How Doth Your Garden Grow

The recent rains have made the garden explode, and now that the hot weather is here,  it's even lusher than ever.   The baddest news is that my hummingbirds have disappeared.  Where can they have gone?  No one has visited the feeder or perched on the trellis for a week or more.  Have to admit that I am distraught.

Meanwhile, on the suet feeder, scads of baby woodpeckers, chipmunks and the little red squirrel are gobbling up a dollar's worth of suet every day or two.  Greedy ones.

The clematis has been spectacular.  Maybe because I actually dosed everything with fertilizer this year.   

Here is the sneaky squirrel.  So cute.

The verbena, nasturtiums, sage, and marigolds are all doing well.  Chives went rampant this spring.  Garlic has long whatcha-ma-callums.  Can't think of the name.  Scapes!  That's it.  I planted nicotania instead of impatiens this year, and it looks good, but still no hummingbirds, sob!

How is your garden doing?  Don't forget to put out water for the critters as well as food.

Grapeshop

My New Best Friend

We've had various hummingbird feeders over the years, some cheap, others expensive and none of them perfect.  The ants always figure out how to climb in and drown, or they are hard to clean or something breaks. You know. 

This  year there were fewer hummers than usual, but we were diligent with the nectar and the ant removal and of course provided lots of cool flowers as well as nectar, with an abundance of red blooms this year, everything from geraniums and petunias to begonias and verbena. 

The past few weeks I've noticed that whenever I work in the garden I get "buzzed."  The tiny bird, wings beating, hovers nearby as if to say, "Hi!  Thanks for the delicious nectar."  They are pugnatious little things and guard their territory well.  I alwys  offer a greeting in return, if only, "Hi!  Birdie."  Lately they have been coming to the deck and saying "Hi!"  and this morning, for the first time ever, I saw two birds in parallel flight, not squabbling or dive bombing each other but flying together.  This was so cool.

I think they like me.  They do like the nectar and they seem to know who brings it and fills the feeder regularly.    Can a woman have a relationship with a hummingbird?  I don't know, butI think we are definitely friends.

The Joe Pye Weed in the garden has finished blooming,(alas, butterflies)  but we have morning glories galore and  the cleomes which reseeded themselves from last year are great.  I had a tiny coleus grow from a seed dropped last year. I have to say I love my little garden, from the leggy somewhat drab phlox I rescued from the old state hospital grounds to the heath that blooms all winter to the  chipmunk-chewed tomatoes to the coleus that I grew from cuttings that have been fruitful and multiplied.  We have a bumper crop of cukes this year.  The soup made with buttermilk and avocado was superb, as was the gazpacho from a 1964 (no typo) Gourmet.

Here's a photo taken of my little friend.  Isn't he/she sweet?        We have another feeder in the meantime.  They always come, no matter the feeder.  I shudder to think of their long perilous journey in hurricane season.  Yet they always return.  Seems like a miracle to me, just like our weird little friendsip.


Grapeshot           

Remembering September 11th and the Warrior Grandma

To a degree, I think we all have 9-11 related  PTSD, and the photos and remembrances bring it all back. I have been dreading this date.  I heard planes flying over the house late last night and wondered, "what is that all about?"  Then I heard Amtrak, running late, and thought it was yet another plane.  Always the paranoia, and the images burnt into one's mind.

I remember flying shortly after 9/11, and psyching myself up to kill with bare hands, telling myself I could do it.  Ludicrous, but I was ready, because the phrase, "we fought them tooth and nail" was in my head, and if tooth and nail are your sole weapons, then that's what you use.  I debated wearing pantyhose.  They would make a good garrotte.  The energy required to psych myself up was exhausting.  I told myself I came from a long line of warriors and I could be one, too, if necessary.  Now it seems a little crazy.  But not totally crazy, because two of the planes left from Boston, the ones that hit the towers. 

I flew into Baltimore and drove to Hagerstown for a programming course, because a colleague refused to fly.  All the anthrax paranoia in Washington added to the general paranoia.  In Hagertown, my cell phone didn't work, and I drove aimlessly through the town and took a walk around the duck pond in the park.  Ate alone at a Mexican restaurant.  Had that strange feeling I was the last person on earth.  I could not concentrate on the course. 

At home, I found a old flag pin, probably my Dad's  and bought another one.  Whenever I run across them in the drawer I remember.    Whenever I fly over New York and don't see the towers, I remember. 

No one was able to write fiction for a while, and we all wondered if we would ever write again.  We read "cozy" type Miss Marple  mysteries, because they had little violence and in the end justice was always done.  I wrote some poetry and bided my time. The weekend before September 11th, we had gone to see Apocalypse Now Redux.  The audience was a weird mixture of Viet Nam Vets and Cambridge and Boston academia.  Violence and especially the threat of violence permeated the movie.  I wouldn't have been able to watch it a week later. 

Writers finally began writing again, but anyone passing through airport security today knows we're not back to normal. Still, it's been a long time since I boarded a plane ready to kill.  The Warrior Grandma.  How stupid is that? 

Since Irene, the hummingbirds in our garden are my heroes.  Even in the worst wind, they swooped and flew and defied the storm.  When the tree fell, they came to investigate.  Sometimes they buzz the dining room window when we're having dinner, like they're saying hello or bon appetit.  I like their aerial acrobatics and their pugnacious spirit.  They aren't afraid of anything.  We could do worse than imitate the hummingbirds.

My New Heroes are the Hummingbirds

This is a great site with lots of wonderful facts and information about hummingbirds.

The World of Hummingbirds

They are so feisty and fearless.  I love to sit on our deck overlooking the wetlands and watch the hummingbirds in the edge of the woodlands and on the feeder in the flower garden.