It’s springtime in Alabama!  It’s a very exciting time for people like us who spend most of our time in the backyard.

We have a Boston fern that we’ve named Big Bertha.  She’s lived here for several years, and she’s big.  Really big.  We keep her in the basement under grow lights during the winter, then bring her out in the spring and hang her up on the porch.  Two years ago, a pair of small birds took up residence in Bertha.  It was a tragic story, and I won’t go into it again, but you can look back on this blog and read about it here, here, here, and here.  It’s time to get her out and ready for the next set of residents, and hopefully they’ll have better luck than last year’s family.

Meanwhile, the first hummingbirds are arriving, so it’s time to get those feeders cleaned and filled with hummingbird go-juice.  Hummingbirds are a treat to watch as they fly around trying to chase each other away from the food.  It’s a good thing they don’t have machine guns mounted on their backs or tiny missiles under their wings!

And I had a first sighting of the groundhog that lives under our tool shed.  Gary has been spotted in my vegetable garden a time or two, but not often.  Mostly he’s seen crossing the road.  Why does he cross the road?  Is he competing with a chicken?  We think he has a girlfriend, and he goes to visit now and then.  Maybe one day I’ll ask him.  Does Google have an English to Groundhog translator?

Yes, it’s springtime in Alabama.  Maybe I should start on those winter chores I’ve been putting off.

–mike–