I Love the Outdoors!

I love the outdoors. To me, that is the next best thing to heaven. No place else can I feel as close to my Lord as I do when I am either in the woods, or playing in the dirt in my garden. And I try to respect nature and help it when I can. I don’t let my hubby take down all the dead trees in our woods. We need to leave some for the birds and other creatures that live there. In that way I am respecting nature.

By helping nature, we feed the birds and whatever other creatures happen to come into our yard. We also try to put back whatever we have taken. We have planted several trees on our property. And we have also tried to prevent some trees from dying, by cutting any vines that happen to be growing up them. That alone is no small task. In our woods we have wild grape, poison ivy and oak, honey suckle, and several others I have not identified as of yet. Some of the vines are bigger around than my fist!

In my flower beds I try to plant things that are non evasive and that all winged creatures like to eat or suck the nectar out of. I even have broken pots for frogs and other insects to hide or nest in. Not all my plants get dead-headed in the fall either. That way the birds that stay here year round will have some seeds to eat when we don’t get to the feeders as fast as they thing we should. It can be very entertaining to watch a bird land on the dead flower and it slowly droop to the ground.

I also have a lot of birdhouses all over the yard and even into the woods. Most of them were unfinished wood birdhouses that I painted and some are store bought. I have a lot of fun buying the unfinished ones and doing them myself. It is a great way to pass the winter months when I can’t go outside because of the weather. I have downloaded some plans so that hopefully the hubby and I can build some birdhouses in the spring. The internet has also provided me with ideas on using everyday “trash” and turning it into birdhouses. It should be fun to try doing it, and it is recycling.

Yesterday afternoon my hubby hung up my newest store bought birdhouse. It looks like an old canteen! And this morning while I was eating my breakfast, I was watching Mr. Wren inspect it. I am sure it passed his inspection because I latter watched him take some dried grass and small twigs into it. Now I can’t wait for spring to arrive and eggs to be laid in it. The activity of the wrens is fascinating to watch. For some reason our wrens prefer the southwestern side of our house. While the sparrows like the northeastern side. But I have seen them living in houses next to each other in the southeastern side of the yard. Go figure.