Berries

June 2007

While waiting for more members to arrive for a meeting at a friend's place, the hostess ushered us to their yard with a berry garden - strawberries and raspberries.

Amazed and excited, we picked as much as we could, enjoyed eating while picking for some more. Under the heat of the June sun, these berries were glowing red.

They're sweet and juicy, purely organic, handpicked and nutritious. I thought, why not grow berries in the backyard, it's a low maintenance and healthy lifestyle.

Circle Of Life

May 2007

While walking along the cemented walkpath, Dennis noticed on the right side a round shallow miniature excavation of the garden soil that was previously covered with mulch in the midst of the flowering plants by the garage wall. It's springtime. The perennial plants that were planted the previous year had started to grow young green leaves from their stems.

As he inspected the two-inch deep and twelve-inch diameter miniature excavation, there were a few fluffy brownish feathers around it. He grew up with a lot of nature trips and explorations in his hometown, so without a doubt, he knew that there's a kind of bird that would make a nest in that prepared place. What could it be, we didn't have any idea.

Since then, it was an everyday routine for us to check that place, and everyday, too, there was always something done ... dried leaves and grasses filled that small place, and later, it looked more of a nest already. One early morning, we got the first glimpse of the mother duck sitting on the nest. It's a Mallard kind of duck. Its dull brown feathers looked like the color of the surrounding mulch - perfect camouflage.

As if its eyes were connected with ours, we understood the situation and gave her some privacy. We moved away, only checking the place from afar.
Usually, the mother duck would leave the nest, probably to search for food, late in the morning when the sun's rays would warm the area. As this resident had become a part of our daily lives, we made sure her nest was well-protected. First, we saw two white eggs, then four, then six, perfectly arranged side by side covered with nature's best insulation and cushion.

Then later, the mother duck, we noticed, was laying longer than before and more used to our presence, not moving or appearing scared as we passed by. Day and night, she was there, incubating the eggs, like a woman, who, in her middle and late stages of pregnancy would allow nature to take its course, and wait for the perfect time for her young to see the world.

Meanwhile, like the animals enjoying the warmer climate, so were the people coming out from their own hibernation during the winter season. Exploring the outside of the house, the deck on the back always had birds landing on the rails, but unusually, this one bird kept encircling the whole area and appeared to be on the lookout for something. A couple of years ago, we found a nest that was placed on the structure that supported the deck and under the deck floors. What a great surprise, we found again a nest in the same spot with four light blue eggs. It's my first time to see such naturally colored eggs. But my nature instructor warned me to avoid touching the nest, otherwise, the mother bird, a robin, would not come back and attend to her eggs. Okay...back to the front yard.

For the update, we counted a total of 12 eggs in the Mallard duck's nest. Wow! it was already about three weeks since we first noticed the nest. If the eggs would hatch in the fourth week, then we would miss the dramatic moment, the hatching of the eggs, and eventually, the walking of her ducklings to the water.

We were planning for a long weekend getaway. After six days of being away, we expected the ducks to have left. To our surprise, we saw the mother duck on the same spot where we used to see her when we came back.
She's still there! But our presence made her aggressive, her feathers raised and encircled and protected the ducklings under her. We couldn't even come close to it to take a picture. The next day, the new family of ducks had fled, leaving the place with their fluffy feathers.

"We are all part of the journey of life, the circle of seasons, the unending miracle of this world." - Marjolein Bastin