When we come down the stairs in the morning, we are able to look directly out into the front gardens from the front door. Years ago my husband had inserted a double-glazed window into the front door, and he had also installed a fully-glazed storm door over the front door. Enabling us the freedom to look out whenever we like without opening either of the doors.

In the winter months we can glance out the front doors and see the snow come tumbling down. From our dining room windows, we can also look out over another portion of the gardens.

We can assess how much wind there is by observing the action of the wind on the trees we had long ago planted astride the walkway to our front door, and the large pine standing directly before the house.

And at this time of year when the trees are in their flowering mode, we can stand before the door to watch another kind of motion taking place around the trees in bloom.

Bees head directly to the huge magenta blossoms of the magnolia, and those abundant white flowers that exuberantly cover the Sargenti crab trees. When the Japanese quince blossoms fully open a trifle later, the bees will migrate there, too.

As for other action that really excites us; we are visited year after year by hummingbirds whose iridescent green bodies glint in the sun, while their frantic wing-flaps stir the hanging branches of the caragana trees, both the upright and the pendulous, with their spring embarrassment of minuscule, irresistible-to-hummingbirds, yellow blooms.