I ate my first salad from the garden — arugula, spinach, lettuce, wintered-over parsley, and tiny kale thinnings. So good that I had salad for lunch and dinner.

I finally planted the asparagus starts that have been stored for weeks in the basement, waiting. I dug deep, spread the octopus roots over mounds of composted cow manure, and covered them up. An investment for the future.

The cats were too busy to help — monitoring the birds outside the bathroom window,

and killing the duster,

when they weren’t occupied with sleeping.

The last of the late tulips have faded,

but the perennials along the porch have been growing fast, with new blooms appearing daily.

On Sunday evening M went to the ice cream stand and got us milkshakes, and we sat on the porch and looked at the flowers and talked about nothing, while the children across the street rode their bikes, and someone in a white pickup waved as they drove by.