I'm Pushing Spring

February is maybe a bit early to get Spring Fever, but yesterday I began pushing the season. I got out the tiller last week and dug up a new 9.5x5.5 foot flower bed around the young dogwood tree I planted last fall where I can see it from the kitchen and breakfast room windows. I planted a ring of white and purple pansies and snapdragons around the tree and another border of alternating purple and yellow pansies around the flower bed. I also planted 40 daffodil bulbs in two groups of 18 and 22 respectively on each side of the dogwood. The bulbs had been in one of the vegetable bins in the refrigerator since last fall and a few had already begun to sprout! Two bulbs had rotted.

I also planted white, purple, and yellow pansies in two planters.

Just as I was finishing my planting (about 4PM) it began to rain and the rain continued all night long. It could not have come at a better time--after weeks of prolonged and chronic drought--to set the new plants.

Dinner from my new crock pot was chicken cacciatore and it was delicious along with salad and a very fine bottle of Syrah red wine: Columbia Crest, Grand Estates from the Columbia Valley of Washington ($9.69 at the grocery store.)


After watching the the News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, I spent the evening reading in front of the fire in the living room. Life has few pleasures as nice as a winter fire with a weather front blowing through town full of thunder booming, lightening flashes, and the steady brush of rain hard against the windows.

Right now I'm reading Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms and After the Victorians by A.N. Wilson. I have already read The Victorians by the same author. I'll probably review both at my review blog when I'm finished with After the Victorians. You can order them by clicking on the links below.



I did some chores today that I've been putting off: got a cell phone (in preparation for a trip later in the month to New Orleans and maybe Key West), went to the doctor's office to get three prescriptions written and faxed to Medco, my pharmaceutical mail order people, and left the truck at the dealership to have the oil changed, to take care of a recall having to do with the speed control, and detailed, if they could get to it. (Note: They didn't get to the detailing, but got the rest done.)

Supper was red potatoes boiled with Polish sausage, carrots and cabbage. After supper I watched TV: a "biography" of Tony Curtis, CSI, and Without a Trace.