Good News

Look at that weather chart! Tthere’ll be lots of gardening done in the coming week. Spring is really here and it feels very, very good. 

While Darrell worked on the fence yesterday, I assembled my small Cedar planters. My hands ached after doing it; I had to screw in sixteen really long screws into undrilled wood into each one.

It was hard to see the hole for the driver in the screws, so I stopped and called my eye doctor to find out when I will get my cataract surgery. Well … my doctor retired; he’s not doing any more surgery. His list has been combined with another doctor’s waiting list, so I may get my surgery in May. Otherwise it’ll be June. (I joined the waiting list last July.)

I finished at about four pm. I made something to eat, filled a glass with Diet Coke, turned on the TV, lay down on the couch and promptly fell asleep. 

Darrel’s back this morning. He’ll be finishing the fence and then I’ll fill the three planters and transfer the Grapes and Wisteria from the backyard into their new sunny home.

This week is going to be exciting: I’ll be planting, Spring officially arrives, my cold frames will come and so will my gross of poles to build a climbing frame for my peas and beans.

No greater proof of my adjustment to life here is the chart above that shows my electrical consumption for this year in light blue and for last year in dark blue.

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The Professor and the Madman  and its sister book, The Meaning of Everything,  both written by Simon Winchester, are two of the finest (non-fiction) books I have ever read. And now, The Professor and the Madman has been made into a movie. Unfortunately, one of the stars is Mel Gibson. The other is Sean Penn; neither really appeals to me, but the story is incredible.

The story is about an American surgeon who moves to London where he commits murder and becomes is the first felon in Western jurisprudence to be found innocent by reason of insanity. (He had dreadful PTSD from his services during the American Civil War. 

He goes to prison and becomes the most prolific contributor to the developing Oxford English Dictionary, forgiven and supported by many, including the wife of the man he murdered (to whom he paid a compensatory pension his entire life).