Prime Real Estate

Baby Gardener and his mother Beautiful Sister-in-Law came for a visit Sunday.  When he and his mother came around the corner of the house to find me in the back yard, his eyes grew bright and his grin wide.  He has never been to my house since he was six weeks old and other than his parents I might be his favorite person in the world.

"This is where I live, Boo, welcome!"

He was quickly swiveling his head around trying to take it all in at once.  Almost like this was a very elaborate hide and peek game.  So this is where she is when she is not with me!  You could see the thoughts processing.  How did I get here?

Boo loves birds.  While he was here there was a very frenetic, swooping aerial flight between two male robins with the entire back yard as battle field.  SIL thought the three of us might end up collateral damage, it was that quickly wide-ranging.

"Prime real estate," she said.

She was referring to my alley way shrub and tree border hedge; lots of composted material, large enough trees for nesting, an apple, cherry, and a pear tree, open soil in the potager, and a bird bath.  For me there are eight shrubs and trees that flower, a burning bush, and two variegated shrubs, a couple evergreens.  A lot crammed into a sixty feet by eight feet wide area.  I remarked it wasn't doing a good job screening this year because nothing has budded up and leafed out yet.

"Then why not a fence?" she inquired.

Yes, the privacy would be good, but zoning dictates it be nine feet in from the alley way.  This in effect would lose me nearly a quarter the width of my back yard. And, it could only be six feet high.  Almost everything in the hedge is six to eight feet high at least and the narrow spruce in the back corner are easily 25' tall.

And I wouldn't have quite so much bird song in the spring, or bird battles.

Prime real estate, indeed!