hummingbird feeder : Off Island Time
by Stacey Longo Brown
I thought it would be fun to own a little acre of land on the mainland, but it turns out having a lawn and garden is a lot of work! I'm starting to miss my three little blades of grass that I called a yard on the island.
My lawn here consists of pretty uneven terrain, and I have a few scattered rocks (okay, slabs of granite) throughout the yard. It's gotten to the point that I'm actually kind of scared to cut the lawn, because I'm worried about the mower blade making that horrible noise it makes when I try to mow over a boulder.
I also seem to have the knack of making the lawnmower backfire. A lot. Okay, a minimum of six times during the course of the mowing.
Except that I shouldn't call it "mowing." Since I have this trepidation of cutting the grass, I tend to let it go so long that when I do hop on the John Deere, it's more of a "haying" process.
I wish that keeping the grass neat was my only problem. But I had the bright idea last April to clear out a portion of the brush in the yard and put a garden there. After
working for a month pulling up bittersweet and weeds, then spending a week planting vegetables and mulching, I was worn out.
I haven't pulled up a weed since Memorial Day weekend. I've decided that if the cucumbers want to live, they'll find a way. (I did go outside Tuesday to pick peppers and discovered that I had a basket full of milkweed pods when I went to make dinner that night.)
I'm also regretting putting up a hummingbird feeder. First of all, I had been led to believe there were no hummingbirds in Connecticut. I put it up because it looked like a piece of New Age, red liquid art that people hung from their trees. But those stupid hummingbirds have been flocking to it like...well, like birds!
I've been making hummingbird food (one part sugar to three parts water, plus three drops red food dye) twice a week for these starved little demons. I can't tell you how much fun it was boiling up that potion last week during the heat wave.
Shouldn't they be migrating to Colorado by now?
I thought it would be fun to own a little acre of land on the mainland, but it turns out having a lawn and garden is a lot of work! I'm starting to miss my three little blades of grass that I called a yard on the island.
My lawn here consists of pretty uneven terrain, and I have a few scattered rocks (okay, slabs of granite) throughout the yard. It's gotten to the point that I'm actually kind of scared to cut the lawn, because I'm worried about the mower blade making that horrible noise it makes when I try to mow over a boulder.
I also seem to have the knack of making the lawnmower backfire. A lot. Okay, a minimum of six times during the course of the mowing.
Except that I shouldn't call it "mowing." Since I have this trepidation of cutting the grass, I tend to let it go so long that when I do hop on the John Deere, it's more of a "haying" process.
I wish that keeping the grass neat was my only problem. But I had the bright idea last April to clear out a portion of the brush in the yard and put a garden there. After
working for a month pulling up bittersweet and weeds, then spending a week planting vegetables and mulching, I was worn out.
I haven't pulled up a weed since Memorial Day weekend. I've decided that if the cucumbers want to live, they'll find a way. (I did go outside Tuesday to pick peppers and discovered that I had a basket full of milkweed pods when I went to make dinner that night.)
I'm also regretting putting up a hummingbird feeder. First of all, I had been led to believe there were no hummingbirds in Connecticut. I put it up because it looked like a piece of New Age, red liquid art that people hung from their trees. But those stupid hummingbirds have been flocking to it like...well, like birds!
I've been making hummingbird food (one part sugar to three parts water, plus three drops red food dye) twice a week for these starved little demons. I can't tell you how much fun it was boiling up that potion last week during the heat wave.
Shouldn't they be migrating to Colorado by now?
1 Comments:
The hummingbirds put on a good air show where I live every summer. We put out two feeders and will get 6 or 8 birds at each one. They are bold little creatures. It's a good thing they are not the size of crows!
Tim
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