Tom and I sat on the living-room couch playing cribbage while upstairs our sons gabbled back and forth about some complicated history role-playing game they're immersed in together. Of course one of the sons was on speaker phone from Chicago. But still, there was a strange moment of deja-vu . . . Why, here we are again, perched on a rock in the middle of a river of boys.

I made corn chowder last night, with the last of what I'd frozen from my father's crop, spiced with my friend Angela's shallots and my own serrano peppers. It's lovely, in April, to still be savoring last summer's harvest. All I have left now in the freezer are a few green beans and those serranos. Spring needs to hurry up so I can start harvesting greens.

We continue to be entertained by our foraging skills. Yesterday Tom presented me with a genuine N95 mask. The day before he brought home some beautiful magnolia branches. I've done my part too: I achieved bacon and shaving cream. The best cadge yet: Tom's been offered a pile of patio stones from the hardscape that's getting torn up on his job site. They're in perfectly good shape, but "throw out the usable and replace with the unnecessary" is the kind of big-wig renovation he's working on. So, bit by bit, he'll start carting the stones back here. This is a giant coup for us. We had hoped to start working on our desolate backyard this summer--Tom had even drawn up plans--but our pandemic finances nixed any expenditures on materials. Now here they are, free for the taking! . . . and just in time to go along with Tom's fire pit project.

Today the weather will be cold and possibly rainy, and I will do the things I always do. I've got bread in the oven already. Eventually I'll hang clothes on the cellar lines, and work on someone else's manuscript, and chatter with my sons, and read, and walk. We're considering a splurge on takeout barbecue. I'd like to get my violin out of its case. I need to pick up a grocery order at the warehouse.

The days loop and dance and lag and coil. I'm sending you love.