I will be covering Martha Stewart's appearance tonight at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay.

The story will appear Thursday in the Press Herald, and I hope to post a news update tonight on our Web site. As long as I can figure out the laptop, and the cell phone service from the Botanical Gardens is good.

Nancy is excited. She didn't bat an eye in my previous reporting life in 1978 when I covered Jimmy Carter's two-day trip to Bangor and Orono. But Martha Stewart is big.

She has been a Martha fan since "Entertaining" came out a couple of decades ago. When Nancy found out I would be seeing Martha, she immediately started going through my wardrobe and decided I needed a new pair of khaki slacks. And while getting the slacks, we saw a straw gardening/fishing hat that will look good. And I received a new blue blazer for Fathers Day, so this will be the first time I wear that. My fear is that I will be overdressed for Boothbay casual.

Thoreau would be upset, believing as he did that you should be wary of activities that require the purchase of new clothing.

Martha Stewart is a polarizing figure. Our best friends from college are anti-Martha, and some of our most heated party conversations have been about Martha Stewart.

One of the many reasons we like our daughter-in-law Marah so much is that she is a Martha fan and when she was getting her MBA, did a major paper on Martha's marketing expertise.

So, Nancy thinks this is the highlight of my career, and it should be a lot of fun.

Getting a little closer to home, the raspberries have started coming in. I picked about three-quarters of a pint Sunday and about two pints this morning.

The berries have a lot of Japanese beetles on them, and I was tempted to kill them. But looking closely, most of them are infected with the Tachnid fly, a parasite that will kill them and spread to other Japanese beetles. If the beetle has white spots on its back, it is infected. So, I listened to the Extension agents and let them live.

I also got some new potatoes out of our garden on Sunday.

Most of the first planting of peas has gone by -- the Green Arrow variety has a few good vines left. But the second planting is coming in well, and I will be picking this weekend.

And finally, Nancy and I went to the Japanese Iris Show in Auburn last Saturday. The show confirms my belief that everything is coming in early this year. The Iris Society sets the date for what is usually the peak first bloom for Japanese irises. But most of the entries in the show were from second blooms because the first bloom came early.

If you are interested, the Iris Society's auction of iris rhizomes is 1 p.m. Saturday at the Treworgy home at 120 Flaggy Meadow Road in Gorham. It is a good chance to pick up some irises. In addition, the garden at that home is outstanding.

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