It's 10 C this morning, 15 March 2025; spring is here and winter has come to end. This was a winter we are happy to see the end of, very cold, a lot of snow, and hard on all of us. Right now the garden doesn’t look like much, it's still winter, it's still covered with snow, but soon it will be green and full of flowers, birds will be at the bird bath, life will return to life.
22 July 2024. There is a feeling of peace sitting in the garden. Well, that should be obvious, I guess . . . but it isn't. Here we sit with the comings and goings of insects, butterflies, and birds, here we sit on a summer day, mid-afternoon, our presence isn't needed, the insects, butterflies, and birds have work to do. Now honey bees visit the garden, you didn't see many of them a few years ago. If the climate is changing, and it seems to be, then let it stop at this. We never had snails before, up to last week we had many snails. And cardinals are now seen and heard everyday, even in winter we have cardinals, and they were few and far between just a few years ago. Now I hear and see them everyday; what happened? On the news it is said that they are plentiful (while other birds are diminishing in number) because there are so many bird feeders in Montreal. Really? I wonder. Let's not spoil things with politics, even though it's difficult not to drop a few comments, but if you want peace, turn off the radio, turn off the TV, leave your IPhone in a drawer, be with nature.
This is the best year for the garden! It has taken time, six? seven? years to become established; some things take time and you just have to be patient. I can see how I could have sped things up; for instance, instead of planting a few cone flowers each year and waiting for them to spread, I could have bought five or six, or more, and this would have made the garden fuller, more established, sooner rather than taking so many years. But live and learn, and learning by oneself is without the input of other people. I love to walk or sit in the garden, surrounded by flowers and bushes, and the insects and butterflies are plentiful; I think to myself that I have made this a home, or a place to visit, for them. Every day I see birds visiting the bird bath and this brings me a lot of happiness, I don't get in their way, I stay quiet, I observe them from the dining room window, and I think to myself that I have made this a place they can visit. If you make your garden a place where insects, butterflies, and birds want to visit then they will come; a barren yard, just grass, isn't all that inviting for them. A barren yard, just grass, needs a few flowers to make it inviting; a garden is almost like a room in one's home, it is an extension of one's home.
