Meadowlarks are a wonderful compliment to nature on the high plains. They serenade. They build wonderful hidden nests on the ground. They walk around the lawn much as robins do on a quest for food. As pleasant as they are, they are not the only birds of the high plains. I would guess that there are more bird species in the wooded areas than on the high plains, but there is an amazing variety here.

If you are a waterfowl hunter, you might first notice the large resident and migratory geese population. There are many other waterfowl that visit or reside at the many lakes and reservoirs. Numerous types of duck such as mallards, red heads and teal are here at least part of the year. Many shore birds such as killdeer and avocets live near the lakes as well. In the spring, the seagulls are very noticeable as they flying screaming overhead. Yes, seagulls live far inland and forage in farm fields as well as at the waterside. They are so common inland that perhaps their name should just be "gulls" to avoid the confusion. Another bird associated with large open water, the white pelican lives here as well. They prefer the larger reservoirs and can sometimes be seen riding thermals or winging in formation. It is hard to realize how large they are just seeing them in the air. Their wingspan is about 9 feet!

The high plains have a full compliment of icterids, the blackbird family. Besides common blackbirds, there are marsh loving redwings, the less common yellow heads and an occasional bob-o-link. We also have crows and in the mountains, ravens.

Robins are quite common both on the plains and the mountains. The jay family is also well represented. The blue jays seem to visit me spring and fall but nest elsewhere. In the mountains the gray jay (camp robber) and Steller’s jay are common.

We also have many raptors, bald and golden eagles and numerous hawks, owls and ospreys. Small animals beware!

Some of the less common types seen on the high plains include woodpeckers, finches and hummingbirds. Less common means that you can see them fairly easily but may not see them everyday. Flycatchers are another bird that is around seasonally. In the case of my lawn, they are here to nest and then visit sporadically during the late summer. Swallows are also rather seasonal in appearance. Many can be seen during mosquito season but they are less noticeable later.

One of the loveliest birds to make a seasonal appearance is the mountain bluebird. Some springs they hang out on the high plains and foothills and other years they are not to be found.

Will all of this variety, what is the Colorado state bird? It is the lark bunting. They really are lovely to see and to hear. In fact I wish that I could say that I see and hear them more often. They are not endangered but like many of the other mentioned species, they are not in the same place every year so are not seen frequently.

When we returned from our adventure in the Everglades, the first hummer of the season greeted me as the tiny avian helicopter swooped past the patio glass doors.  I put out the first hummingbird feeder with trepidation of last year’s hummer summer.  For those involved, this innocent act might be perceived as a declaration of war.

As always last year’s nectar was a dinner invitation to the hummers we fed from year to year.  And that invitation was accepted but not by the guests we intended.

In less than an hour, my pear shaped feeder swarmed with armies of black ants.  Their voracious appetites were second only to their territorial fierceness. An entire battalion stationed themselves at the base of the feeder and made their presence known. Not certain what to do, I pulled out books and finally Googled to find the answer.

While contemplating my ant problem, the bees attacked.  I was waiting for the red-jeweled avian to feast at my red festooned feeder.  The tiny green male made a valiant effort.  He bobbed and weaved, retreated and managed to spear an oncoming yellow jacket with his maneuvers.  Alas, the yellow jackets and black Army ants prevailed, and with helicopter speed, he zipped into the unknown. 

War was on.  I determined to save face and refused humiliation by an insect army.  Much to my husband’s dismay, I plunked down $30 plus tax for a hummingbird feeder complete with an ant moat.  According to the side panel, ants can’t cross the moat filled with water and feed on the hummingbird elixir.

It is plain that whoever invented this expensive gizmo hadn’t met my Robo ants.  Not only can they swim, but the gigantic carpenter ants among them merely stepped across the moat.  When I complained to the manufacturer, customer service recommended filling the moat with soap bubbles.  Back to the nature store, where after spending another $20 I floated my hummingbird feeder on a sea of non-toxic soap bubbles. 

“Just let them top that!” I sneered.  The next time I glanced at the feeder, the ant engineers had constructed an oak leaf bridge for their horde to stroll across.  One of the soldier ants floated across on a dead comrade.  And still the black menace gorges sweet nectar meant for my hummers.  As a last resort, I took down the feeder hoping that the ant pests would torment someone else. That was the first skirmish.

I waited a week before hanging the hummingbird feeder for the second time. The ants had given up getting anymore nectar from me and moved on.  However, a local squirrel adopted us and made it his personal quest to hang upside down and rob the wild bird food.  Using the hummer feeder as a trapeze, he managed to spill most of the sugar water in his aerialist attempts.  But nevertheless glutted himself on birdseed, corn, and peanuts while washing it down with any remaining liquid in the  hummingbird feeder.

I figured if my hummers happened to return, the bionic squirrel would send them straight to therapy.  All the while, the slap happy rodent has managed to chase off all the cardinals, chickadees, and blue jays.

I moved the feeders higher then lower.  I rotated them. I greased the chain with shortening.  I hung shiny aluminum pie pans and even used noisemakers. No luck.  The Incredible Stanley, as I now called him, was messing with me. For the entire summer, no hummer dined at my feeder and no cardinal perched on the birdhouse.

I reflected on the past months. Spring was spent fighting ants of all varieties: black, red, and carpenter.   After the Ant War came the Intrepid Stanley who raided the bird feeder regularly.  I got so used to him, my husband often photographed Stanley upside down, stretching between the feeders, and once inside a birdhouse. 

One day I noticed that Stanley had mysteriously disappeared.  It was then I spied a red tail hawk as he swooped down over our patio. I feared for Stanley, a weird attachment I admit.

Once again my patio is quiet.  I actually miss the Ant Wars,  being buzzed, and Stanley the daredevil who finally left after the hawk scare plus losing a skirmish with a raccoon.  Now only the hawk reigns supreme.  My own little wild kingdom.  That’s cool as long as there’s no skunks.

When Dad milked in the old milk barn he fed cotton seeds hulls, molasses and cotton seed meal. The barn was a stanchion type with sixteen cows on each side and a trough in front of the head locks and a walkway in front of the trough.  The cotton seeds were stored in a side room on each side, and we would carry a big scoop down the walk and drop in front of each head lock. That would be followed by a small hand scoop of cotton seed meal followed by the molasses over and around the mound. The molasses was kept in a metal 50 gallon barrel stored laying down on the foundation remains of an old milk truck shed. The barrel was in full sun and during 100 degree weather would get very hot and the contents expand almost to the point of exploding. It didn’t have a spout on it so it was opened by un-screwing the small cap in the lid. When the last bit of thread lost its grip, the molasses would shoot out like a rocket. 

One nice hot humid summer day, this two year old decided that she wanted to help pour the molasses from the barrel.  My uncle kept telling me to move out of the way, but Miss Smarty Britches wouldn’t listen and kept telling him to let me do it, and I got a bath when the plug was removed from the barrel. Dad brought me back to the house and had a good laugh, telling Mom to take me down to the cows and let Francis (my pet cow) lick me off. Mom was extremely upset as she had just given me a bath and had me smelling so nice, and now I reeked of the odor of burnt molasses.  It took her five wash changes to get all of the molasses off of me and out of my hair.   

The hummingbird migration is almost complete. This weekend I had one straggler at my feeders. In a day or so she should be moving on. A hint of fall is in the air. The leaves are starting to show their autumn colors. With the lack of rain trees are quickly loosing their leaves. However, the apple trees are confused with the crazy weather we had and are in an spring bloom. The last of the daylilies are finishing their re-bloom. Cone flowers and blanket flowers are still blooming strong. The sedums are showing their red signaling that fall is almost here.  

    
Rose 

    
 Blanket flower  

I had a beautiful couple of weekends and spent the time moving iris and daylilies out of and into my Deshler High and Auburn sections. During Auburn’s games I listened to the game on my head phones while working and recorded it on my DVR for later viewing. I moved orange daylilies into my Auburn section along the driveway. I now have Tuscawilla Tigress, Bold Tiger and All American Tiger daylilies in my Auburn University section. Putting a deep red one called Scary Mary (name is the reason I got it) and a double red called Fires of Fuji in my Deshler section on the opposite side of the driveway. Now I need to mulch everything before the rain comes back. I still have a lot of potted plants to get into the ground before my knee surgery.  

     
Clematis Carnaby  

    
Charming Ethel Smith daylily  

    
Cradle Song daylily  

In my Born in the USA section, I have American Revolution, Empire Strikes Back, Forty Second Street, Sticky Fingers, American Bicentennial, Pearl Island, Shortening Bread, All American Chief, Making Double Time, and America’s Most Wanted daylilies; Millennium Falcon, Starship Enterprise and Jitterbug iris; Mount Saint Helens Azalea; and Cheatin Heart hosta. 

    
Mangus cone 

Blackie had major surgery last Wednesday and had four large stones that looked like the smooth brown river rocks removed from her bladder. I’ve been told that a lot are the result of poor quality dog food and biscuits. She was two years old when I rescued her, and I think she had the stones when I got her as she has gotten a good quality Purina Pro Plan food since she arrived. Thinking back, I noticed her squatting a lot after I got her, but she also loves to drink and play in water, so I didn’t realize there was a problem until it got much worse.    

While sitting in the vets waiting room with Blackie, I read a poster listing poisonous foods for dogs found in the kitchen such as grapes, chocolate, yeast dough, diet sweeteners and caffeine. After leaving her there for AM surgery, I came home and made a cup of coffee and took it outside and laid it on the folded up ladder I have attached to the tailgate. It makes it much easier to crawl into and out of the back of the truck when the tailgate is down. I left my coffee and went around the house to the flower bed I was working on. After the first wave of mosquito attacks, I turned around and went back to the garage. Levi shot out of the back of my truck like he’d been shot out of a cannon which was very usual for him. Usually he jumps in the back when I’m near the truck so he can get some love without the girls interfering. When I check my coffee, half of it was gone. First thought was of the poison poster I saw at the office and coffee was on the list. Next was the bill I’ll be getting with Blackie’s surgery, and now I have a poisoned dog.  Thirdly I got to wondering how many other times he had jumped in the truck and drank some of my coffee and I didn’t notice it and finished drinking it. Lucy after being kissed by Snoopy came into mind. Luckily, I like a little coffee with my milk, so he didn’t get too much caffeine, it fact it didn’t phase him, rather he snoozed all afternoon. 

     
Blackie enjoying her pool 

 The two days she was gone was like a morgue around here. The other two hooligans moped around and wouldn’t play. They kept smelling Blackie's collar in the garage and looking upset. I got her home Thursday afternoon, and by Saturday she had Levi running for dear life around and around the house barn and garden as she chased him. Things were back to normal; well ... maybe abnormal.

It’s been a long hot spring & summer, actually no spring at all. We went from unusual snowy winter to summer.  A couple of weekends ago, temperatures were near one hundred degrees and two days later, it was in the mid seventies.  It was a record low high for the date.  The following couple of cool days signaled the start of hummingbird migration back to Mexico.  Each year it seems like I have more hummingbirds than the year before, and this year I’ve hit the big time.  I haven’t been able to keep my feeders full.  (Have I told you not to use the red dye commercial stuff?  It’s not good for them.)  When I take down an empty feeder, the ruby-throated will swarm around the empty ant moat and hanger just flying around and around looking for the feeder.  When I walk back with a full feeder, I’m being buzzed, and they are feeding before I can get it hung back up.  I have a couple of videos of the migrants at my feeder for your pleasure.  One was taken about a foot away.  

The other video is from a few feet away so you can see how many are in the area around the feeder.

Daylily Condilla  

Daylily My Ways  

Daylily Powerful Praise  

Since my knee blow out accident, the beds which weren’t mulched yet have been an ugly, embarrassing and overgrown mess, especially after a couple of seven plus inches rain spells. The wet weather has raised a hungry horde of mosquitoes that seem attracted to every repellent out there.  We haven’t found anything to scare them off.  I read some where that Vicks Vapor Rub was a good repellent.  It worked for about five minutes, and then the attack began.  With the excess rain, fire ant mounds are everywhere. I’ve gone through several bags of grits in order to control them. Small mounds don’t take long to eliminate, but the larger mounds with several queens take several feeding to control.    

The Pittosporium shrubs that the so-called landscaper I hired a couple of years ago planted are not cold hardy enough for this area, so I’m replacing shrubs for the third time along the front and west end of the house.  This weekend I worked along the driveway beds.  It looks like I have enough piled up on the driveway to make one large bale of hay.  The beds that I hired some one to clean and mulch back in the spring looks just as bad as or worse than the ones not cleaned.  And I didn’t have to worry about loosing over two hundred dollars in plants in the beds not touched.  With the rain and cooler weather I have some re-blooming daylilies in bloom. 

    .

A big mess ready to go to compost pile 

 While working, I noticed a truck stopping at the three way stop at the bridge sitting a while and then going up the dirt road which would be the fourth leg of the intersection.  We have a lot of trouble with parkers met labs, and dumping of trash and animals on the road.   I heard them go down the road a piece and turn around and stop just before getting back to the intersection.  I walked down the road and saw one guy standing behind the truck and yelled at him that he better not be dumping. He looked startled and got into the passenger side and the driver pulled into the intersection. I held up my cell phone like I was taking his picture and he said that “we ain’t doing nothing Mamm, we were just taking a leak”.  I hope he was far enough away to miss my red face as I told him that it was okay to do that.   I told him we had a lot of trouble with dumpers and wanted to make sure he wasn’t dumping trash or dogs. 

Back to my yard work, I took the John Deere and tiller through an area between my place and the dry creek where I had burned up rooted trees and brush.  I found a few surprises. One was a large leg bone that I was 99.9% sure wasn’t human and a part from old farm equipment or wagon.  Just to be sure I took the bone to work and showed it to one of our Pathologist and told him I thought it was from a cow, but before disposing of it wanted to be sure. He confirmed it wasn’t human.  The hooligans have been dragging it around and chewing on it. The metal thing looks like it might be a step up on a wagon maybe? It has a hole drilled into each end. I figured if anyone would know what it was would be a Grit reader.   

What is it? view 1 

What is it view 2.  

By the end of a long hot day weeding and being hit with reflected heat off of the brick of the house, I was ripe. So ripe a buzzard flew down within inches of the ground, flew back up and came around and swooped down within inches of the ground again and flew off.  The hooligans were ready and went on the chase the second pass the buzzard did and scared it off.   The hooligans are good for something every once in a while. 

Some of my water hoses are in bad shape, so when I saw that one of the discount warehouses had some industrial made in the USA on close out, I couldn’t pass up a chance to replace a couple. I have one of those fancy Ram’s with a remote start and when I can back out my truck was sitting there locked and running. Oh course the AC was also running full blast.  While going in I had put the keys in my front pocket, and didn’t like how I had it bunched up and pulled it out of my pocket and must have pushed the remote start button a couple of times.  I pushed the unlock button on the remote, got in and I’m sitting there wondering now what? Finally I stuck what they call a key in the little slot for the chip and turned it to accessory but I couldn’t shift it. I finally turned it to the start position and was able to put it in drive.  I wonder how many people went by and tried to turn it off, or get in and take off with it? 

Blackie is still on Uroeze for her bladder stones, but looks like she is headed for surgery to remove them.  She feels a lot better and Levi and the mice are getting the brunt of her energy. She drug up a large field rat and left me a present of it at the end of the driveway.   

I finished the historical calendar and note cards for Tuscumbia and have them at the printers. They will be sold at a local incubator called Fiddledee D ran by the down town retail woman’s group and will help promote retail development.  The note cards were supposed to be ready three weeks ago for Fourth Thursday last week and still aren’t ready.  One set of cards is all Helen Keller’s birthplace and the other two sets are historical homes in the area. Hopefully they will be a hit and I’ll do a series of our big snow we had in January for Christmas. 

The weather here has been hot, hot and humid. We’ve had 6 months of summer this year, no spring. Rain comes in spurts of 3 or 4 inches in hours which don’t stay around to soak in and takes off with the mulch cover.

Since I’ve been digging, dividing and moving plants around I’ve ignored my other flower beds and the grass and weeds have taken over to the point I’m embarrassed for anyone to see my garden.

On the flip side our sunrises and sunsets and full moons have been spectacular. Thursday night one of my co-workers left me a message on Facebook that I needed to take a picture of the beautiful moon we had that night. I came out my front door and tried to walk down the sidewalk to the driveway. Between the weeds and the volunteer Profusion zinnias which seem to be hugging the edge of the walk instead of in the flower bed, I needed a machete to hack my way through. It was that bad. As I propped my camera up on top of the compost bin, I heard a low growl coming from under a Japanese maple at the corner of the house. Levi of all hooligans was growling at me, but he was too lazy to get up and check out the intruder. Bravery at a safe distance is his forte.

Saturday the mess to the front door had to be tackled. I parked the tractor near by and worked all day on the beds taking several breaks to get water and cool off. As I would haul a load down to the compost pile, I would take the long way around to and from the pile and my bagged pine bark and mow grass along the way. After about five trips I had the lower forty mowed. I put newspaper down around a new red Pygmy dogwood on the other side of the steps and mulched until I ran out of bags. Saturday I’ll pick up a truck load and finish. A couple of days later while watering my dogwood, I noticed some of newspapers were pulled out from under the mulch. I wondered …… the hooligans had struck again (at this point I was going to show the mess they had made, but I decided to put in another hummingbird picture at the end). They've been so busy chasing field mice in the garden around the greenhouse, I'm having trouble getting them to come and eat. I need to go and find out how many daylilies I have left or if I still have the siding on the greenhouse.

Sunday I took Mom on a small river boat luncheon trip for her birthday. Normally the Pickwick Belle is at Florence Harbor, but this month is in Decatur. Mom didn’t enjoy this trip as much as leaving from Florence as Decatur has the boat going by a lot of the industrial parts of the Tennessee River instead of undeveloped.

The next Tuesday I took a vacation day, slept late and missed WAAY televisions station showing my hummingbird video from my last Grit post on the early morning news program. Breakfast caught me sitting under the pergola watching hummingbirds while I ate.

Since I’m allergic to dew covered Bermuda grass, I headed to the barn after it burned off. When I purchased my John Deere 3032E tractor I purchased a quick hitch with it. After struggling trying to get the tiller on my old Yanmar I thought it would be a good idea. One thing I’ve found out is that the connection system for equipment is not standardized, everything has a different setup. The 5 foot Big Bee mower has a floppy connection on the part that attaches to the adjustable bar on the back of the tractor and would slip off the hook on the quick hitch. I have a short chain tying it down to a side bar on the mower. If you change from the mower to the tiller, you have to lower the hook thingy on the hitch from the highest setting down to the lowest setting. If I could find manual for my tractor, I could give you the name of the parts. I really like my tractor, but have two issues with it. As much as you pay for a tractor, you’d think John Deere could give you a manual on CD or let you down load it from their website w/o charging you. The second is that PTO thingy on the back of the tractor that the PTO shaft from equipment attaches to (note to JD, my tiller manufacture e-mailed me a copy of my manual) cannot be turned while trying to attach the shaft. My old tractor had a hole that I could insert a screwdriver in and turn the PTO thingy so you could easily attach the shaft.

I finally got everything hooked up by turning the tiller blades and checking the PTO shaft. Except one little problem, I couldn’t get the 3 point hitch pins to go down so the quick hitch would lock, so I started bouncing it lightly and it didn’t drop down. I bounced it down harder a couple of more times and the tiller completely bounced off of the hitch and landed front side down on the ground. Now what? I thought. Then I thought times like this I needed Dad and then it hit me that it’s been 15 years on this date he passed due to his smoking and I started crying. Finally I told myself that crying is not going to solve my problem, so I turned the tractor around and placed the loader under one of the pins and up righted it. No problem mondo and without a scratch on the tiller. After lowering the hook down to the lowest position I got everything hooked up and locked down and started digging my overgrown garden.

 Black and yellow argiope

After I finished digging I picked a few Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes and. The Yellow Brandywine tomato seeds turned out to be some sort of a large cherry tomato. I e-mailed customer service at the seed company and so far they are ignoring me. I’m going to send them a picture next and have them define what a Yellow Brandywine tomato looks like. You spend weeks growing the seeds and taking care of the plants only to get marbles instead of something big enough to cover a slice of bread. How can you make a good mater sandwiches out of marbles? BTW, I use honey mustard salad dressing instead of mayo and a little garlic salt on my sandwiches.

I decided to check on my watermelon patch. A month ago I had softball size melons and today I couldn’t find a trace of the vines or melons. The area is grassless and only contained this tall weed that looked like a sticker weed without the stickers. I found a huge Black and Yellow Argiope spider with a locust and a grasshopper in these tall weeds. The next day I again looked for my watermelon patch, nothing, my patch had been stolen, no melons, no vines. After all I have a picture of one of my little melons to prove it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. It was in a low area and several inches of rain in a few days must have washed it away.

Since the ground is as hard as a brick, I decided to water some of my daylilies that are the wrong color for my Auburn University orange & blue section by the mail box so I could dig and move them. Much to my surprise there was one of my missing watermelons and it had doubled in size. Imagine that. Now I have to worry about the mail lady or late night parkers getting it.

The garden area has gotten so overgrown since my knee injury and the over bearing hot weather. The hooligans have been so busy chasing field mice and rats that they were too tired to eat one day, even Levi. He is always ready to eat. The hummingbirds are really hitting the feeders since the flowers aren’t as plentiful, and my photography interests have changed to the flying flowers.

  Male ruby-throated

  Male ruby-throated

  Female ruby-throated

  Get away from my feeder and no one will get hurt

  Male ruby-throated

  Male ruby-throated starting to form his gorget (red throat)

  Male ruby-throated

Check out more hummingbirds and some of my late blooming flowers on my gardening blog: Hummingbirds and a Few Late Blooms.  

We finally had rain at my place for the first time in a couple of weeks 1.8 inches fell in one storm, and we had some wind damage.  A small birdhouse at the end of my driveway with an Auburn logo on it that one of the neighbors put up for me years ago was thrown off of the mounting pole by the wind.  I noticed it when I pulled in the driveway. I parked in the garage and picked it up on the way to the mailbox. When two wasps came out of it I threw it several feet away and ran for the hills. I still have a rash and a long red streak from my last encounter with the wasps a few days before. Later, I went back armed with a wasp spray that shoots up to 27 feet.  

It seemed strange not having to water everything. I chased around some hummingbirds for a while trying to get pictures and then picked a gallon of figs and got them ready for drying. I’ll cover the processing in another post.

After getting the fuzz off of the figs and cutting them in half, I kept hearing a rumbling that sounded more like a rock concert going on at the Al Music Hall of Fame than a thunderstorm.  As it got closer the vivid lightening started.  I grabbed my flashlight and candle lighter and read the paper while I waited for it to hit, and boy did it hit.  I have never seen lightening like that. After about 15 minutes the power goes off and my weather radio starts blaring that we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. Yeah right, tell me something I don’t know. I turn on the flashlight and started getting my old oil lamp collection down off of the shelves and from a couple of the iron wall hangers which are nice to have.  

  
Antique porcelain lamp. I found 2 matching ones in two different states 

I get a call on my cell phone from work. So I’m trying to hold the flashlight in one hand, cell on my ear and pulling the hurricane off of the lamp to light it with the other hand.

 
Porcelain lamp in wall hanger  

Then the weather radio goes off again that we have a flash flood warning; okay I didn’t know that from the rain pounding and lightening flashes on the skylight.  One of  modern oil lamps had a bad wick and burner and wouldn’t stay lit. I lit couple of those old fashion reproduction candle holders with a handle on them that look like something out of a Charles Dickens novel.   

 
Mexican finger lamp. This one does not have standard threads and burner mounts 

A couple of the lamps were made by a Mexican glass blower who didn’t use a standard burner mount.  For these types of lamps you can use a standard burner with a little modification.  Use plumbers putty in the screw cap of the burner and screw on the lamp, remove the excess and let harden.  One of the lamps had been turned into an electrical lamp.  A lamp supply place in told me to place a penny or marble over the whole and cover with epoxy.  I use  a clear flat glass decorative chip and use a generous amount of the epoxy and let it dry for several weeks. When I was sure it was nice and dry, I put about an inch of oil in the lamp for a couple of months to make sure it wasn’t going to leak before filling it.  

Antique lamp made for use in a wall hanger

Mexican lamp on left, hand blown lamp from late 1800s on right has air pockets in the glass.  The one on the left had been made into an electrical lamp. I repaired the hole and returned it to an oil lamp. 

I finally had found some lamp oil a few weeks before, but hadn’t gotten around to putting it in the empty lamps, so I tried that by candlelight. I finished cutting up the figs by oil lamp and got them on the dehydrator and pulled it in so that it would come on when the power did.  Why is it that you know your power is off, but every time you go in a room you switch the lights on?   I checked on the dogs and only Blackie and Levi were on the front porch, and I asked them if Patches was out or back in the barn. I didn’t get an answer from them. 

After an hour without power I started worrying about my orange sherbet vanilla ice cream orange sherbet swirl melting in the freezer and decided to save it from a sloppy fate and had a large bowl by the light of one of the oil lamps. After all refrozen ice cream is just plain nasty. As I sat there saving the ice cream, I wondered if my ancestors roughed it like this.   

After the storm was over and it was getting late I decided to take a shower by candle light and I wondered if this was how my ancestors living on the same spot back in the 1800’s cleaned up?   My soap dispenser was out of body wash and I got a couple of bottles out of the cabinet trying to read the label by candle light and couldn’t.  How did Abe Lincoln study with a little dim light like this? Then I realized I didn’t have my glasses on in the dark.   

A little after 11 PM, I decided to go to call work and ask them to call me at 5 AM in case the battery backup was drained on my alarm clock and go to bed. As I was finding the number in my cell phone, I heard a noise outside; it was the air conditioner coming on.   

The next morning my question about Patches was answered; there she was leaned up against Mom’s garage door. She couldn’t get back in after the power came on.  I turned off the fence and walked down to the end of my drive to get the paper and kept calling her. I have them trained to come in the driveway if they have gotten out. She just laid there in Mom’s driveway looking. I walked back to the garage to get a leash and when I walked back out, she decided to finally obey my command get up and come to the end of the driveway, only I had to walk back to the end of the driveway to get her in.  Who’s got who trained right? 

Patches snake bite infection has finally cleared up. Blackie is still on an antibiotic for her UTI. She was also started on a special food diet to dissolve the bladder stones she has. The first one was a canned food that she ate for a couple of days. I would give her half of a can in the morning and the other half at night. One morning she had one bite left and literally picked it up in her mouth and spit it at me. She refused to eat any more of it. That night I gave her the other half of the can, and it was “ain’t no way.” So I left her in the screen porch with the food. The next morning it was still there.  I opened a new can and put a couple of spoons of the food in her bowl and she refused to eat it. I called the vets office and they said they had some dry that I could swap for. As I got out of my truck Blackie practically attacked me for the food. She ate that fine for two days again and then refused to eat it even when mixed half and half with her normal Purina ProPlan. She would take a mouth full drop it on the ground and pick out her food. Even after mixng in a generous helping of chicken broth she refused to eat the medicine. After a couple of days of putting the bowl down and back in the refrigerator after she refused and repeated over and over again.  At the end of the first round of antibiotics it was back to the vet. She decided on another two weeks of antibiotics and a few days later was started on Uroeze as by now she’s lost some weight refusing to eat the medicated food.  Now she’s happily eating her food and getting a pill stuffed down her throat several times a day. She’s not happy about that.  

Weather here has been hot and humid. Spring never made an appearance. Figs started ripening just before we received several inches of rain.  I was able to pick a gallon of them for drying despite my fig eating hooligan Patches. Any ripe fig within nose reach was bitten off.  After the rains, most were soured and popped open or rotten.  Even the fig bandit refused to eat them.  I’ve been working on my Deshler High School theme flower bed, burgundy and white flowers. One of my daylilies going into the bed called Indian Giver was dug and divided, potted last fall and heeled in for the winter. The first couple of pots had fire ants in them, so I dumped them to the side until they swarmed out.  I pulled out another and a swarm of red wasps shot out at me. I didn’t know this old girl with a bad knee could run as fast as I did, and I avoided being stung.  I placed the pots in the loader on the tractor and went back trying to see where the nest was, picked up the couple with the fire ants and went back to the tractor. Hanging on the side of one of the pots was the nest. I put the others in the loader, pulled the nest off and stomped it. Hopefully the wasps will relocate so I can get the rest of my plants. 

 
 Male ruby throat at my feeders. Notice my hand made ant guard.  

Thanks to Samantha Biggers for choosing me as one of the winners of the Purina flip camera.  Oh course my first use of it was in the garden making a video of a hummingbird at my feeder less than two feet away and the Hooligans. The one of the hummer doesn’t have music added or has been edited; just listen to the hum of the hummer. Usually the hooligans are camped out on the back steps if they know I’m on the screen porch scaring away the hummingbirds. I was able to get the video before they found me.

It was a very hot high humidity day. I was working on a new iris and daylily bed when Mom called from her house that she had a hummingbird in her garage.  As I walked into her garage, she said it must have flown out as she didn’t see it.  I started searching around her garage and it slowly fluttered over my shoulder and ran into the wall, slid down and then flies up toward the ceiling and then flew into the wall near the door and fell behind her rolling garbage can.   I pulled the can away from the corner and the little male was lying on its back, with his eyes closed.  I picked him up and he was so limp. I cleaned the webs off and Mom kept saying he wasn’t in here long.

I had Mom run water over my hand while I held his beak in the water stream. Shortly a tongue came out with just a little wiggle. I decided that the little guy needed something containing more energy than water so I ran over to my house to my hummingbird feeder. Well actually a fast walk, well maybe more of a labored walk since I was also over heated and still needing knee surgery.  I couldn’t get his beak down into the port of the feeder, so I tilted it and dribbled it slowly down his beak.  After what seemed several minutes, I saw a flick of his tongue and he started lapping in the sugar water.  Eventually he opened his eyes. I would let him lap a little bit and rest a little as I didn’t want to overfill him. I didn’t realize how long a tongue they have, and his was lapping up the syrup much like a cat would. Eventually he started sitting upright on his own in my hand and looking around.  I fed him a couple more times and he seemed to enjoy the hand feeding.  Another male flew up wanting to feed, and as I look toward that one to get a picture, the little guy in my hand flew off.

With the flowers on the decrease, the hummers are hitting the feeders heavily getting ready for their migration back to south of the border. Don’t use the colored dye sugar water in your feeders. Make your own by using 1 part of sugar and 4 parts of boiling water. Cool and place in your feeder.  The red on the feeder itself is enough to attract hummers.

The weather has been either hot or hot and humid with little rain. I still have a few late season daylilies and some in rebloom. I’ve been mowing the lower forty slowly for several afternoons trying to get the grass back down to a normal mowing height.  My new belt has been holding up just fine.   This week gardening takes a back seat to the W C Handy Festival. My back seat has several lawn chairs in it all week in case I run into someone needing a loan of a chair.  My favorite concert is the one this coming Friday night at the Tennessee River. Five hours of music and a new band coming out every 30 minutes or so.  Things aren’t on a strict time line.

Update on the Hooligans: I’m still working on the snake bite infection that Patches has. Instead of telling her to come, I finally wised up and just told her to stay, catch her and after spraying her leg would give her a biscuit. Now she looks for the biscuit each time. I had to take Blackie to the vet Saturday. She has an UTI plus a bladder full of stones. She is on a pH changing food and antibiotics. I hope that works so she can avoid surgery to remove them. Patches and Blackie’s mouse hunting hasn’t been dampened.  Levi is busy with guard duty while I’m working out in the yard.

  With the hummingbirds migrating back into the US, everyone is putting up feeders.  With the abundance of fire ants in my area, I like many was having problems with ants getting into the feeders and ruining the sugar water. I priced some of the store bought ant barrier containers and they were very expensive.  I found one at the end of the season at a very deep discount. I looked at it and said to myself, I can make this.  I came up with a couple of designs for making home made ones very inexpensive. 

One design uses a heavy gauge wire, such as electric fence wire, which I also had on hand for making homemade plant tags.  Another design used a screen door latch which I had on hand after replacing a screen door on the back porch.   

# 1 RULE, USE GLOVES WHEN DOING THIS PROJECT.

Other materials needed are a cap off of a spray can, a nail or ice pick or drill bit, a pipe or pipe or broom handle, pliers, and water proof caulking.  One advantage of using wire is that if you don’t quite get the hole in the center, you can bend the wire after hanging to level the cap. 

Punch a hole in the middle of the cap. 

Cut a length of wire around a foot long and file down the sharp edges on each end.

Wrap one end around a pipe or broom handle, rod or whatever you have to make a loop.

Take the pliers and twist the end of the wire around the length of wire. Push the other end through the cap.

Make another loop as you did with the first end.

Caulk and let dry and put to use.  

For the screen door latch, punch a hole in the middle of the cap.  

I cut the smaller eye screw shown off of the screen latch either with a bolt cutter or hack saw.

Take a hammer and bend the latch part down to make a hook. Push the latch end through the bottom of the cap.   Caulk around the hole and let dry a day or two. Hang the feeder and put water in the cap.   

Don’t use the colored dye sugar water. Make your own by using 1 part of sugar and 4 parts of hot water. Cool and place in your feeder.  The red on the feeder itself is enough to attract hummers.  Check out one of my four posts of my hummingbirds at my feeders last September. 

The 13 year cicadas started hatching a couple of weeks ago and are slowly hatching out to the north.  They get more numerous and louder each day.  You can’t hear yourself think when you are outside.  The hooligans have been extremely stinky even from six feet away.  I finally figured out what was causing the odor when I saw Blackie, the most aromatic of the three rolling in something.  The cicadas, what the dogs haven’t eaten, they’ve rolled in.  I hope the birds are having a feast right now.  I’ve saw a bluebird carrying one to her nest, but haven’t seen many other birds after them.  

Saturday it was too wet to plow the garden, and my crooked neck and Zapallo scallop squash needed to be planted.   I had planted some several weeks earlier but only had one come up.  I took some single ply toilet paper and lined up my seeds down the middle and rolled it up length wise and put the wad into recycled yogurt cups and moisten the paper daily until the seeds started sprouting.  I had almost 100% germination this time, and I’ll have enough squash to feed an army.   

The tornado clean up continues in Hackleburg and Phil Campbell.  Hope is that Wrangler will rebuild it’s factory in Hackleburg as it is the largest employer in town. Phil Campbell’s prom was held in the Shoals last weekend, and the hospital group I work for is sponsoring their sports award banquet this week. Another group is trying to replace music instruments; volunteers spend their weekends going to these two towns and also to Moulton and other parts of Lawrence county to help. And the list goes on. Everyone in the area is trying to help bring some normalcy back into their lives.. 

I  purchased a small Golden Shadows Pagoda dogwood at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens a few weeks back and have been looking for a nice visible shady spot for this variegated dogwood which needed to be an understory tree.  I decided to put it on the north side of one of my Heritage birch trees in the front yard and of course put a hooligan cage around it.  After digging in compost and getting the hole dug, I pulled the tree out of it’s container and sat it in the hole. Levi who’d been picking on Blackie again was running for his life and ran to me to save him and sat on my tree before I could stop him.  Luckily the tree only sustained a broken off leaf and no other damage.  Advanced thinking had a hooligan cage just a few feet away, which was quickly placed over the tree before other damage occurred.  

I’ve been wondering if I’ve pulled a Rip Van Winkle and slept through summer and fall.  It’s been cold with misty rain the last few days.  Monday’s high was 60 beating the old record low high of 61 in 1926.  Lows have been in the low 40s, and I turned on the heat last night to warm up a bit.  My iris are finishing up and clematis, oriental lilies, daylilies and Japanese iris are starting to bloom. Usually the irises are finished by the end of April and the oriental lilies don’t start until the middle of June. My daylilies usually start in April. Plants are screwed up this year with all the snow we’ve had. Check out some of the new petunias on the market this year on my personal blog along with some of my flowers in bloom this week.