Twenty-one years ago today, I celebrated my mother’s 82nd birthday with her and my father, at the house I had just gotten the keys to the day before. We ate cake sitting on folding chairs in the empty living room.

The huge yard was landscaped in the front, had an ivy covered western fence, and three large trees, two Modesto Ash, and one huge sycamore. The back yard had an orange tree and a peach tree along the back fence, while the ground was covered with Bermuda grass. I had visions of future grandchildren playing soccer or badminton out there.

Ten years later my three granddaughters lived in Camas, Washington, and I was getting rid of the Bermuda grass which was brown in the winter and sunburned in the summer. I bought a redwood tree for $5.99 at the grocery store and planted a small vegetable garden.

I didn’t make a plan for the garden, I just bought plants that looked interesting and stuck them here and there. In the winter ten years ago, I dug a narrow meandering stream and hauled two truck loads of river rock across town in my Chevy S-10 pickup, placing them in the stream bed one by one. The photo at the top of my website is from the following spring.

The house also came with a simple bird feeder hanging from a beam which is directly in front of my kitchen window. These days I hear bird song all day long even with the windows closed.

I’ve pretty much stopped buying plants. In the last three or four years, new plants just show up in the garden—some welcome, some not. I have not just planted a garden, I provide habitat for all manner of bugs, bees, praying mantis, dragonflies, at least seven species of butterflies, and unhappily, many squirrels.

The birds coming to the feeder are doves, juncos, chickadees, warblers, sparrows, and Scrub Jays, who scold me loudly if the feeder is empty. The mockingbirds think my strawberry patch belongs to them and take one bite out of the berry, while a squirrel calmly sits on the top of the fence, delicately holding a red strawberry in its paws, taking one small bite at time.

Other birds frequent my garden on their way north in the spring and going south in the fall. These are the robins who hang out for about two weeks, small yellow-green finches, and starlings who walk across my side yard like soldiers on parade looking for snails.

The Cedar Waxwings come through in February or March and clean off the pyracantha berries in two days. I often hear and spot the woodpecker drilling the big trees. I have a pair of Phoebes who nest under my eves. I love to watch the Swainson’s hawks soar and glide far over head, teaching their babies to fly.

The Anna’s hummingbird is mostly grey with a red triangle on its throat. They stay in the valley year round and I see them flying about every day. They work over a flower, ascend straight up, pause, then go to another plant. They make a clicking sound, so even if I don’t see them I know they are there.

I don’t know how many hummingbirds are in my yard, but there must be several. Some days I see one catching a drink from the spray in my fountain. In the winter when only the sage is blooming, it seems as if, when a hummer sees me it will fly over near me, and hover until I say hello.

Late one afternoon last week, I went out to pick the first of the blackberries. As I stepped into the bed, a hummingbird landed on the top rail of the tomato cage I use to support the berry branches. I stopped moving and the bird looked at me, first just facing me straight on, but then turned and cocked its head first with one eye and then the other, back and forth, checking me out. It opened its beak and stuck out its long tongue. Eye to eye we were for the longest time until the bird rose up and headed for a bright red flower several feet away.

I am so blessed.