A breezy sunny Saturday with no plans. In the words of Annie Dillard, I’ve really “spent” the morning, wandering through the woods with the dogs, then touring the yard, picking a nice big basket of strawberries, and taking some photos. The strawberry photo is my flickr photo for today.
Other chores are done…the sheets are on the line and, with the brisk breeze, are probably already dry. I’ve cleaned up the kitchen and the bedroom. Doggies are all settled into morning naps after their breakfast and walk. I’m relaxing in the my favorite chair with a latte. The house takes on the air of a monastery this time of year as we close the windows and drop rattan shades over them to keep out the sun. We don’t have central air conditioning and hate to run the window units too much so we capture the cool air of the night time and then trap it inside during the day.
I’m planning afternoon reading…I’m about half way through two books: Wendell Berry’s Life Is a Miracle, which I’ve already blogged about a bit, and Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom: The True History of Shakespeare and Elizabeth by Charles Beauclerk. It’s an extended argument for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, being the real Shakespeare, otherwise known as the Oxfordian theory.
The book came from the Barnes and Noble in Denver which was tantalizing visible from my hotel room window. I made it in and out once without buying anything except a latter but the second time was not so lucky. I never made it past the first table of new nonfiction. Besides the Beauclerk, I bought The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music by Richard Williams and My Empire of Dirt: How One Many Turned His Big-City Backyard Into a Farm by Manny Howard. I bought the latter because I was reminded of our own suburban farm: from my chair in the front room, I can see my own front yard, which is where the strawberries are growing. There are raspberries, onions, garlic, and more and we’ve eliminated enough grass that I should be able to maintain it with the John Deere push mower this summer.
My regret here is that I couldn’t wait until I got to the local bookstores in Denver to start buying. I did buy The Landscape of Home at Capitol Hill Books, a wonderful used bookstore across the street from the capitol with its shining gold dome. It’s part of a series about the west and includes essays by Stewart Udall and others about life in the Rockies. 
The series was begun by what the book calls the “legendary” Tattered Cover Bookstore, but by the time I got there on Monday, I knew if I bought one more book, I would have to mail them home. I did get a latte and relax on a comfortable sofa in the store and am already planning to head there first when I get back to Denver in late June. Bookstore tourism at its best.
