SPRING WISHES

See that little purple flower on the left? Well if you look closely, you will see a little hummer with his whole head in the flower just sucking away on the nectar of the plant.

I don't know what the flower is called, am sure Kelly will give me the name when she reads this, but what ever it is, my little hummers just love it. So when I buy my hanging baskets in the spring, I make sure that the flowers will attract and feed the little beasts.

Hummingbirds are describes as the only bird who always appears to be pissed off at the world. They take on crows for goodness sake! They can also be really noisey and when the male decides he wants to take over a feeder, he is fierce in protecting it. I sometimes, because I am bigger will remove the feeder for a few days and move it to another location to really tic him off.

The females will share with other females, no problem and when they are bringing their young to the feeders will even share the same holes with them. One can always tell the young as they are a bit clumsy when approaching and will sometimes end up a bit upside down as they have a wonky landing.

Usually at the cottage they arrive, if the weather has been warm, by May 8th, which is our anniversary and usually just a few days into moving in, so our dinner is always simple of hotdogs and beans, as that was all we had that first year of being there at that time. Traditions die hard!
I do add the salads and wine though and as we wait for the little critters to appear.


The photo on the left wasn't taken by me, but appeared in Cottage Life a couple of years ago and when I saw this, I thought I had to have the flower. Echineca, oh well I have that already in a few colours to enhance the bed. But because I have the bee balm, they don't go there that often.

In the spring when the birds arrive, the will also eat the little spiders. I didn't know this till I saw it last year. We learn all the time the connection between the hummers and the spiders as the hummers use the spider threads to make their nests. By the way the size of an egg is about the size of a pea. There are lots of sites on the web to have a look at them because what I know about this little bird is about the size of a pea!

In the summer, when the females are nesting, we only see them at dawn and dusk mainly to feed like crazy and back to their nests. When it's very hot, I water the flowers and make sure the water sprinkles the hemlock which is where hummers like to sit and watch and when I water they will go crazy bathing. The actually try to turn themselves upside down! So funny.


I am still in a bit of a funk about quilting....It may be because I really need to finish that quilt I started and move on. My sweetie is off to Martinsville, Virginia for the Nascar race this weekend and he leaves this afternoon. Maybe I will get sewing when I am on my own.

Being Canadian, I cannot but talk of the weather here in Ontario. It's about 50 degrees today and it was great walking the dog this morning. But I was thinking of Manitoba and North Dakota having to endure the flooding and watching the areas affected struggle to contain water makes me think that when people come together for a common cause....well they can do anything.