Yesterday was editing, editing, editing, eye strain, eye strain, eye strain, but I did get through the giant stack, and my neighbor and I were able to take a mid-afternoon work break and drive out to the nursery for pansies, which was refreshing.

So today I can turn my attention to a couple of smaller editing projects, and my Monson syllabus, and some chapbook-class prep, and some errands. And then Tom will arrive home at some point before dinner, and we will have a reunion.

Late in the day I potted up the pansies, and planted my new hellebore (of course I couldn't just limit myself to pansies) in the Shed Patch, near the back door. I did a little watering and some seedling inspection: peas are up; spinach is up; radishes are up; greens in the cold frame are thriving. There are three ramps sprouting from the grocery-story ramps I dug in last year ("That will never work," said Paul. Hah!). The white crocuses are glorious; the blue scylla is full of bees.

On Monday, when I was computer-less, I went to the Goodwill and brought home an excellent book haul, which I have been slowly sorting through. For a total of $9 I acquired John Le Carre's The Perfect Spy (well loved by Philip Roth); Shirley Hazzard's The Bay of Noon (she's a somewhat overlooked novelist whose writing style is often compared to Compton-Burnett's); The Best American Erotic Poems, edited by David Lehman (because of course); Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans (he wrote The Remains of the Day and somehow I've never read any of his novels); and Larry McMurtry's Sin Killer (because Larry and I go way back). Plus, I've got Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter to pick up at the library and Tess Hadley's new novel and a history of Ukraine on hold.

All of this reading material gives me a warm feeling of security. No need to be anxious. I have books.

These are two of my ramp seedlings. Last year I bought a handful from Whole Foods: ramps that had been improperly harvested because the entire root system had been pulled up. But that turned out to work well for me.

Scylla is so beautiful and so tough, bursting out of ledges and tree roots, fighting up through terrible packed soil.

Ruckus always likes to be color-coordinated with his environment. He looks cute but is probably thinking about killing chipmunks.