It’s a quiet, warm Sunday night and we are relaxing in front of the television when I look out the back glass door and find our new neighbor peeking back at us.We jump up and take a closer look and find a juvenile Great Plains Rat Snake has moved into a little crevice underneath the door sill. What an excellent neighbor. Rat snakes are non-venomous and feed mainly on rodents and birds.

I could be mistaken but it almost looks like he’s already enjoyed some dinner as there seems to be a slight bulge in his belly.

Great Plains Rat Snakes are usually found in forests, rocky hillsides, rural and residential areas and under man-made debris/objects. As I take some picture he starts to climb up the wall (they are excellent climbers) and then seems to change his mind and slither back underneath the door sill. I will have to put the local lizard population on alert since they do enjoy eating those too.

It’s a dew covered Lamb’s Ear. It really loved the mild winder and has made a pretty impressive display for early spring.I love the way the little hairs on it’s leaves trap the dew.Meanwhile in the back field the Monarchs are enjoying the blooming Verbena. A Syrphid fly on a grass stalk. While the adults usually feed on nectar, the larvae of this fly feed on aphids. An excellent beneficial insect!

After some very windy days here, today is just beautiful. The garden seems to agree. The recent 3 inches of rain helped out too!

A passion vine looking beautiful!

Even though we had several inches of rain that has helped all the wildflowers and trees make a spectacular appearance this year, the lakes are still very low at 48% of capacity. This is very concerning going into the hot summer months, so I hope we receive more drenching rains before the heat of summer sets in.

I worked hard over the last 3 days getting my back garden mulched, composted and fertilized. And I’m still not done! Here is a before and after picture. The before is from a year ago when it still was in planning phase and we’d had a dry winter.

Backyard Garden - After - March 2012.

Backyard Garden - planning phase March 2011

Looking back I am amazed at how many obstacles I had to deal with building this garden: Drought, grubs, and crappy soil (my own fault – I won’t ever skimp on soil again!). I remember being worried about the stone wall being so white. Hah! No issue there – the stone naturally got browner. The picture from a year ago shows how dry everything was. We’ve been having to mow the grass every week for the last 3 weeks! Everything is beautifully green. Thank you Rain!!

This early warm weather has all the plants really busting out!

Even the snails are out and about…..

Texas Betony making a wonderful spring display.

And Blackfoot Daisy didn’t really get hurt by the short bouts of frost at all.

A newly planted Four Nerve Daisy already putting on a little show.

When I moved here a year and a half ago I had no idea that I had a Mexican Plum tree (Prunus mexicana) on my land. Until today that is, when I went for a walk to the Eastern Bluebird nest box to check up on it and found this lovely beauty in all it’s glory.

The fragrance was overpowering. What a glorious find!

There was a Monarch Butterfly fluttering around, but sadly it did not want to stay still for me to catch a good picture of it.

The wildflowers (Verbena) were out and about as well. A whole field of color.

And as I was making my way back to take a peek in the Bluebird nest box I find a lovely surprise…Mommy Bluebird had laid 2 lovely blue little eggs in the new nest. I wish them all the best in raising their new brood. I have seen both mom and dad fiercely defending their nest from House sparrows. So far they are doing a great job. I have registered this nest online with the nestwatch.org database run by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I sure hope they do well.