My backyard

Sunday went as I had planned, the weather cooperated and I was able to spend most of the day doing yard work. My main objective was to get my vegetable garden ready for planting. Last year I made a 8'x32' raised bed vegetable garden with the last 4'x8' a strawberry patch, the garden worked out great and Jenn and I had fresh veggies for most of the summer into the fall. Today I started with hand tilling the garden and then planting the cool season crops: spinach, carrots, onions and brochholi. The warmer season peppers, tomatoes, okra and sqaush will come after the 1st of may.
I also was able to trim back all the dead scrub from my three native gardens. I started native gardening about 3 years ago with help from the MO dept of conservation's http://www.grownative.org/ website.
Like alot of people I have a crappy 1/3 acre suburban yard, I have striven to make it an outdoor haven since I moved in. It has been going well with my objective to block out as much of the neighbor's houses and street noise with native shrubs and bushes. The native yard work has worked great as a wildlife haven. We have been able to get over 50 species of bird's in our yard and keep adding new ones every year, this might not seem that great but my subdivision started out as a cow pasture with no habitat or trees. Our best birds have been: Harris' sparrows (one even a male in breeding plumage), Savannah Sparrows, Blue Grossbeaks, Rose-Breasted Grossbeaks, Indigo Buntings and Goldend-Crowned Kinglet. It is actually quite a sight during the spring and summer as you drive down the street, when you get to my house there is usually a swarm of outdoor activity from bugs to birds. I have on multiple occasions seen neighbors walking down the sidewalk to watch the hummingbirds fight around our bushes and feeders. Annually we have a nesting pair of American robins in the front yard and another in the back, each time using the same place for their nests. We also have barn swallows that have nested 4 years running on the floodlights over my driveway, I can't wait but these guys should be home soon. The last two years we have had a pair of house finches in the evergreen bush outside my bedroom window. Last year we finally had blue birds nest in my first prarie garden until a house wren took over and predated their nest. She then used it for herself.
It is one of our joys to sit on the deck and see the multitude of activity in our yard while drinking a glass of wine or beer. Like alot of people we have several rabbits in our yard, these guys tormented our gardens, then it seemed to die down. One night Jenn and i saw a fox run by the yard, only moments later to return carrying a rabbit in its mouth. Right on, fight nature with nature.
Spring is my favorite time of year, I get to hear our resident male cardinal calling for mates each morning and the robins foraging in our mulch for worms. The ruby throated hummers are on there way, put your feeders up now. According to the migration map the scouts are probably here passing through to their northern territories. Remember to not use storebought nectar, make your own using a 4:1 ratio of water to sugar; you don't need red colored nectar to attract hummers and the dye is not natural and doesn't do them any good. Check the migration map on: http://www.hummingbirds.net/map.html. We don't have the right yard for it but if you are interested in attracting purple martins check out their migration map here: http://purplemartin.org/scoutreport/.