A hummingbird in distress

On Saturday morning I decided to (finally) take the potted, dead ficus tree from the garage to the woods and dump it out so I could use its planter.
It had been sitting in the garage all winter, after I decided it was just never going to be the tree it once was. It was about 18 years old, so it owed us nothing.

As I lifted the tree by its trunk, I heard a peeping sound.

I was sure I'd imagined it, but as I moved the tree toward the garage door, I heard the peeping again.

I set the tree down and looked into its branches. There, perched precariously, sat a female ruby-throated hummer.

I was surprised it didn't fly away, but then I realized it couldn't. It's feet and beak were covered in a sticky substance.

I carefully removed the bird's tiny feet from the branch, then I carefully removed the sticky substance from its beak.

The hummer was exhausted. I don't know how long it had gone without food because it couldn't get to food or even open its beak.

I took the hummer out onto our back deck, to the hummingbird feeder, and carefully stuck its beak into the feeder opening. I couldn't tell if the bird drank any nectar or not.

I repeated this every few minutes, and eventually I could see, by the movement of the muscles in the back of her neck, that she was was, indeed, drinking some nectar.

I placed her in a plant pot beside the feeder and let her rest awhile.

After 30 minutes or so I found her perched on a leaf branch of the geranium.

A little later she flew down onto the deck floor, and eventually she flew off the deck and toward the woods.

I hope she survived. I don't know what the sticky substance was that she'd gotten into. I'm thinking maybe it was pine pitch.

I've seen hummers at the feeder regularly since Saturday, and I like to think one of them is "my" hummer.

Ken drives, I knit

I know. I know. I can hardly believe it myself: I'm back!

Let's see. Since I last posted a blog update, we've driven to New Orleans and back, I've started some vegetable seedlings, we've both complained about our cold, wet spring, and I've had cataract surgery.

But my knitting-on-the-road gets first dibs.

As we ventured down to New Orleans and back to Maine, I managed to finish the second sock of the rainbow pair above.

I knit several hats to donate to various organizations this coming fall, as winter approaches.

I knit a hat to go with the green cabled child's cardigan that I finished before we left for New Orleans.

 I knit a second hat in this pattern, because it works up very attractively with this particular yarn.

 I started a new pair of socks.

I knit an apple green hat in the same pattern.

Then I knit another apple green hat, and we arrived home!

I'm always so happy to get back home from any trip. New Orleans was great. I'll share some photos of it in my next post.