I've spent the last four days watching the many birds who fly through our suburban backyard. Two years ago two of the neighbors behind us cut down their large trees and another neighbor followed suit this past summer. I was afraid that was the end of the birds in our yard.

At the same time, we've been doing a lot of planting. We put in the rain garden with lots of native plants and perennial flowers, the herb garden and built out our food forest and a pond.

How long has humankind spent trying to control and manipulate nature? I like to think I am learning to live more in tune with nature but I'm discovering how far I have to go.

Last summer we had a bee swarm fly through our yard. I had already been thinking I would love to have some kind of hive in our yard for pollination purposes and for honey. So, last fall I took a class on beekeeping and we started researching beehives. We stumbled on Warre' hives and decided to build one. My other half not only built one, but actually built four.

I spent the afternoon in the greenhouse making some changes to our aquaponics system. When we initially setup the system, we put two beds above the others. These beds were dedicated to raising duckweed and are setup to be a constant height of water with no other media in the bed. We have had to clean the beds several times since water comes in directly from the fish tank and then settles out in the bed leaving a lot of fish waste in the bottom of the tank. We also have a fingerling tank that is fed directly from the main fish tank and has similar issues.

I sit this morning watching a hummingbird in the bed just off the patio. Last year at this time, I was working madly to create a food forest.

I've worked hard over the past couple of weeks to pull weeds, tie up sprawling plants and create some sense of order in the garden. There seems to be this fine line I'm walking. On the one hand, the goal is to create a food forest that is also welcoming to wildlife. On the other hand, I have a lot of years of garden perfection to overcome. I've seldom gotten the yard perfect but it's always been the goal. Now, my goals have changed and I'm challenged to let go of the perfection.

The rewards are many. I've seen hummingbirds and dragonflies in colors I've never seen before.

The water in our aquaponics system has been warming over the last few weeks as spring finally set in. Every few days I look into the water to see if there is any sign of tilapia fry in the tank and this morning, there were. I madly scrambled around and created a home for them. I made a square out of PVC tubing and elbows so it would float and then put that around a pond plant pot to secure the fry from the big bad adults in the system.

I spent this past weekend visiting my Mother and daughter. The last morning the three of us enjoyed a walk through my Mother's garden. She has almost a half an acre of yard, part in a small orchard and the rest in lush gardens.

Last spring, my Mother decided she could no longer maintain her small garden pond. With the help of friends and some family members, they emptied the pond and pulled out the liner and other associated parts.

I've been cleaning up the garden for spring. I decided last fall to leave the last of the spent perennials to overwinter for the insects and birds. As a result, we've had lots of birds all winter. Now it's time to clean it up. My goal this year is to start sheet composting in all of my garden beds. With sheet composting, the debris is placed back on the garden where it falls with the possible addition of other organic matter throughout the year.

I took a walk around the yard today. We live in the Pacific Northwest and our normal winter is lots of rain and some occasional freezes. This winter, we got 14 inches of snow and a cold snap that lasted for almost two weeks. The snow is all melted now and the weather has returned to a more "normal" level but now the garden looks sad.

Aquaponics peppers

I spent the day in the greenhouse yesterday, cleaning up the aquaponics system. It is amazing to have plants growing lushly in November and finding lots of ripe peppers and tomatoes. They do seem to love the environment in there.