April Flowers

We're getting April blooms here.  The local Magnolia trees have opened, as have the (pleasantly pungent) narcissus along the side of the house and the tulips that Mark has in pots on the outside deck.  The grape hyacinth (which I particularly enjoy) are up and blooming, as is the rosemary (we have a hardy, two and a half high shrub).  The cherry tree has tight umber buds that I expect will open in a few weeks, and the irises are still only green swords.

Mark does the lions share of the yard work, and he's got foxglove, lilies, goldenrod, strawberries, and a raspberry cane going.  He's also done good things with various arbor vita trees, which give the yard a little more privacy than it had when we first moved in ten years ago.

Yesterday (Sunday)I planted some poppy and borage seeds in our yard.  I like poppies; we had a few growing last year, and I very much enjoyed their orange blossoms.  Mark doesn't care for borage much, but I like borage flowers because they are blue and purple and they attract bees.  The bees added an extra puzzle as to where to plant borage.  I think the plants would like the south facing side of our house, but I'm pretty sure The Child would object to bees being too close to various backyard activities.

On the writing front:  I'd been writing up a lecture proposal Saturday.  The way home machine availability worked out, I ended up doing a lot of it on my iPad.  This probably wasn't the best thing, because I managed to get a pretty bad headache by the end of the session.  I think it was caused by a combination of bad table ergonomics and wearing the wrong set of glasses (if I wear my old glasses, the correction is a little old; if I wear my progressive glasses, I have to tilt my head back to focus).  Thinking about it more, even though I'd propped up the iPad on an easel, it was too low.