Yesterday began cold but ended warm enough for us to sit on the back porch and eat bread and cheese while Ruckus prowled the corners and bumped his nose against the screen. After dark, peepers shrilled from the hedgerows, and now this morning the sky is a rippled sheet over the glassy cove.

It's our last morning on the island; we'll head home after lunch and tomorrow we'll fall back into work with a bang. I've got stacks of editing awaiting, lots of housework to do, and then I'll be teaching all day Saturday. But at least the cat seems well on the way to recovery. We had our little respite; we even went for a modest hike yesterday among the bogs and boardwalks. The weather felt more like November than April, but the singing frogs are hopeful and a bouquet of forsythia is beginning to blossom.