being not doing

The front daylily bed, exploding with growth.
Aster at the end of the front bed, looking like it might actually get bushy this year.
It’s been raining! This is a good thing, both for the new shrubs and the region as a whole. Coming from farmland, I’m always appreciative of the rain, but this year […]

This past weekend we took advantage of nice weather and an unscheduled day to drive to the wildlife refuge at Bombay Hook in search of new shorebirds. Shorebirds are the other glaring weak spot in my birding — warblers being the first — and I’ve vowed that this year I will improve my skills. […]

In order to try to catch sight of some of the migrating warblers coming through this area, I visited Lake Artemesia at what seemed like an unreasonably early — and cold! — hour this morning: 7:00am. When I first arrived, only the larger birds were active: Cardinals, Blue Jays, Robins, Mockingbirds, and Starlings were […]

Grape hyacinth in the front lawn.
One of the nicer aspects of restoring order to our neglected yard has been discovering new plants as we weed and mulch parts of the garden that had been completely overgrown by liriope and ivy. I’ve spoken about the appearance of new clumps of bulbs along the side beds, […]

This week has been rainy and I’ve focused on killing unwanted yard invaders. Chickweed is sprouting like crazy all over the town, spurred on by last year’s drought, and I’ve tried to clear the larger patches of it from the front yard. I’ve also tried to catch the dandelions before they go to […]

Since getting the car last week I’ve taken two trips up to the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge to walk the trails and look for birds. Last Monday’s visit was on a rainy day, so I didn’t expect to see much. Not much is still something at a place like Patuxent, though, and the very […]