My Mother has a big garden at her house. She lives outside the city where there are golf courses, cows, deer and horses. In her garden there are a lot of bugs, birds, flowers and vegetables. She has some trees of course. One of my favourites is the tulip tree. Eash Spring it gets big white and pink flowers.

I like to watch the bugs in the garden. There are so many different kinds, doing so many different things. Some bugs just eat everything. We don't like those ones. I've seen a couple of caterpillars eat every last leaf off a rose bush. There are bugs that eat other bugs. Spiders, ladybugs, praying mantis and some kind of wasp which I don't remember the name of. I like the ladybugs best. The red and black colours are dramatic looking. Ladybugs will suddenly fly away just when you think they might crawl all the way up your arm. Probably someone told them that old rhyme about their house being on fire.

Birds of all kinds come around too. They never stay very close if anyone is outside. From inside, at the window, you can watch them in the bird bath or bird feeders. They peck in the garden for bugs. I'm sure there are always plenty to find. My Mother's garden gets a lot of hummingbirds. I don't know how they manage to always be in flight when they are so very small. I watch them hovering around the flowers, looking for nectar. Its rare that they land anywhere to take a break. When I watch them its almost always a red or pink flower they poke their beak into. I think they don't eat bugs because they don't have time to chew before they are off again. Being a hummingbird would not be an easy job.

At night I know there are bats too. Its really unusual to see them. Bats are great bug catchers, they have all the night bugs. There are all kinds of bugs out at night which you wouldn't see in the day. It seems to me that most of the night bugs can fly. June bugs are the biggest and they like to fly around where there is some light. I've seen a whole flock of them at the back door. I was hoping to see some bats snacking on them, but I missed them if they were there. Bats have a bad reputation, its not fair. In movies and TV they have made bats seem scary. If you see a bat you can be sure it would rather munch on a bug than on you. Its not likely you will ever see a bat, unless its in a zoo or museum, bats spend most of their time hidden away.

There are other animals around the garden. Rabbits, mice, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, chipmunks, groundhogs, sometimes a deer or fox will appear but they always run away when they see us. Stray cats make us feel sad. Most of them have too many babies. The mother cats are always hungry. There are too many cats for us to help them all. Grandma isn't sure she wants a cat around her garden. Cats keep away some of the rodents but they also keep away most of the birds too. Birds seem to know which houses and gardens cats live in. I'd miss the birds if they stopped coming to the garden. Also, there would be a lot more bugs around and its no fun squishing them all with my fingers. I think its pretty icky.