Go Watch Birds

My mother-in-law is embarking on a project that many people do not do so late in life. She is getting ready to purchase her first home. The good part about waiting so long is that she is going to be able to take advantage of the first time buyers tax credit the government is currently offering. The house she is considering buying is a bank owned property. The house has been vacant for a while and the water has been turned off to the house. The only living things on the property are two established trees, one in the front and one in the back. The rest is dirt.

The reactions that I have seen from the empty yard remind me of a story. The story is the one about the two shoe salesman visiting a far away land. The first salesman shows up to the first remote village in the country. The weather in the country is such that the people are able to walk around without any shoes. Dejected, the salesman calls back to the head office of the shoe company and complains, “I am heading home.  There exists not opportunity here, the population does not ware any shoes”. The second salesman shows up to the same village. After noticing the same condition as the first salesman makes the call to the company headquarters.  The second salesman excitedly reports that he needs as much inventory as they can spare “because the people are not waring any shoes!”.

So the garden is an empty slate.  The house my wife and I purchased before starting our family had a similar condition. The front was landscaped.  The back was not. There was literally nothing. It was completely empty. We had a landscape architect draw up plans and we implemented them ourselves. It is a great feeling and sense of accomplishment to do the landscaping of your garden.

I plan to help Donna design and layout the back yard garden. We are going to put in a solar bird bath in the new flower bed along the north side of the home. We will put a hanging bird bath in the existing tree in the back yard. We want to attract humming birds so we will be planting brightly color flowering plants throughout the garden. Several hummingbird feeders will be strategically placed throughout both the front and back yard.

I hope Donna takes the approach of the second salesman and is optimistic about the opportunities afforded by the blank slate that is her new garden.

Filed under: Backyard Decorating, Bird Baths, Bird Houses, Solar on August 11th, 2009