The Learning Umbrella

The weather out here in the Great Northwest can be a little odd at times. Last week I was exploring snow with Carbon, today I was out in the sun planting the last of my bulbs in the ground. I know it's late - what can I say? Better late than never? They'll still come up, just maybe a bit late. We put in more tulips, daffodils, irises, crocuses, and anemones. We also planted something weird - a cyclamen bulb. It looks like a giant mushroom top, and the directions said to plant it "smooth side down" which looked upside down to me. That's going to be interesting, if it survives.
In other yard news, the blue jay continues to come to Carbon's bird feeder. He's a very aggressive fellow, and I think he's keeping all the other birds away. Carbon really enjoys watching him, though. I've put a whole bunch of books about birds and bird watching on hold from the library, so we should be getting those soon.
And this morning my husband, Noel, was discussing his plans for our front yard again. This year he's really become interested in gardening with native plants, and he's been reading all he can find about it. A side effect of that is that he's becoming good at identifying our native plants, and he can p0int things out when we go on family nature walks. Another side effect is that he's going to design some features of the landscaping to attract little animals and birds, which will be great for Carbon to see. This type of gardening seems like a great educational activity! Winter is the right time to transplant stuff, so he's been bringing salvaged plants home and arranging them. Carbon keeps talking about ferns, because that's what we've planted recently.
There's so much to learn and do right outside your door!