Catching Up!

It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog and so I came in this morning and made lots of changes!  I changed the entire look of the blog and am taking the focus off of just pictures!  The name has been changed from Bev's Photo Shots to Birds, Blooms and Bugs because I want to feature and talk about my garden and how life has changed after 20+ years with an urban yard 70' x 140' to a country yard sooooo much bigger.  We have almost three acres and of course we have our house, my garden shed and my husband's very large "Man Land" building taking up space, but believe me that leaves lots more yard to fill.

Even though we are in the country, we have neighbors and live in a neighborhood od.  When we moved out here the neighbors seemed so far away, but now they seem close and I wish I had more land, but as my husband reminds me, we're not getting any younger and more land, just mean more work!  So what's a girl to do?  Plant and plant and plant!

Back in 2010 when we had first moved in I posted pictures of our property and my feeble attempts to garden!  I was overwhelmed, some days I still am, but I'm getting better and I have to tell you adding a fence made a big difference. We put in a three rail white fence this spring and it defined our property.  At least I could see boundaries, instead of everything just flowing all the way to the next house.  Now in the city we all had these big 7' privacy fences and couldn't see into the next yard, but out here most yards have no fence at all and so there were no visible boundary lines. I would never want those big tall wooden fences again, but I do like the definition of space.

The first year we were here we put in a white picket fence to define an immediate back yard and a place for our little dog, Jack Daniel, to have a place to run and play.  In the fall of 2010 I put in a small areas of cabbage and brussel sprouts and we really enjoyed these winter, early spring veggies.  Last year I didn't plant a fall garden, but we were still picking tomatoes all the way to Christmas!  Needless to say we live in a warmer climate. Winter 2010-11 we had below freeing temps for many days and even had snow!  My winter crops did great.  This last winter we had one or two nights that we had some frost and that was it!  So this year we're going to build some raised beds using the "square foot gardening" technique and will be ready for a fall and winter garden.  While my garden this year has been limited to a few tomato plants (most of which came up from fallen seed) and a cantaloupe plant that came up from fallen seed and some chives that survived the winter and are back!  Oh, and in the spring I had cilantro plants by the million, could never have rated all that came up and now I have millions of coriander seeds.  Isn't that just a mystery how it's cilantro when it's a plant and coriander when it's seed!  What is that all about?  Anyway, it self sows and just like basil I have it growing everywhere!

This blog will cover everything I enjoy about living in the country - the animals I pass as I drive to town, the flowers that come up in the fields, my own beds, birds, blossoms, bugs and soooo much more.  When we get rain in the winter we get beautiful wildflowers in the spring.  I want to share my experiences with anyone interested in gardens and nature and how God is in all of the details!  I have always loved nature, God's amazing creation, but out here it has become even more real with the new born calves and horses in the fields as we drive by, the birds being hatched on my back porch, just outside my kitchen window and bugs and butterflies galore.