Yesterday was a good day. I seem to be happiest on days when I do a bunch of different stuff - I guess I feel like I get more done than on days when I work on a single project.

I did sew a few more of the blocks for the ongoing quilt - and I planned out the remaining six, so I just have a few more seams to do this afternoon and I can think about laying out the blocks.

I also knit a bit on a pair of simple socks from one of the bright Opal colorways. ("der stolze Harald" - mostly yellow with some pink and peach)

And I did my hour of piano practicing - I try to do an hour a day, I figure I'll get better faster if I can do that much.

And I did 45 minutes of a workout.

And I mailed my tax forms in. I'm getting a nice little federal refund (though not for such a happy reason; capital losses in the past year lead to it in part) and had to send a check to the state, but the federal refund more than counterbalances that).

And I met a dog belonging to friends. A couple in my church are going out of town the end of next week and wanted someone they "trusted" to check in on their dog (they're really only gone one day, but they don't like to leave the dog more than 3 or 4 hours alone because she is very attached to them and I guess they are afraid she might pine.) It is a very friendly little dog - some kind of a terrier mix - but I still wanted to meet it in my friends' presence so the dog would accept me as OK.

I'm really more of a cat person (though I don't have any pets myself) but this is such a nice, well-behaved little dog that I could see having a dog like her. (Perhaps the fact that after "greeting" me she ran, got one of her toys, and dropped it at my feet helped charm me into liking her).

Then, in the afternoon, I decided I needed to do some work outside. I was concerned about my garden - I never got beans planted and really it's too late here now because it will get hot soon, and beans don't deal well with hot (at lest in my experience). But I at least wanted to put in some tomatoes, and maybe some winter squash. (I don't even know the right time to plant winter squash in Oklahoma. Maybe it's not yet, I don't know. I couldn't find any at the two places I tried. Maybe I could still start it from seed).

I had heard on the news that "OH MY EVERYONE IS TRYING TO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD NOW" and they had comments from store clerks saying things like, "All the vegetable seeds have just FLOWN off the shelves" so frankly I was a bit apprehensive about whether I'd find much at the garden center.

Hah. Typical news hyperbole designed to whip people into a frenzy of OH NOES! There was plenty of stuff. Especially Arkansas Traveler tomatoes, my favorite variety of all time, so I bought four of them, two Romas, and two of some hybrid proprietary to the Bonnie plants company. (It claimed to be indeterminate, which is one thing I tend to look for in tomatoes - well, Romas are determinate, but it's hard to get around that if you want paste tomatoes)

(Indeterminate: it will keep blooming and bearing until frost. Determinate: tends to stop bearing, and all fruit ripen at about the same time. Though I will say now when I think about it, I've had Romas that behaved almost like indeterminate tomatoes, where once you picked off all the ripe fruit, they started bearing again)

So I hoed up the entire back garden (and I must be getting fitter; I'm not sore today like I often am), top-dressed the soil with some high-organic matter stuff, and planted my eight tomatoes (plus a lot of marigolds; that's a cheap way of preventing nematode attack and I figure since all the "old timer" gardeners here do it, it's probably a good idea). I also put in two lemon basil and a German thyme that I bought at the same time.

Then I "bushwhacked" the side shade garden - birds come and perch on the fence and their leavings contain a lot of mulberry and other seeds, and I usually have to cut out lots of tree seedlings. This year I'm also having to deal with wild blackberry. And not the kind that makes good to eat fruits, or I'd leave it. (The wild blackberry around here have disappointingly tasteless fruit. The first year I was here I was doing research out at a site covered with them, and I got all excited as I saw the fruits ripen. "I could make jam!" I thought. Then I tasted a few. And I saw why the birds left them largely unmolested - there are far tastier things out there for birds to eat.)

One frustrating thing about gardening in the South is the sheer abundance of weeds. The climate is so favorable that if you don't keep on top of things, your garden can get overrun very rapidly.

I still need to decide on the front flowerbeds. I had thought of doing marigolds like I often do, but then I saw some really nice red salvia, which should do well in the bright/hot conditions there. (Also, don't hummingbirds come to red salvia?) But I'm not sure what to put in with it. White would be the most logical choice, but petunias do very badly in that garden and most other white-blooming things I have ready access to are more of a shade/mixed-shade plant. Maybe dusty miller for the foliage, I don't know.