Rainy days

It's been raining, pouring, drizzling, misting or foggy for days on end.  Occasional sun peaking through generally overcast skies.  But these have been warm Spring days.  Already. green leaves are pushing bright yellow forsythia flowers off of their shared branches.  Tulips are opening. These are from our back yard:

The turned earth practically bursts with worms.  But we haven't been able to plant our seedlings because the beds are basically mud.  Here are our seedlings on the day we brought them home (which was sunny!).  That's lavender in the brick red colored pot on the right of the top photo.  We're also going to try planting garlic this year.

Ella and I continue our morning walks.  It starts my day off the right way - even if we're slogging through rain (thank heavens I bought my LL Bean rubber boots before we moved up here).  If we happen to reach the coast at or just before 7:00 am, we will see the Vinalhaven ferry heading out from Rockland, as we did one morning last weekend:

The schooners are being readied for the summer tourist trade, and the beautiful three-masted windjammer (whose name I forget right now) is back in town:

I'm enjoying my ukulele lessons very much, Tai Chi not so much.  That may be just because of the later hour - it's difficult to work a 9 or 10 hour day, eat dinner and then go out to exercise from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. (And many of you know, 8:30 is practically midnight in Maine!) At any rate, I've decided to focus on the ukulele lessons, and I've started practicing the tin whistle again.  

David continues to have heel pain that is actually very disabling for him. He has tried several different orthotic inserts and has tried to stay off his feet when not at work.  The pain seems to be lessening, slowly improving, but still not back to normal.  He was off work this past weekend and it was lovely to have two days together.  Next weekend - which is Memorial Day holiday weekend - he has only Sunday off.  I'm planning to take an extra day, probably Tuesday, for a 4-day weekend.  

Finally, here's a photo of Ella from several months ago.  But it is a classic Ella pose - and a common one these days as she waits, with canine patience, for the sun to come out and bring with it squirrels, chipmunks, cats and other creatures that seem to be hunkered down in these rainy spring days.

Peace.