Wednesday was full of randomness, although it wasn’t all gardening. A little bird watching, a little gardening, and a little bit of house stuff all rolled together to make a Wednesday.
The day started with a trip to the home improvement store. Not for gardening stuff this time but for painting materials. A bathroom in our house needs redone so I ventured out to find what we needed. Fortunately the garden center area wasn’t stocked yet and the temptation to add more plants to the garden was not there.
Later in the day I went out exploring the garden in the 30 degree weather. And I found this:
The hyacinths are rising! Already. It seems very early to me but the weather has been much warmer this year and it makes sense. I looked back at a blog post from 2009 and saw that the last week of January was the hyacinths were beginning to emerge. The daffodils were sending up buds too. I hope this early growth doesn’t carry over to the fruit trees or we may finds ourselves lacking in local fruit this year.
Before my daughter got home from school my neighbor’s daughter stopped by to ask a question. She wanted to know if I would mind if she kept a bee hive in their back yard which is adjacent to ours. I thought about it for a second, my only real concern being that my kids wouldn’t wander too close and said sure. It will be a benefit to my garden to have a happy hive of honey makers nearby. We garden organically here so there will be no risk to the hive from us and with bees becoming threatened by stuff like colony collapse disorder anything we can do to support them is a good thing! And maybe if the bees do well we’ll get some extremely local honey!
Then my kids and I drove to grandma’s house. I had a meeting to go to (which I’ll mention in a moment) and grandma was going to watch the kids for me. Along the way I had to make a stop. I’ve been saying for a couple years now that I need to stop by the lake in our community and take a picture of the heron. Wednesday was that day! I’m pretty pleased with the pictures I managed to take of the blue heron.
I know some of you pond gardeners may not be fans of the heron, with their great appetite for your fish, but they are some very majestic birds. Their size and their graceful flight have always captivated me. Truly majestic!
I think photos taken in water situations always look pretty cool when the reflections are in the just the right place.
Earlier I mentioned a meeting I was on my way to, what was it you may be wondering? Myself and two other people have decided to start the first Spring Hill Children’s Garden! Right alongside the children’s garden will be a community garden where citizens of Spring Hill can come and plant their gardens for 2012. This definitely looks to be one of my bigger projects and I’m really hoping that it goes over well in our community. If you have ever put together or worked on either a children’s garden or a community garden and you have some ideas or tips to share please let me know! This will be our first attempt and any insight that will help us find success is welcome!
There’s more Seed Sowing 101 to come on Monday – Tomorrow will be another Friday Five Post!
We have Blue Heron in the lake and they are quite the squawkers. I do love how they glide through the water, looking for a meal. They are so graceful, but oh…when they fly!! Prehistoric dinosaur time!
I think the bee hive would be a great addition to your area.
We have a quite a few herons in the area and always see them taking dips in the creeks and streams around. Very cool birds!
I'm curious what honey from my garden will taste like…
These pictures are awesome! I am reading your posts with a mix of jealousy and nostalgy. I moved from Texas to Brazil and I miss my old garden, the trips to home improvement stores (temptations and all), the cold (few days of snow that I loved) and the Winter time, planning and dreaming of new projects.
Great pics of the heron indeed. I have one that frequents that back natural pond and I so enjoy watching it. Like you said though-not in my soon to be pond.
I'm not surprised you are starting a children's garden. You're a natural. Have fun and keep us all posted on its progress.
My mom worked with teachers in my elementary school many, many, moons ago on environmental programs – some of which included gardening. What I remember her saying is that some of the kids (even the special ed kids) liked to get their hands dirty, and really took ownership of the things they planted, and would check on their plants daily at recess. If you're going to be helping the kids at all, I think putting names on plant tags would be a cool idea. Also having a rain gauge around helps then understand why plants grow and when they need to water. My only other thought is to let them put rulers behind their seeds so they can see or measure the progress.
The more things are "changing" in the garden the more they will want to come back, and greater sense of accomplishment they will feel. If you're starting from seed, it helps to have something to keep them interested in the first few weeks 🙂
Good Luck and Happy Gardening!
Hi, I have written a book on Gardening for Butterflies, Bees and other beneficial insects, based in the UK where I live, but am now adapting it to North America for My-garden-school.com courses. You don't have to have stinging honeybees near your kids in order to have pollinators! there are hundreds of other species of wild bees, that don't sting and don't get the varoa mite; these are what we should be encouraging with the right plants and habitat.
Could you tell me where this lake is?
Sarah-Marie,
That lake is in my neighborhood here in Spring Hill, TN. The herons fly all over the place and are a common sight! Beautiful birds aren't they?