Wren was excited to ride to a party in a new electric truck! Like me, she is grateful for anything that minimizes petroleum use.

I was grateful for the ride, and for the gathering of neighbors, old friends and new, who feel the same as Wren and I do about our precious planet, and commit time and effort toward protecting the environment and preserving our democracy. Such as it is.

I’m grateful for support and encouragement in my 20V&F endeavor. Cousin M sent a photo of her lunch which included eight vegetables, and which inspired me to make a salad for dinner with six V&F, bringing my daily total to nine different kinds.

Now more than ever, I’m grateful for the simplest things. I’m experiencing big sadness. Gratitude, like any mindfulness practice, is a habit we cultivate during smooth sailing, so that when life gets rough, it’s right there to sustain us: I don’t have to search for it, which supports resilience.

I left them in for around six days—I lost count after checking at three and concluding it hadn’t been long enough. Then I strained the gin into a pint jar—filled it perfectly—and since I didn’t want to waste the saturated fruit I whipped that in the food processor with some sugar and stuck it in the freezer to see what happened.

Cousin Mel has informed me that we need to eat twenty different fruits and vegetables each week for optimum health. So I’m starting a daily log of what I eat, first to get a baseline, and then to hold myself to this standard.

Last night, I got in six for dinner alone: mushrooms, scallions, garlic and red orach, which I sautéed and then threw in an egg. I garnished with pesto which added arugula and pecans to the tally. It was delicious. And so simple!

Wednesday night I baked a lemon pound cake to serve the next morning when Honeybadger came for coffee in the garden. I was grateful to have a whole cake to share and sent her home with a big chunk; then gave another chunk away the next day, leaving altogether a reasonable amount for just me for a few more days.

I enjoyed a piece of the cake for dessert last night, along with a slushy made from the beautiful frozen fruit purée and infused gin. I was thrilled to realize I’d just added another four fruits to my count that day: lemon, strawberry, rhubarb, and juniper berry. I think that must have also counted as one ferment for the day!

Though I was sluggish this morning, I did get Wren out of the yard for the Breakfast Loop, and loved seeing blooming Erigeron along the trail home.

Back in through the lion gate, I was grateful to see irises blooming in the yarden.

I’m grateful for friends and cousins who recommend positive influences, such as infused gin and twenty fruits and vegetables in a week. And I’m grateful for my increasing capacity to feel that gratitude as it arises and moves through my body.

I’m grateful to finally learn how to Sudoku. It’s mystified me for years and I never even wanted to know how until a few days ago. For years, Wordle sufficed as far as mind games. Recently NYT introduced Strands, another word game that intrigued me enough to stack it with my Wordle habit. And then, I returned to the mini-crossword, began to dabble in the regular crossword again, and started playing the other word games on the app, Connections and Letter Boxed. (I’d already tried and abandoned Spelling Bee years ago.)

I’ve been mind-training for years with meditation and other mindfulness practices, and decided my brain is old enough now that I should exercise it more strenuously in a different field. After all, it no longer spins its wheels ruminating so it’s got some spare time and energy for more healthy weightlifting.

I had labeled myself for most of my life as A Word Person Not A Number Person. I think about my poet friend Marion, also a word person who long ago fell hard for Sudoku. I couldn’t understand why. It seemed like a betrayal of Words. Once I started using the Games app, the one numbers game began nagging for attention. I’d think of Marion and how she loved it; I opened it a few times and closed it, but finally, tonight, decided to learn how it goes. Sudoku didn’t prevent her from succumbing to dementia, and may not help me, but research suggests that this kind of brain game actually does help keep the mind nimble. I felt pretty pleased when I completed my first ever Sudoku. And it’s probably a healthier way to spend precious time than the boob tube.

Even though it will snow again soon, I’m grateful for the arrival of early spring. Today it climbed over sixty degrees in the sun, and two little irises opened. I worked in the south border for an hour and planted some tulips I didn’t get in the ground before it froze. Maybe they’ll bloom this year, maybe not; but at least they’ll take root, and I planted them in a cage so they’ll survive the does. I’m grateful for the promise of spring.

I’m pretty confident that the bird in the top of the birch tree is a western bluebird, but I don’t know what the others are. All About Birds from Cornell Lab of Ornithology says that outside the breeding season, they flock in large numbers with several other species of birds, and the flock this morning was huge. They filled the trees and flew among them as Wren raced with delight below. I’m grateful for bluebirds and all the other little songbirds that live here year-round and those who migrate through. I’m happy these birds were enjoying the birch catkins. I hope they’re back tomorrow; I’ll try to get a better view and photos.