Back in the days of the neat and tidy garden

I was looking through old photographs from 1999 which I have on CD's before the days of my digital camera. I got the prints with a CD and it occurred to me it might be fun to put some of the old photographs on my new computer. I love my secret garden and the privacy that comes with it but I'd forgotten how productive my old farming garden was. A totally different style garden than what I have now. I still grow vegetables but nothing like the quantity I did at one point. I can almost taste those cateloupes. Amazing to have more canteloupes than my daughter and I could eat. Particularly considering that we can both eat a lot. The other one I recall with wonder are the corn rows when they were filled with silver queen. This is the first year I didn't have a corn crop but it's been awhile since the rows were all planted with it. I had flowers too but the fresh produce was pretty over the top for a small family. Of course I gave a lot away which was part of the fun of it and I froze a lot. I need to plant lettuce this fall at the very least. I had a pretty good lettuce crop this spring until it got so hot and fried everything. I'm adjusting to my new meds okay. Definitely better this afternoon. I was so zoned out earlier I didn't know how I'd function but I have shown some improvement as the day has gone on. That's all I want at this point, improvement. Looking at the photograph that shows the hummingbird feeder reminds me of the days when I had to fight the bees to change it. No more. I have a ton of hummingbirds but they seem perfectly happy with the lantana, puple coneflower, and other plants. Much easier to grow flowers for them than to change the feeder.
Pretty much like that with all the birds. I used to spend almost as much money on bird food as people food and not just in the winter. I still have about the same number of birds but they make do with what I grow. I stopped feeding the birds with store bought food because of the neighborhood cats. If you feed the animals, you feed the animals. I know the cats need to eat too but I don't have to make the birds such easy targets. However, it doesn't seem to make much difference whether I put out store bought bird food or not. As long as the birds come, the cats come. At least the cats stay home when the weather is bad which is the one time I do help the birds along. I have even walked home from the grocery store with a 20 pound bag of bird seed in the sleet and snow. Do I sound like an old codger or what. At least I'm a well meaning old codger.