Spring has thoroughly sprung!

Which is fitting, because, after all, it IS spring break. I plan to write 50+ pp of something but I'm not prepared to talk about that yet. I did get 10 pp done today. (That's 3400 words if you think in words.) It wasn't even hard. I mean, I spend a lot of time still just sitting in the puppy room keeping an eye on Kenya, so hey! Might as well get some work done, right?

I did get the peas planted today, though. Also beets and daikon radishes. (Mom kept an eye on Kenya for me.) Tomorrow, more seeds! Not sure what till I shuffle through the packets and see what I have set out for this spring.

Also, I did take time to walk around the arboretum. (I mean my personal arboretum, here, not an official one — it's a fenced acre-and-a-half where I try to keep design principles in mind as I plant stuff. Trees and shrubs and tough flowers that are not likely to be bothered by dogs crashing through them. Or not too bothered. So, here's what I found in bloom today: The black pussy willow (brand new, just knee high, but very promising). The star magnolia, saucer magnolia, magnolia 'Ann', and the loebneri magnolia — yay for magnolias, and no frost likely before they're done! Yet to come, I have a Magnolia sieboldii and a Yulan magnolia and a big (well, big compared to the others) southern magnolia. Plus I ordered Magnolia 'Butterfly' for this spring. You can probably tell I have a thing for magnolias.

Also the apricots and J. plums in the orchard are flowering like mad, plus the daffodils, crocuses, and vinca minor. I'm sure forsythia is blooming, but I don't have any. But I do have Cornus mas, and that is blooming. Little bitty plants, so not much of a show yet.

Also! Now that I'm less nervous about the puppy (though of course things can go wrong even yet!), but time to think about names. Show names and call names. It's my G litter, so G names. I was talking to a friend about poor Kenya's disaster and the one puppy we got, and she proposed Anara Give Me A Break, which is funny and perfectly suitable for a show name. I'm also thinking of:

Golden Rule

Grace Note

Guilder Rose

Ganache (I've been baking)

Gaiety

Gloryflower

Gilliflower

Gingersnap

Or even a human name! Not, however, anything you would probably name your daughter today. Something like:

Gwenhwyfar (though that's kind of tragic with all the King Arthur connotations), or

Gwenaelle (which means 'blessed' or 'generous')

Or something with a fantasy tone, like Galadriel.

No idea what I'll actually call the puppy. I'm not too keen on Gay or Gwennie or Goldie (ick!) or even Grace or Gil. Just have to think about it.

Tomorrow — ten more pages! Plus WHEN is Patricia Briggs' new book going to arrive? It should have been here DAYS ago. I'm peeved: what the heck is Amazon Prime for if it's going to take five days (or more) for a book to arrive? Next internet stop, Amazon, so I can complain.