A Little Backyard Haven: Finding Joy in Flowers, Wildlife, and Simple Moments There is something peaceful about stepping into your own backyard and realizing that you have created a place where life feels welcome. Our backyard is not a perfectly manicured garden. It is something much more special to me—a little haven filled with flowers, wildlife, quiet moments, and reminders that beauty often comes from the care we give to the things around us. Almost every day, I'm outside watering, pruning, checking on my plants, and yes, even talking to them. Some people may laugh at that, but I believe plants respond to the love and attention we give them. Gardening has become one of the simple pleasures that brings me peace and helps me slow down and appreciate the little things. Recently, I spent some time enjoying the visitors and blooms that have made our backyard such a special place. A Bumble Bee’s Visit to the Pansies One of my favorite recent visitors was a little bumble bee that dec...

First Sign of Spring It's just past mid-February and a black-capped Carolina chickadee has been visiting our backyard. They have been absent all winter. So, today , I'm excited to announce that spring is around the corner. I haven't seen the groundhogs in the neighbors' yard to ask them, but the chickadee sighting and the fact that it was chasing one of our male cardinals means the mating season (a.k.a spring) is on its way, and the smaller chickadee is trying to clear the backyard for his mate and their spring arrivals. Silly bird. I guess he hasn't heard that we welcome all birds.  image courtesy of  Meagan-Joy Huggard via Unsplash Bird Lovers What about you? Are your spring and summer avian visitors starting to arrive? Is there more chirping in your backyard? If so, go take a peek and see which ones have made an early arrival. Since more cold weather may be around a bit longer, and there may be a lack of food preferences for another month or so, place some fruit...

This summer, I increased the numbers of containers and the types of things I'm growing, as you saw in my previous backyard post  in April. It has been very relaxing to watch everything grow. Lots of my flowers had to be moved into larger pots, which I also purchased from the Dollar Tree .  We have already eaten several of the tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. The corn is just now starting to come onto the stalks.  We have also had lots of our normal backyard visitors. And a few new ones! First, is the Great Spangled Fritillary that visits the butterfly bush and occasionally the roses. This is the first time I have seen one of these. Next, everyone's favorite backyard visitor and pollinator - the adored honeybee. I actually hadn't seen a honeybee in our yard for a few years, so I hope this is a sign that their population is recovering. Next is the tiger bee fly that had landed on one of the gnome's beard. New to our backyard. It is about three times larger than the housefly ...

This morning, I have been embracing gratitude and thankfulness as I reflect on all that God does for my family and me. That's how I reset my emotions when they go off the scale. And now, I'm feeling much calmer and less anxious and ready for the day.  One of His sweet creatures visited our deck yesterday afternoon. God's sweetest creations like this grey squirrel bring me so much joy and calm me down. Thankfully, I didn't scare this little squirrel when I pulled back the curtain to check the rain gage.  The bluebirds must have eggs in the birdhouse now, because the male chased the squirrel under the deck, perhaps thinking he could be a predator. Then he took to his "throne" on the shepherds hook that will eventually hold one of the hummingbird feeders later this month, watching out for other "predators" that may come along.  In an earlier post this month, I had mentioned that we had either a bumble bee or carpenter bee visiting our deck, looking for...

Recently The weather was warm and dry enough last week to get outside and start some yard work . So, I wanted to drop in with some pictures of my early progress.  Our crepe Myrtle bush has progressively accumulated quite a bit of this fungus on the bark over the last few years. I thought that the fungus, along with the mowers weed eating all of its new branches at the ground level, and its roots being exposed where they weed eat so deeply and form a "bowl" in the dirt was making it difficult to get new growth. So, I brushed off all the fungus and filled the "bowl" area with new dirt. Silly me forgot to show the new dirt in this picture. You can see the new dirt in this picture though. I also put up a small protective fence around the bush to remind the mowers to not weed eat around my crepe Myrtle! I may try to find some trim that will hold in some rocks or other mulch to better protect it later on. The rose bushes are already putting out new leaves! We had quite a ...

It has been several years since the last time we bought bird food for our backyard cuties. Mainly because when the squirrels, pigeons, grackles and other blackbirds discovered the food, they would wipe out the feeders in a days' time - or less. The songbirds we were trying to attract worked well until the bullies and gluttons showed up. At that point, it became quite an expensive hobby to feed animals we didn't want to attract. So, we would take the feeders down for a week or 2 hoping the other animals would lose interest. But it would take only a day or 2 for them to discover the feeders once more when we would hang them again. So, we finally threw the feeders away. We don't have all the nuisance birds in our backyard anymore, but also, our songbird population has dropped off. Very sad trade off. Since this winter has been a bit colder than the last few winters, though, we decided to buy some bird food that had a good variety of sunflower seeds and other seeds as well as ...