Birds sighted in the garden this morning: our usual group of grackles and a handful of starlings.

And yesterday a neighbor sighted a pair of great horned owls just a few streets over from our place. Here’s a photo of one of the birds, courtesy of Victor Engel.

Our Christmas cactus is blooming for the first time. It got the dormant period it needed to bloom totally by neglect; I left it outside on the front porch during the cold weather, and I forgot to water it.

I want to turn my yard into a garden.

My husband and I bought our house last May, just a couple of months before we were married and our son was born. Our yard is mostly grass, but it has an incredible energy to it that we immediately fell in love with the first time we saw the property. When we moved in, I was very pregnant, so I didn’t spend much time in the yard last summer. Then our son Ben was born, and I spent last fall in new parent la-la land, so I didn’t get anything done then, either.

But now it’s time to start digging (up the grass). To take stock of what’s already here:

In the front we’ve inherited some pittosporum shrubs, a nandina, some kind of palm, and two big, old live oaks. Not long after we moved in one of the main branches on the larger of the two oaks split, so we’ve had some significant work done on that tree. That’s a sad story of unscrupulous tree trimmers that I’ll save for another day.

In the back we’ve inherited a clementine tree, an apple tree, several fig trees, a couple of (I think?) kumquat trees, and a pecan tree. There are some roses growing out in the middle of the yard, and a couple of agaves planted in the corners.

There are already some beautiful plants here, and there’s plenty of Space. I can’t wait to get started.