After a month on sick list, she's eager for gardening season

I can barely wait to flip the calendar page to April on Sunday, because March has been one long blur of illness for me. Early in the month, when the sunshine was too much temptation, I sneaked out for a few hours of gardening. I was positive, of course, being in my beloved Church of Dirt and Flowers would be all I needed to get well. Unfortunately, even the Garden Goddess can't cure everything.

I tried to come to peace with strict limits on doing nearly anything for too long, except reading. I can also report that 30 days with Benjamin BadKitten as a constant companion is not my idea of a dream vacation. That cat hogs the bed.

The nasty, cold weather that took up so much of March actually forced me be patient and give myself time to feel better. I'd rather miss a month of rain, cold winds and occasional snow flurries than be stuck inside for the unofficial start of our season. (That's the first week of April for impetuous gardeners like me.)

No matter how much I coughed or how exhausted I felt, I tried to step outside every day, if only for a few minutes. In the past few weeks, I've seen newly emerging tulips, daffodils, crocus, perennial delphinium, sweet william and verbascum plants, and find joy in knowing they'll be blooming soon. I remember last summer, when I studied several bare patches in our front yard garden, searching for any sign of the beautiful, dark red oriental poppies I'd planted just a few months earlier. Finally, when even the rains of autumn didn't coax them back to life, I was sure the poppy plants were dead. But, in the past few weeks, clusters of small, serrated leaves have edged up in two of the three dead patches - and not just one cluster, but three or four. The poppies apparently not only lived, but multiplied over the winter. This instance of hope, even when I've lost hope, is one of the many reasons I need my garden.

Springtime's arrival also means my husband, Lee, and I have premium seats, from our breakfast nook, for new episodes of my squirrel's long-running comedy act.

I describe him as my squirrel because the wily little extortionist has trained me. All he has to do is climb onto the tree branch closest to our kitchen window, shake his tiny fist and rev up his chatter, and, in Pavlovian response, I grab the big bag of unsalted peanuts. I toss the nuts under our big oak tree and, in seconds, it's lunchtime for him and his pals, including a murder of crows.

This season, though, I've gone passive-aggressive on the little dude. I bought a new bird feeder, and Lee hung it on the squirrel's favorite branch of our apple tree. My rodent pal had cracked the secret to all the other feeders we've used, including several advertised as squirrel-proof. As if.

But this feeder has a slanted roof, one flat side and one windowed side with a perch and narrow openings for bird seed. The first few mornings, the squirrel looked cockier than Clint Eastwood at his most macho. He sauntered onto the branch, smirked, leaped onto the feeder's roof - and slid straight down its slippery slant onto the soft dirt below. He was not amused.

When he tried balancing on the branch and launching himself at the feeder's back side, his claws had nothing to hook onto. He did a fast slide down the flat side and again found himself in the dirt, looking up at all those out-of-reach sunflower

hearts and thistle seeds. Of course, I feel sorry for him - eight-pound bags of peanuts don't last as long as they used to.

Meanwhile, BBK, my chief staffer, seems to be making the transition from bedside caregiver (sprawled, snoring, on the quilt) to brainstorming garden guru (lying flat at the window, tail twitching, as the chickadees and finches queue up outside for meals). His first suggestion: move the feeder to a spot more easily accessible to a variety of birds. Placing it at ground level, for example, would allow ground-feeding birds, such as collared doves and dark-eyed juncos, to share the seeds.

Of course, the feeder's new location would require hiring a security guard to keep thieving squirrels from gobbling all the food. My selfless BadKitten has volunteered to take on this dangerous assignment, with no salary upgrade.

Sydney Craft Rozen has a very long list of garden projects to begin - and a newfound willingness to pace herself this season. Email her at scraftroze@aol.com.