LITTLE ROCK — We had a lovely, sunny week and a rainy weekend. The dark purple iris have been joined by a lighter purple variety by the back door. Our garden plants are doing well and lettuce, radishes, onions, potatoes and cucumbers are coming up. April is National Poetry Month and the warm breezes, refreshing rain and therapeutic “digging in the dirt” are enough to make anyone wax poetic. Springtime in the Ozarks is a beautiful time indeed.

I started the week with a long day at work Monday.Niece Laura called Tuesday morning to request I save some extra copies of her grandpa’s obituary and Aunt Leta’s caregiver called to inform me of their planned excursion to Eureka Springs. When I left work about noon I went shopping for a few greeting cards and visited the greenhouse to buy four more tomato plants and a half dozen pansies. That afternoon I repotted the Norfolk pine Mama received for Christmas and planted the colorful pansies with their cheerful little faces.

I went out early Wednesday morning and delivered an early birthday gift for a friend. When I returned home I cleaned and filled the birdbath and that afternoon I enjoyed sitting on the front porch in the warm sunshine and reading a magazine. Later I soaked some beans andadded browned ground beef, tomatoes and seasonings to make a pot of Paula Deen’s taco chili for supper. We enjoyed bowls of the steaming mixture when Jim came in from working on a house in Bentonville.

I wrote a letter to my pen pal in Washington Thursday morning and dropped by Aunt Leta’s for a brief visit. I ate a couple of corn dogs for lunch and went to City Hall to p ay the water bill. I left in early afternoon to drive to Centerton for a funeral. After the service we followed a colorful bike brigade back to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery for a graveside service. When Igot home Jim had planted two rows of corn, another row of okra, several hills of zucchini squash, icicle radishes and a few more cucumbers. He had made some more hills so I changed clothes and went out to plant a row of yellow crookneck squash. It was Earth Day, a good time to be planting garden.

I worked at the office a few hours Friday morning, then dropped by the pharmacy to pick up a few prescriptions. When I got home I sat in the patio enclosure and finished the book I was reading while Jim prepared some metal for recycling. Nephew Dustan, his wife and daughter came by, then we took a load of aluminum cans and scrap aluminum to Noel.We collected the check for our metal and tried the new cheddar pepper supersonic burger at Sonic when we returned.

A gentle rain was falling when we awoke Saturday morning and we were thankful it was watering our newly planted garden. We did a couple of loads of laundry and I baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I went to quilt class in early afternoon where we enjoyed a variety of snacks and an interesting “show and tell” session and received instructions for a Farmer’s Daughter quilt block. When I returned Jim and I drove to Decatur to order a part for his pickup. It was daughter-in-law Heather’s birthday and I got caught in a downpour when I stepped out to take her a card.

We took a friend with us for breakfast at Southwest City Sunday morning and Jim brought him back to show off our patio enclosure. After he left Jim watched a golf tournament while I clipped the coupons from the Sunday paper. We watched the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation on the Lois Wilson story that evening.

-Susan Holland

Susan Holland, who works for The News Herald, is a lifelong Benton County resident.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 04/28/2010