A weekend of gardening and birding

This weekend went by quickly.  It was nice and we took full advantage of it.

Saturday was the day for gardening.  We did more preparation work in our small backyard.  We're expanding our garden this year.  It's amazing how much a person can plant in a small space if done correctly.  What do you prefer to have? A lawn to mow every weekend or a vegetable garden for fresh produce?

This basket of vegetables is from our garden, but from a previous year.  We'd like to enjoy the same fresh and tasty vegetables this year too.

If seems like we got a head start this year.  The secret? We follow our own advice from our gardening blog.  Here is the post for you too gardening activities in winter.  It felt good to see the fruit tree nicely pruned, the tools ready and clean, vegetables already germinating from early seeding inside the house... you just need to read the article to see what I'm talking about.  Debbie came up with a new design idea for the enlarged garden.

After the gardening work on Saturday, we grilled and sat outside to enjoy the rest of the day.  Yes, we had a few well deserved drinks too...in moderation.   

Sunday.  Later on in the day, we went out to the Bond Swamp for a two-hour birdwatching. 
We love the Bond Swamp because it always so quiet out there.  As usual, we were the only people there, which is quite alright with us.  The birds were quite active.  We saw a good variety of Woodpeckers, from the Pileated to the Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers.  Also a fair amount of Song Birds.  We appreciated them all. 

Birding is such a relaxing hobby.  We love it, and we're getting better at it too.  I have an ebook on my outdoors blog to get anyone started in birdwatching.  You can check it out if you want.  It cost about the same as a 6-pack of beer (yes, I'm selling it), and here is the link: getting into birding.  Maybe we'll go out birding together one day...and you'll be prepared.

Back to the woods.  It was amazing to see how the trees started having buds, and some are having new leaves already.  We even saw a few butterflies.  I picked up a book at the book fair on butterflies this Friday for a dollar.  (There is a book fair once a year in Macon by the "friends of the library" where you can get books from 50 cents to a couple of dollars for most of the books).  Maybe I can identify these butterflies next time I see them.  They come to the gardens at the house too.  We'll see how that goes.

This is picture from the Bond Swamp, but from a previous visit.



Kelly came over in the afternoon and we set up on the back deck for some pleasant and relaxing time together.  It was simple but nice.  Debbie took some plants and flowers out of the sunroom to the deck, and we good some music going, some snacks, a card game... I wish you were closer, you could have joined us.

Did you watch the Oscars? Well, we watched most of it.  It was getting too long, as usual. 

Ok, that's it for now.  I hope your weekend was good too.