Fifteen years ago this was a corner lot with two trees and a lot of gravel. Today it's a half-acre of Pacific Northwest natives so dense you can't see the house from the street.

I got obsessive about it. Camas, red-flowering currant, Oregon grape, snowberry, a full understory. Then the birds came — and once the birds came, the yard got loud. Spring mornings out here are genuinely hard to sleep through, and I wouldn't change it.

People ask what my secret is. It's fifteen years and stubbornness. That's the whole thing.