Wednesday 16 July 2008

Simple pleasures: Gardening


One of my favourite ways to spend a fine summer's day is to putter away in my garden. Pruning, transplanting, mulching, weeding, seeding.. it's all good. I spent a good bit of today playing in my garden, catching up on some neglected bits.

Mow a little. Pull a few weeds. Sit in the shade for a bit and sip a cool drink. Transplant a heliopsis. Mow a bit more. Prune a bush. Sit in the shade for a bit and watch the birds. Repeat all day or until the weather forces you indoors. The perfect way to spend a day!

My garden has quite a variety of visitors these days... mourning doves, robins, goldfinches, chickadees, a pair of cardinals, chipping sparrows, the occasional bluejay or raven to break the peace. Chipmunks chase one another, as do the big grey squirrels. I see groundhogs squeeze their way under my back gate from time to time, but luckily no skunks. The raccoons treat my compost box like a salad bar at night... sample the bits they want and leave the rest behind (the lemon rinds, however, get strewn across the yard for some distance).

The starlings and grackles were very quick to pop onto the lawn after I mowed it today. They really seem to love the freshly mown grass. Some of them were displaying behaviour I had never observed before... sitting down and spreading their wings wide to absorb as much sun as possible.

The weather for tomorrow looks to be reasonable... another reason to create a perfect day!

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