Nature Valley

Have I said yet how much I love my house? If not, I Love My House.

Spring is in full swing and all of the perennials have popped out of the ground and many are in full bloom. I'm learning so much about plants and gardening, I'm sorry I didn't give more attention to my planting beds in the townhouse. There's periwinkle and flox everywhere and last week I planted some Saxafrage. Along one side of the house there's clamatis peeking out of the dirt; I'm sure it will be climbing the bricks in no time. Along the other side of the house, lining the fence, there's strawberries. I've never grown strawberries before - or anything but tulips and lilies to be honest - so it'll be fun to see how fruitful (pun intended!) the crop is from this wannabe green thumb.

The absolute best thing about living here is how hospitable the birds find our backyard. We have no less than 3 nesting birds. One family has babies, we heard them this afternoon. The robin couple swaps sitting on 3 bright blue eggs. There's a third nest high in the spruce tree that belongs to some very happy, but very squawky grackles. Those are the blackbirds with iridescent heads.

I've read that robins incubate their eggs for almost 2 weeks. It's been about 10 days since Momma laid her 3 eggs so we should be getting some action within the next few days I'd think. I've taken pictures of the nest as it was being built and have a picture of the little eggies. I'll have to check out the nest today and see if there's any babies yet. What an awesome experience for Shaun!

And we have a little bunny who frequents our backyard these days. He arrives from under the fence on the left side and takes the same trail every morning. First hopping over to the shed and meandering around under there for a few minutes. The first time I actually watched him I thought he had left but he appeared from the other side of the shed a few minutes later. Then he continues on to the sandbox. Sometimes stopping to sniff the toys and nibble on the long grasses that stretch for sunlight from under the umbrella tree. He follows the border of the flower bed and rounds the patio, pausing at the strawberry bushes. There aren't even blooms there yet but I'm pretty sure he's trolling, just waiting for that first sweet blossom. Then he quickly slips back under the fence on the opposite side from where he came. I have my camera ready to snap a picture of him but I haven't been able to get a good shot of him yet. I'll keep trying.