We are having our first real cold snap, with snow and lots of accidents two evenings ago. We have Anna’s hummingbirds, who can over winter. By yesterday morning, the temperature had dropped to 17 degrees F. Both of my hummingbird feeders were frozen.
I went out to wrap a hot towel around one. The front-of-the-house Anna’s buzzed me, inches from my face, to let me know she is HUNGRY and the food IS NOT AVAILABLE. The hot towel didn’t work, so I took the feeder in for a bit. She didn’t like that at all.
This looks pretty silly, but success!
The tiny feeder is one to hold in my hand. I have three, so I rotated them during the day to keep thawed food. Anna Front still spent energy chasing other hummingbirds away. She doesn’t look too upset, does she?
Anna’s hummingbird guarding her feeder and grooming in a rhododendron
The photos and video were taken through my window from my desk.
“The USBG’s present conservatory is a two-part building. The front is a one-story limestone structure with 11 lofty arches inspired by the seventeen-century orangery at Versailles near Paris. The facade features four alternating keystones carved in the images of Pan, Pomona, Triton and Flora. At the rear is a glass and aluminum greenhouse conceived in the glass house tradition first seen in the 1850s Crystal Palace in London.”
This is either Pan or Triton. I only took photographs of three of the four: two female and one male. He looks pretty wicked, so I would guess Pan. Triton had a reputation for being grumpy too, disappointed in love.
This is the model of the US Botanic Garden Building. You can see the faces over each arch.
Here is the other side of the building.
And here is the view of the Capitol from the desert room.
In theory Elwha is not allowed on my desk. But you can see that I’ve given in and he can use my scarf for naps when I am not using it. Sol Duc very rarely gets on the kitchen table, but Elwha won’t stay off it, especially if we have visitors. He would like to lie in the middle of the table and be admired and patted by everyone all at once. Sol Duc stays on another floor often, but sometimes she decides a visitor is interesting and she shows up. Not on the table though.
I’ve given in on the desk. But NOT the kitchen table.
With Cee’s Flower of the Day on hiatus, I am casting around. Here, a weekly prompt: divorce.
My ex and I did a year of couples counseling and then another year of hammering out the details. I felt like a terrible failure and did simultaneous solo counseling to figure out why I was failing. It took me two years to make the decision and I was anxious the entire time. And then once I decided, the anxiety evaporated like morning mist.
One thing that I realized is that we each had a blind spot. I love working and am a hard worker and even to the point of working until I get sick. My ex did not want to work, partly because his father seemed to hate it so much. My ex was dedicated to doing something fun every day and that was a revelation to me: were we allowed to have fun? So it was all lots of fun for a decade. He was in charge of play: bicycling, swing dance, going to music, golf (golf did not take with me), tennis. I was in charge of work and practical things. This started to fall apart with kids, because I wanted to have fun with the kids and he said, “Kids aren’t fun.” As I moved into defining fun, he refused to move into work.
At some point during the prolonged divorce process, I realized that some of it was not about me at all. He knew at some level that he had to go work, because his son was reaching his teens. My ex looked at me one day and said, “I’m going to have to thank you for this, aren’t I?” “Damn straight,” I replied. I wished he could deal with the work thing in the marriage, but he couldn’t. He went off and went to nursing school and has an RN. I talked to him yesterday on the phone. He said, “I decided when I was young that I was going to do tons outdoors until I got old and then I would work. And look how it’s working out!” A little hard on me, I think. Meanwhile the kids got bored with the whole thing so they were reassured that it was not about them.
Anyhow, I think it was the right thing to do though difficult. During one argument my ex said, “I have avoided doing anything hard.” I was annoyed and said, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” “Marry YOU.” That made me laugh: a perfect snappy comeback and probably true.
This is The Yes Yes Boys, doing Make it Easy. I bought the CD when they played live at the Upstage here. I love this song. It’s not on You tube, but you can download the music for free here: https://hobemianrecords.com/product/why-say-no/.
“If you still can’t make it easy, get you a job and go to work Don’t be hanging round here and there, miss your meals, wear a raggedy shirt Cause when you’re missing your meals and you’re missing your bed That’ll give you the pneumonia that will kill you dead If you can’t make it easy, get you a job and go to work“
The plaque for this pollinator, the yucca moth, says that it and the yucca plant have evolved to be dependent on each other. Dependent sounds a bit worrisome. If I reframe it as teamwork, all of a sudden it sounds much better! And this is intentional pollination, which the author says is rare.
This is from the Holiday Exhibit, complete with train, at the US Botanic Gardens.
Does dependent sound more worrisome than teamwork? If so, why?
This is Johnny Cash, a friend of mine. He has a feather stuck to his nose. He was being very patient while some work and activity was getting done. I don’t know where he found the feather.
Discover and re-discover Mexico’s cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - Flüchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflüchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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