After spring break, Ellie and Owen went back to school in person, and Lela resumed school remotely. For one week, Owen’s elementary school continued with the Groups A, B, and C: A in person on Monday and Tuesday while B attended remotely, then B in person on Thursday and Friday while A attended remotely, while C (a very small group, just two kids in Owen’s class) was 100% remote, and everyone remote on Wednesday. Then, one week after spring break, on April 26, Groups A and B were combined and were in person for four days a week. Ellie’s middle school combined their A and B groups one week later, on May 3, so that Ellie was also going to school in person four days a week after that. It was a short day, though, with no lunch period. The kids came home in the early afternoon. Managing a lunch, where everyone would have to take their masks off and remain 6 feet apart, was just too logistically challenging -- there was no lunch seating at the middle school. Kids just scattered around the campus and ate on the ground. For our part, Mike and I did lots of gardening. I worked on picking out pots and filling them with attractive plants, while Mike worked on his raised beds of lettuce, bok choy and gail lan. I learned about composing a container with “thrillers” (tall plants), “spillers” (plants that trailed over the side) and “fillers” (plants that came to medium height) so that you got a pleasing three-level effect. So I had fun researching plants that did well in our climate and in the microenvironment I was planning to fill (full sun on concrete, partial shade, full shade), with similar water needs (low), which would grow well together and look good together. I also got into choosing pots of different shapes and sizes which nevertheless looked good together as well. I was particularly proud of the pot assembly on the left hand side of the concrete circle. I picked red and green as the organizing colors, and went with one big tall one, one medium tall one, and one squat one. Then I went with red and white for the plants: I filled them with red and white calla lilies (the ‘thrillers’), red and white coleus (the ‘fillers’ with pretty foliage), and vinca and red calibrachoa (the ‘spillers’). I picked red and white because this pot emplacement could be seen from the house (and even from the front door), in the gap between the seating area and the bench, and I wanted it to be a pretty, distant focal point which looked good with the rest of the patio, which had a lot of red. I did another emplacement to the right, with a repeat of one pot, but with darker colors, and plants that were purple and white, as this area was more shaded. I got lupine (‘thrillers’), and bacopa (‘spillers’), and two other purple ones. I also added blue pots to the stair area, as this was kind of a swath of concrete, so I felt it would be enhanced with some cheerful pots. I picked an intense blue for these, then went with warm flower colors of red, orange and yellow so they’d really pop. And they weren’t visible from the patio so they didn’t clash with the reds there. Another big projects was getting the vertical planter up on the patio. I wanted to fill this spiller greenery of shade-loving plants (because the awning always provided indirect light) so there would be lots of greenery behind the seating area. I ordered the planter on Etsy and assembled it on the porch, then filled it with a variety of plants with interesting foliage with little highlights of pink: coleus, vinca, another spiller, and miniature fuschias. I put a green pot in front of this planter to hide the triangular space behind the planter’s feet, and filled that with ferns, a pink coleus type thing, and vinca. I also did some metal pots by the grill to fill in a blank space over there, and I added more pots to the fountain area, to enhance the riparian feel of that area: funny twisted reeds, some ferns, and one warm-weather-tolerant hosta for Mike, whose grandmother (Eunice Fisher) had bred hostas. All of this required many trips to the garden store, the purchase of many pots, trying the pots out at home, then returning all the pots that didn’t work. Then back to the garden store for plants and potting soil. One the pots were planted, I ran an irrigation drip line to each one. I also tackled the back fence behind the curved bench. After much thought, I decided to go with trellises and hops, which are a super fast growing vine that can cover a fence in a season. Our gardener had suggested them for that spot. It was hard to find hops, though, so I eventually ordered some on Etsy. I got them established and growing in a very sunny spot, then moved them behind the bench once they were growing well. And boy, did they take off! Mike, for his part, tended to his raised beds, and we started getting a steady supply of beautiful lettuces, gail lan, and bok choy. Lela had a group of her fellow officers of her Science for Change club over for lunch to bond them together. We ordered pizza and they played a game on the patio. It was amazing to see a gathering there… we’d hoped when we’d bought this house that the patio would see a lot of different gatherings on it – friends, family, clubs, officer groups, parties – but the pandemic had prevented that. So it was good to finally see a gathering of people! In early May, Ellie had some mild cold symptoms, so we kept her home and got her lined up for a PCR Covid test at a local drive-through pharmacy. We were pretty sure she didn’t have it, but the school was extremely hair-trigger on this point, and required a negative test. Happily, Ellie’s test was indeed negative! I also got my second shot at this time! I went back to Levi stadium and they were just as efficient as for the first shot. I barely ever stopped walking, except when I was actually getting my shot and for the 15-minute wait for observation afterwards. It was a huge relief to get the second shot and to know that I was finally on my way to immunity. Then Mike’s nephew Ian, and his fiancée Marie, had their bridal shower in late April. We attended on zoom. Marie sent out favors (lemon themed) so that everyone could enjoy a treat while we attended remotely. They did games afterwards (trivia, bridal customs, etc.) and a game on Jackbox, and I’m afraid that Lela, Ellie and I swept the top three places – oops. We should probably have combined into a single unit. Owen had his piano recital during this time, too! The teacher had her students pre-record their pieces, then she played all the videos over Zoom for the families. We’d recorded Owen several weeks before, doing multiple takes until he did one he was happy with. Then we all watched together. Definitely not the same as a real recital – there was no playing in front of a live audience with all the pressure that entails – but it was also good for the kids to see their own performances, and to get lots of positive feedback from the audience. In cooking news, a Montclaire parent had a lemon tree that just exploded this year, and she put about a dozen brown bags full of lemons on her porch for friends and neighbors to take! Mike went out right away and got TWO bags. This was a LOT of lemons and I had fun using them up: I made lemon bars, lemon cookies, and several jars of preserved lemons, and Mike made lemonade. Up at the farm, the goats spent many weeks in the pig area while the white barn was being redone (new foundation). They sometimes had access to their old pasture, and sometimes not – it depended on whether there was working happening there. The goats did NOT like this arrangement and were difficult to bring in in the afternoon. They kept peeling off to either side of us as we were trying to herd them in. So Owen and I learned how to coax them into the pig area, a few at a time, sometimes closing the door to keep some of them in while we collected the others, especially the most recalcitrant ones – the Nigerian dwarfs, Merry and Pippin. But we got good at it, and between the two of us we could get them in. And as always, I was very pleased to see Owen grow in his animal handling abilities, getting around to the far side of the goats to ease them forwards, and keeping his movements calm and slow so as not to upset them. He’s doing a great job.