A New Year

I'm guessing that most of the bloggers on the planet have engaged in some sort of New Year musings today, so here's my contribution. Our last few social gatherings have featured people's thoughts about what we want more of in 2012, and a constant theme is making more time for the things important to us. In terms of our mini-wildlife refuge here in 1950's suburbia, this means giving myself time each day to pay attention to what's going on outside. Today, for instance, we were busy getting ready for a social gathering (and then of course enjoying the gathering), so I didn't spend any appreciable time outdoors, though I did manage to notice a squirrel cleaning up the tray feeder on the ground and two blue jays calling back and forth.

While I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions (being too undisciplined to remember them for more than a few days, let alone keep them), I do have a few goals for Little Ranch on the Prairie (or what passes for prairie in West Virginia).

• Actually start the seeds I collected from our plants. We have seeds for three species of native grass, butterfly milkweed, rudbeckia, silphium, echinacea, physostegia, and various asters sealed in envelopes, just waiting to be planted. Yesterday I actually ordered the Bio-Domes I've coveted for years, so these little seeds will have a place to start before moving to their eventual homes in a few months.
• Put up the bluebird house a friend made for us for Christmas.
• Find ways to get the pileated woodpecker to visit us again. I saw the gorgeous creature one afternoon in late 2009 and keep hoping it will return.
• Get rid of more turfgrass in the front yard. We have a sandy, sunny area between the house and the street that right now is covered in bermuda grass, possibly my least favorite of all plants. This would be a nice place for a wildflower garden as the guest room window looks right out onto it. Surely the neighbors wouldn't mind a little bluestem and daisy meadow in place of bermuda grass that turns brown in the winter and whenever there's a drought?