Bunnies snack on the leaves of my rudbeckia out front, but not enough to do any damage. The plants are still full, and the bright yellow flowers still bloom.

Out back is a different story. Out back, the five rudbeckia I planted at the beginning of my sabbatical are mowed to the ground; a few gnawed stems and a couple strips of leaf remain. There are no yellow flowers with black centers in sight.

When my friend Jessica visited last week, we spent a lot of time together watching the happenings in the back garden. In the mornings we’d see four deer — a doe, two speckled fawns, and a young buck with fuzzy antlers. The doe grazed at the platform feeder filled with seed for the birds, and the young buck looked right into my eyes as he bit a broad leaf off a hosta. He looked right into my eyes as he chewed it, then bit another leaf off.

When we ate inside, my friend and sat on the same side of the table so we could face the glass door and look out. We watched the cardinals and finches at the feeder. We laughed when the squirrel took his turn, and we’d get up to open the door to scare him off, and he’d leap to the nearby tree branch with all four legs spread like he was doing a belly flop, desperate to catch the leafy branch rather than fall to the far away ground.

When we were outside on the deck, we sat at the tall table so we could look out over the railing. We watched chipmunks dash, and hummingbirds drink. We watched bees bumble and bunnies nibble.

One day, we looked out and saw the tops of the echinacea swaying and shaking at the back of the patch. The plants are filled in with leaves now, so the creature rummaging around in there had good cover. We couldn’t see it to identify it. We had no idea what this animal could be — bunnies and chipmunks don’t create such a ruckus. I thought the only things eating my garden were the deer and the rabbits. This obviously wasn’t a deer, and if it was a rabbit, it was a mighty big one. We watched as the swaying moved towards the edge of the patch. I saw a patch of brown bristly fur on a substantial body. “Is it a raccoon?!” Then, a round brown groundhog emerged, pawing the echinacea stems to the ground, stripping leaves off, eating as it went.

“Eeeeeee! It’s so cute!!! Look how fat!”

We watched the groundhog decimate my echinacea plants, then squealed as it waddled off — faster than you’d expect! — fat rolling, its blubbery body low to the ground as it ran up the hill.

The garden has grown quite a bit since I finished mulching at the beginning of my sabbatical. Now the animals are mowing it back down. I’m not sure what all will survive them grazing at the buffet I’ve created, but I am certainly entertained by the tableau.

After almost four weeks of being on the go, I’m back home and can rest. I wrapped up work, the garden is mulched, I visited my besties in Utah, and we’ve moved our daughter home after her first year of college.

Now, I sit in my favorite chair by our living room window with a cat on my lap and my coffee by my side. Birds twitter in the darkness outside our open windows, and I eagerly await the sunrise. Yesterday, after being in the desert for a week, I savored the wet dew and the profusion of emerald all around me: green mountains, green leaves on trees, green grass. After a landscape of red dust, hard rock, and a scarcity of life, the landscape of home quenches a thirst I didn’t know I had. Here in Appalachia, the world explodes with life. All these lush green plants, making food and beauty from light and water, then feeding the buzzing bees, the chirping birds, the crickets, deer, bunnies, chipmunks, squirrels, beetles, and me.

Because of my trip to Utah, and to Florida to pick up our daughter from her dorm, I wasn’t able to put plants in the ground after I finished mulching the garden a couple of weeks ago. That changed this weekend. I overspent my garden budget in two large trips to the nursery, and am giddy to say that the flower beds out back are finished. Well, finished as much as a garden is ever finished, which is never, but they are finished for now.

One section of the back garden has become shaded by our growing oak tree, which has presented a challenge in recent years, as the sun-loving flowers I originally put in no longer thrived. This year, I tried some new plants I’ve never planted before, including begonias. I’ve always loved begonias — they look like little roses, their foliage is a deep, luscious green, and I could not resist the buttery yellow of the flowers. I bought yellow petunias to match, purple columbine, and a variety pack of coleus for foliage.

I ate lunch on the back deck to admire my work yesterday. When I’m inside, I find myself standing at the back window just to look at it and imagine what it will look like when the plants have grown and established themselves. I think it will fill in nicely over the next few weeks, and I am eager to watch the green grow, the flowers bloom, and to welcome butterflies and hummingbirds later in the summer.

Today will bring another trip to the nursery, this time for the front flower boxes. Once those are filled, the garden will be mostly done, other than weeding and other maintenance. I can’t wait to be able to relax outside in it with my book, my coffee, my sketchpad, or maybe even just my eyes and ears.