My sister is complaining that even with the new format, my diary still isn’t being updated. The truth is that I just couldn’t bring myself to add anything that would supplant Charlie’s final story. We see him everywhere and remember him constantly. But it’s been two weeks and the time seems right. His ashes still sit in the house waiting for us to be ready. Soon we’ll scatter part of them along “the loop”, our most frequent walking path, and bury the rest under the orange tree where he last laid. It’s near the hot tub and it seems right that he’ll be close when we relax there, in death as he was in life. We took Noche to the beach yesterday, only his second time, and our first beach trip without Charlie. That was hard. Noche loved the people and the other dogs but a water dog he his not. Today we went hiking in dog-friendly Garland Ranch Regional Park in Carmel. Noche did great, even off leash. Dry land is definitely more his thing.

While the news reports of blizzards in the mid west and east coast, an early spring fever has struck here. The almond tree is blossoming, the hens are laying eggs again. Even the newts are mating. You know what they say about spring—when a young newt’s fancy turns to …

(Actually, newts mate all winter long but I thought I could take a little poetic license here.)