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Yesterday was a gorgeous day:  seventy-five degrees and sunny, with a cool breeze. I never left the house. I am still recovering from Amy's hospitalization (six days at Mass. General) and a sinus/ear infection that I must have picked up there. I stayed inside and read all morning.

After so many days in the hospital, I feel enormously thankful for my home, for a soft place of comfort and belonging. I've been wandering from room to room and outside through my little gardens. Hello chickens! Hello trees! Hello rose and sparrow! In this place I am someone and everyone else is, too.

In the afternoon I baked a loaf of banana bread and an apple pie with some of the fruit from an enormous fruit basket a friend from church sent us. I am a good baker and decent cook--I've had twenty-seven years of daily practice.

The other day I finished an interesting  historical novel (The Visionist, by Rachel Urquhart ) about an 1830s Massachusetts Shaker community. Now, I am reading a contemporary Sue Miller novel (The Arsonist). It's a bit depressing, but then most fiction is, isn't it? The human heart identifies more readily with struggle and sorrow than ease and happiness, I think.

I finished another pair of socks. These were knit with A Hundred Ravens "Iachos" sock yarn. A Hundred Ravens is an independent hand-dyed yarn company in Wayland, Massachusetts. The color reminds me of rain and rose petals and a faraway friend to whom they will soon be sent.

Emmeline and I ripped out the old spinach and broccoli from the raised beds and planted red and purple bell peppers, banana peppers, zucchini, cucumbers and beans. Paul planted four nice tomato plants in five gallon buckets on the deck for me. Today it is raining (and cold!) but I think the seeds and new plants will do well with the rain. I dead-headed all the flowers in the rose border last evening, too. The roses are in their first flush of bloom, but are struggling this year (especially the peach and the white), so I am giving them extra care.

Amy is still very fragile and weak. It's going to take time for her to recover. But each day gets a little better, I think. Even in the rain we have hummingbirds. And fresh strawberries and peas from the garden. And sweet pets to cheer us. And love--lots of love. ♥