been cold and dank, but I still hung my very first load of Portland laundry out on my new clotheslines. Of course it's still hanging there today because there was no way those towels could dry quickly in this weather. I don't care: I was happy to look out the window this morning and see them twitching in the vague breeze. I can hardly believe that I haven't hung laundry on the line for more than a year.

In other surprising news, Tom and I saw a pileated woodpecker in our yard. That was a shock: who would have expected to see the pterodactyl here in the city? In Harmony spring always meant cold laundry and the scream of the pileated in the clearing, so I take his appearance as a friendly omen . . . though Tom takes it, more sensibly, as an omen that there might be something rotten in our trees.

We did manage to buy a trimmer yesterday, a battery-powered one light enough for me to handle easily, so today I'll finish whacking down the mess of goldenrod and other assorted weeds along the stone wall. Hidden under them are few sad patches of lilies and at least one frail little peony. But basically I'm just going to have to start over with that eyesore.

Today's on-the-couch reading: Margaret Drabble's The Witch of Exmoor. Today's dinner: something involving leftovers from last night's chicken kabobs. Plus bread baking and more lovely laundry hanging, rereading my manuscript, grass mowing, a long walk, and afternoon parade noise filtering among the trees and houses.