Robins are nesting

... in my friend Marge's cherry tree. There is something magical about watching a bird sitting on a nest, tending those precious eggs.

I remember the little birds at my uncle's house in Tacoma, frantically, desperately trying to fight off the attacking crow. The tiny broken eggshells on the driveway below. We could just see their despair, their blind anger as they swooped and dove.

Mama robin sat there in the cherry tree on her perfect, round nest, not five feet from where I stood with a tray of violets ready to plant in the rose garden.

Three times since I've arrived in California earlier this week, I've seen deer wandering through people's gardens, eating the available, unprotected new shoots of anything they can reach. Even those plants that deer supposedly don't eat. Apparently the deer don't read the labels.

I've seen worms, the cutest little black ants, mosquitoes, giant greeny-silver bumblebees the size of table grapes, a wasp, ladybugs, a few spiders, and a caterpillar or two.

Grasses are bolting and wildflowers are going to seed--now's the time to get all that reproduction business over with, because the ground's moisture isn't going to last much longer! It's all dry and parched from here on out.