“Never turn your back on the ocean,” we were warned as children.

Most people think of the “front” of their home as the side facing the street. What we call the front faces the Pacific Ocean. It is a beautiful view.

The hummingbird above—can you see her?—she has her back to me. I was fifty feet away when I shot this photo and she was at least 15 feet in the air, sipping nectar from a semi-tropical plant in the neighbor’s yard. Perhaps it is from New Zealand? The hummer was not alone. We counted at least four hummingbirds feeding a couple of days ago.

Just now, I spotted a hummer in our own garden, checking out the lavender and pale thyme, before settling to dine on the royal purple blossoms of our butterfly bush. The dark pink escalonia pulled her away for a few seconds, but then she was back hovering over the purple. We also have purple hebe, pink geraniums, glistening red-orange “Lucifer,” and white rugosa roses blooming.

In the front yard, the wild roses and ceanothus are done, the honeysuckle past its prime, but another pink rugosa hydrangeas are in full flower. The native salal, which flowers and fruits simultaneously, will feed bees with nectar and us with berries for months. Soon the montbrecia will begin opening while the salal and hydrangea go on to September.

She seems to have turned and looked at me in the photo above, but I was deliberately distant. I did not want to disturb her.

There is always something blooming in the garden.

This is a deliberate choice. Most of the garden is evergreen plants, shrubs and bulbs and other flowers were chosen each season to ensure we could feed local bees and birds throughout the year. Even in winter, we have blooms.

On the beach we also avoid disturbing the birds, though Gary and I both talk to the crows, and sometimes he pretends to want to pick up a seagull. Gary goes straight toward one saying, “Kitty, kitty, kitty.” The gull doesn’t mind him much, but walks away if he gets too close.

My strategy is different. I do not walk in the direction of gulls resting onshore, I do not look at them directly. They seem to understand that I have business of my own that does not involve them.

Yesterday morning an osprey was right out in front. Later one of the four eagles passed overhead. We saw a Cooper’s hawk just a few months ago when it rested on our garden gate. It’s leaving was too fast to see.

The ocean is always in front of our house. Before our house was here, there was spruce forest right down to the beach. Before that, the beach itself followed a different line. The water washes and washes the shore, sweeping up from its basalt basin onto the edge of the continent. It is not only water but the shore that moves. One day the Cascadia fault line will give way and a wave is likely to take not only our home but the land now under it. Everything I recognize as front or back of our house will vanish in an hour.

But the ocean? The ocean will remain. I expect the birds will too.

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