The memorial for Liam was quite powerful and Kelly held up very well. I read my poem and got a good reaction from it, and I was able to chat with Paula Corson and Kelly’s dad Ray. He looked a little weak. Playing with Lucia was a lot of fun and I hope I can play with her again in June.
The teaching week was not too bad, and I have a lot of papers and poems to read and grade. My poety reading on Tuesday went well and there were about 20 people there. I have volunteered to host one of the admitted student days in April but that won’t be too hard.
Coltsfoot is up and almost at peak, and there is a cress and speedwells in the pasture. I sealed the rest of the vents in the foundation with the foam insulation and I put out more traps. I found a hole in one of the plastic screens on one of the vents, and I sealed that up also. I cut and installed the piece of 1 x 4 at the basement door and caulked it and painted it. No mice can get in there. So far my traps haven’t caught any mice so perhaps I have them all out. The solar panels are keeping the electricity up enough so I haven’t had to burn any gasoline all week. I hope I will be able to equalize the batteries when I get several days of full sun. The greenhouse is doing okay but I have had to replant the peas since many didn’t come up and I have yet to see any lettuce. This morning I planted 8 broccoli plants in one of the trays and I will see how that turns out. I planted another tray of peas and I put new soil in two of the trays and planted lettuce in both. I am not planting spinach because of the gout I have. I worked on the road and that is in reasonable shape but once things dry out completely I will have to move about thirty buckets of soil from the collapsed bank so that the top culvert will work again. The second and third culverts are much more important and they are fixed so there is no rush. I think the leak in the greenhouse will be pretty easy to fix since it looks like a plug has popped out. Replacing that may solve the whole problem. Nothing going on in the owl house yet. I cut back the butterfly bush and it is coming along well.
After grading a little this morning I decided to play golf even though I am supposed to perform this evening. The Meadows and Auburn hills were crowded so I drove out to Castle Rock and played nine. I made some nice shots and shot a 52. I will probably be a little shaky this evening when I perform at Gillies but Luke will be there so that hides me some.