I slept late this morning, always a miracle, and now I am slowly and pleasantly coming to terms with being awake. It looks like we're in for another heavy humid day, and the air is very still. The only neighborhood noises are coming from those crows, who are still hollering. Something melodramatic is definitely happening in Crow Land.

Yesterday morning Tom and I worked together to build the new backyard garden beds. His participation was a giant boon: what would usually take me several days to finish alone got done in about three hours. First, he staked out the beds as I shoveled wheelbarrow loads of my leaf-meal compost onto the grass, where it will serve as the first rough, grass-control layer. Then Tom raked that layer into place and we turned our attention to the giant pile of soil in the driveway. Tom shoveled dirt, and I dumped loads, back and forth, back and forth, until the pile was nothing but rubble. Then he raked out the beds and I hosed down the muddy tarp and walkways. And then, finally, both of us, smeared in sweat and mud, took much-needed showers.

This was what we made. I'm really thrilled about it: even empty, it completely changes the look of the backyard, which to this point was just a big dull square. Now I can start complicating things visually, and, yes, I am counting the minutes till the plant nurseries open for business today.

After we cleaned up, we embarked on part 2 of our day, which was to drive downtown to eat sushi and go furniture shopping. The sushi was a big success; the furniture shopping not so much, as everything new was way too expensive (and far too big for my tiny room) and everything used was hard and made of vinyl . . . not an ideal material for a house without air conditioning. Finding a small, comfortable reading chair is very difficult. I guess our next plan is to stop at Ikea when we're in Massachusetts next weekend.

Today, as mentioned: shrub shopping! I also need to mow grass and run the trimmer, and I ought to do some housework, though that might keep till tomorrow, as I've got a bit of an editing breather this week. I finished the John Irving novel yesterday and started the Tessa Hadley one. Poetry-wise, I've got Sappho to read, and I'd like to get back to my project of copying out the Inferno, which my pandemic housing crunch interrupted. I'll sauté some hake for dinner, and slice up our first big ripe tomato: a beautiful fat Brandywine.

As of today, I've made it through a week of my new life. Things are going fine.