New Blog Day – Sundays in Summer and Fall are too fun to be blogging – at least until the snow flies. Most of us in the Upper Midwest have to get outside when we can! So to accommodate the weather, I’ve decided to move blog posts to Tuesdays.
It seemed a good time to make the switch, considering a minor accident has temporarily put my right hand out of commission and typing with the hunt-and-peck method is not my thing. So for now, I’ll leave you with a little something I had prepared earlier that was intended for a post elsewhere. My Two Stitches will return Tuesday, August 16. Till then, enjoy all that your day offers – beauty can be found in the smallest of things.
Hungry Critters on My Lunch Hour
After trying in vain to get a clear still pic of a hummingbird at the feeder, I turned off the camera that was attached to a tripod on the kitchen table. I then proceeded to eat lunch but one bite of my tuna on whole grain and of course the flitter-critter returned. I didn’t want to move hastily, because it seems they are alert to all motion around them – even through the blur of UV protected glass. One little move from me or one of my cats and they disappear fast! I was getting tired of playing this focus-camera-and-dart-away-game, so, without taking any time to adjust settings and focus, I just hit the video record button and hoped for the best. Eventually he noticed me – or seemed to – and took a couple more drinks, then moved to the outside of the feeder, popping his head up and down, as if curious about me. He filled his belly and then sped away, but I knew he’d soon be back – a hummingbird needs to sustain the energy required to keep its wings in motion, consuming up to twice its body weight in nectar every day.
Oxeye Sunflower
I got up to fill my empty coffee cup and looked straight into the eyes of a Cottontail Rabbit or Hare (not an expert – it’s a “bunny” to me). It froze on its hind legs near the sliding glass door, hoping to blend into the old deck, I suppose. Seeing a few bunnies is common after a lot of rain and the yard is need of mowing. Notice, I did not say “lawn”. Our yard has been invaded by the adjacent “forest floor” of the woods – wild flowers, catnip, clover, you name it. Bunnies tend to get lost in this sweet pasture, grazing their way up from the woods to the deck. Slowly, I set the coffee cup on the table and grabbed the camera that was still connected to the tripod, the extra weight making it hard to hold the camera still. I turned it on and awkwardly aimed, but by the time I got the bunny in the view finder she had braved from her instinct to freeze and hopped off to the garden. Drat! So I dashed to the garage, and while struggling to focus through the dirty window, I caught the fluffy vandal snooping around the garden, eventually creeping through a hole in the netting that covered the strawberry patch. It’s okay – no berries till next spring again and she’ll just chow down the tall sweet grass that appeared from the seed “dropped” by the crows that ate the last of the strawberries after getting through the hole of the netting that the squirrel manage to make.
Baby Watermelon
Never a dull moment around here.
As long as I was out in the garage, I decided to put a few slices of dried bread on the flat feeder. I opened the garage door and the bunny shot out of the netting and headed for the woods while I emptied a cup of seed onto the flat feeder along with a few slices of the dried bread. Then, since it was so nice outside at about 80 degrees, but no humidity, I removed the tripod 
from the camera and made a quick inspection of the yard, calculating work for the damage done from all the wet weather. The radishes have “gone to seed”, the peas had been devoured (I assume, by the bunny) but the humid-loving watermelon is doing okay, for having been planted late. A patch of wildflowers were “dropped” along side the garage by one bird or another, grapes have invaded and imprisoned every and anything! Found a strange teeny-beetle type of bug on an Oxeye Sunflower, a white spider on a Coneflower, and gnats on a huge mushroom
growing in the hollow of an old oak tree – all critters looking to find a bit of lunch. A few wasps seemed to be having a party on the grave vine that suddenly appeared on the evergreens, but they wouldn’t sit long enough for the camera and refused to preform much in video mode. I took that as my cue to get back to my lunch, so I could get back to my office.
I finally poured that cup of coffee and managed a quick sip before seeing one of the neighborhood 
squirrels zeroing in on the dried bread. Grey Squirrels look so skinny this time of year, having shed most of their fur in the heat – such a difference from their puffy, fuzzy winter-wear. They actually remind me of wet rats! But after all, they are a member of the rodent family. As soon as he saw the bread I heard the loud piercing call of a Blue Jay overhead. Evidently, they both had the same plan. So up the tree went the squirrel to fend off the squawking Blue Jay, twitching its tail to file his chow claim. Then the squirrel’s attention was taken by a ground foe to shoo from the scene (I suspect the bunny who may have been hiding beneath the deck) – or else, he just fell from the tree. No matter the reason, the Blue Jay took advantage and made a grab for the bread, but changed his mind when he caught sight of the squirrel making its way back to the feeder. (No worries for the Blue Jays, as they returned later for the
seed and corn, while the squirrel took a nap in the crabapple tree. After more seed was put out, the squirrel filled up again and then napped in another favorite place, the birdhouse where Catbirds nest in the spring.)
I shut off the camera and turned back to my own lunch just in time to see Tator, the “irri-tator” as my husband calls her, now gingerly pawing at the remaining half of the tuna sandwich, perhaps thinking it had surely been abandoned. “Shoo!” I scolded, having fed her not just five minutes before making my own lunch. Startled, she jumped in mid-swat, sending the top slice of bread into flight, which landed and slid along the floor, collecting the cat hair like a Swiffer ® Duster. (During the summer shedding season, cat hair is an occasional, unintentional condiment in this house, even when we observe the “no 3-second floor rule”.) She dashed to the bedroom in shame – or more likely thinking like any other critter, “until the next chance I get”. I picked up the hairy bread slice and tossed it into the drying bucket, settling for fewer calories. Just as well, anyhow; it was time to get back to work. Grabbing an apple from the fridge to take back to my office, I concluded that the camera, perhaps, should be banned during lunch hours – but then again, perhaps not.
If you’re curious, here’s the combined attempts of the lunch hour shoot: Hungry Critters – not the best quality even for an amateur, but safer than looking out the window for 5:24 minutes and leaving your lunch at the mercy of a mischievous cat. By the way, there are no cats in this video. And, no critters were harmed during the filming, with the exception of a skeeter who attempted to chow on me.
Just My Two Stitches ... 