Friday, May 7th

I SEE THE DAFFODILS best from this third-floor window … for from here I get the whole design, irregular garlands that make a nearly full circle as they weave around big rocks and clumps of bushes, and at the road gather into thick rich lines of mostly white narcissus … shining on a gray day like this one.

Yesterday I had a lovely slow walk through the woods with Tamas and Bramble, slow because Tamas limps a little (I can’t find any thorn or pebble to explain it) and also because so many birds are singing in the treetops, I have to stop to listen and try to discover who it may be. I saw a black-and-white warbler and a wood thrush yesterday and heard wrens and vireos, but didn’t catch sight of either. Driving home with the mail two days ago I came to a dead stop without frightening a woodcock, busily eating something in the road. So rare to see this shy bird close and unafraid … funny delightful bird with its no-tail, long beak, and eyes set in the top of its head!

In the afternoon I worked hard in the garden, taking a half-dead rose down to the “hospital,” planting the white rose B. gave me for my birthday in its place. Then I arranged all the birthday plants, the blue marguerites, impatienses that Anne brought, and Heidi’s pink geraniums and alyssum in the border along the terrace.