It’s another Monday, and I came in to work an hour late; because lately, it has just been too difficult to get up on Monday mornings. I’ve been getting up early on weekends, believe it or not, to take advantage of the early morning coolness and activity in the backyard. Simple pleasures, but something that my husband and I enjoy immensely. We take our cups of coffee out back, inspect the plants, then just relax while the weather is still cool and watch the various birds and butterflies that visit our garden go about their daily rituals. Right above the place I sit under a tree, there is a bird nest with two baby birds in it. We can hear them chirping for their mother to come back and bring them something to eat. Everyday, their voices get just a little stronger. One of these days, they will fly out of their little nest, and I’m hoping we will be sitting right under the tree when they do.

Speaking of mama birds feeding their young, I sure miss my young’uns. Apparently, they miss eating my grub too even though as Jade puts it, they haven’t been lacking on the 5 basic food goups: Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Mexican, and Italian. They went for a long drive up to northern California over the weekend to visit their great-aunt Gloria. They must have had a great time because I didn’t hear from them at all. I’m pretty sure their Auntie Sherry is making sure they are getting their dose of internationally balanced meals.

I have to say our lilies are were looking great this year. That is until the thunderstorm that came through a couple of days ago and knocked off some of the blooms. I’m glad I took this photo when I did.

Can you believe we brought these plants with us eleven years ago when we moved to Durham from Los Angeles? We had these growing around our house there, so we decided to bring a few plants with us to remember our old garden. My husband first had them in pots but they weren’t doing so well. We were down to three plants when he finally decided to put them in the backyard and see how they will fare. Lo and behold, they took off! We now have probably over a hundred plants and still growing every year. They provide color in the garden but they also serve as a privacy fence for us since they are so tall. They make a nice border to the garden, and a nice reminder to our old house.

In our kitchen:

In our backyard:

Doesn’t this picture go with my blog?

Green beans is what’s been popping up in our backyard lately, so what do you do when you have an abundance of green beans? Why eat them of course! Click here to see how we cooked these beauties.