The garden has responded well to the recent spate of rain showers, growing lush and popping seedlings out in a reassuring manner. But it’s also been warm, which has led many of my cold-weather greens, including my two kale plants and all the bok choy, to bolt. ‘T’is the season.

My flowers are doing well. Rudi asked if we could plant some petunias, which remind him of his grandmother, so of course I said yes. Two of the pink ones appear above alongside the yellow pansies that overwintered and my beloved violets.

My seeds have sprouted, although I’m not fully sure which of them have grown so boldly. I think one is pak choi, one might be arugula, and one might be a lettuce, but I won’t swear to any of it at this point.

My Swiss chard, despite having been my first sprouts, have been slow to grow, and while some peas are knee-high, fewer of them have emerged than I’d hoped.

Finally, we split our first strawberry on Sunday and should have three more this week, if the straw keeps the slugs away. So sweet!

Finally, we got back toward having some pleasant weather, so I spent quite a bit of this weekend outside.

Friday evening, we had drinks on the patio of our local yuppie grocery store/bar.

Saturday, we spent the first part of the day at our garden, doing general maintenance with other gardeners. Rudi and I weeded pathways and raked, and we felt very good about our efforts by the time we headed home in the early afternoon. In the evening, we headed to the ballpark for the Mets-Nationals game and our friend Sarah’s birthday. The Mets’ Pete Alonzo hit a grand slam, which was very exciting for me, but the Nationals failed to recognize Sarah’s special day by playing their best. The temperature kept dropping, so by the end of the ninth we were all well bundled into the winter clothing we’d brought and aching for everyone who came to bat to get out quickly. But overall it was a lovely way to spend a Saturday in April.

Today, I got to sleep in a bit before heading to the farmers market. We later enjoyed the ramps (wild leeks) I picked up in omelettes for supper. In the afternoon, I headed over to Virginia to return a library book. I picked up some doughnuts from the yuppie doughnut shop and four books from the library, and then spent some time sipping a fabulous seasonal drink — a peaches n’ cream tea latte — and reading in the sun (and wind) on the patio of the local coffeehouse. We had our monthly video call with friends on the west coast in the evening and then rounded out the night with some tv.

How was your weekend?

It was another quiet weekend around the Burrow:

We watched the UConn women win … and then lose.

We bought plants, and I put them all in the ground.

I finished a book and started a new one.

We stopped at a coffeehouse I hadn’t been to since the pandemic began (they were only open for takeout with curtailed hours) and sat on the patio in the sun.

We went to the grocery store and the farmers market.

I turned the heel of my sock and started working on the foot.

We watched Better Nate than Ever, which was sweet.

We watched and heard the news and did not turn away.

We went on.

My weekend was a quiet one.

My bike stayed in the laundry room, but Sarah and I met for ice cream and a stroll along the river Friday afternoon.

I didn’t meet up with a friend to watch the Standford-Maryland game, but I watched quite a bit of women’s basketball.

No books went back to the library, but I listened to my audiobook and hit the 100-page mark in my print book.

Mount Laundry wasn’t vanquished, but it shrank in size.

I failed to go to the garden, but I shopped for vegetables and plants and cleaning supplies.

The butter on the counter didn’t turn into cookies, but Karen and I talked on the phone about the cake her family had made.

I didn’t see the cherry blossoms, but I saw a rainbow.

Not everything I’d hoped to do this weekend got done, but maybe it’s okay.

Sunday was mostly overcast, but the clouds thinned overhead toward dusk and cleared at the horizon, leaving us with a gorgeous end to the day.

Lest you think I don’t have my priorities straight, let me assure you that I was determined not to let having COVID affect my ability to eat delicious round foods on March 14th.

That’s right, Pi(e) Day 2022 was still on!

First up, quiche:

Our quiche is filled with spinach, feta, and Jamaican veggie sausage and was delicious, albeit a bit underdone when Rudi cut into it the first time. (The jiggle test failed me.) After we pulled out the first two slices, I popped it back into the oven to bake a few more minutes, and our second slices were much less viscous.

(Also, it is a particularly rich quiche because one of the two places I failed to adequately think out isolation rations was dairy. I went with full on heavy whipping cream so as to not run out of milk for our tea and coffee before we can make masked ventures back into the world.)

In between the quiche and my sweet pie, I also roasted a pie pumpkin that was starting to look sad and toasted its seeds. I’d cleared out the oven, after all, and was going to utilize it to its fullest.

Finally, it was on to the main course — dessert!

If you’re looking at my apple crisp and thinking it looks a little on the dry side, it is. I should have had a couple juicier baking apples, but I was trying to use up my oldest apples and they just didn’t produce enough liquid. So, yesterday, when the pie was fresh, it was just okay. Today, it was a far better pie as the apples had a chance to relax some.

But either way, we had COVID pie!