Lynx's Lair

Do you know how hard it is to stay in a "blah" mood, when you've got a tiny hummingbird perching on your finger?  For me, the answer is "impossible".

I may be fighting a losing battle with the flu, and feeling the worst, physically, that I have since starting on the Savella (bad enough that I canceled my chiropractor's appointment today, as I didn't feel up to driving, nor did I want to give them whatever it is that I have).  I may want to just crawl under the covers and sleep for a week or two. I may even feel bad enough to go to bed right after dinner, instead of my normal midnight-ish.

I just can't be too grumbly about how I feel, though, due to thumb-sized little bundles of jewel-bright feathers.

It has been cool enough now, that the hummingbird population in the area is lessened. Many of the birds have headed down to Mexico for a couple months of warmer weather, and after the temperatures on waking up a couple different m*rnings, no matter how warm it got later in the day, I can't say as I blame them! 

"Lessened" however, is a relative term, and there were a dozen birds visible, and more that were audible, when I shambled out to refill the feeders just now. Although it means extra walking, when they're in that sort of a feeding frenzy, I bring the feeders in one-by-one, placing a filled one out before grabbing another of the three feeders to refill. It is a bit more reassuring to the territorial little flitterbidgets when all of the feeders don't disappear at once.

When I brought the third feeder back out, some of the little birds did not fly away as I approached, but perched at the other two feeders an arm's-length away, pigging out. This made it the perfect time to play human statue and see if I could get one to land on my finger.

The answer was a resounding yes, within about 15 seconds of me placing my finger in front of a feeding port on the nearest feeder. It wasn't that the other ports were all busy (they weren't), or that they'd been totally out of food and starving (one of the feeders still had nectar in it that I dumped out and replaced when I refilled the feeders), it was simply that he wanted to be at that specific spot.

He was glorious. A lovely metallic green back and wings, a cap and throat that looked black from some angles, and an absolutely gorgeous metallic fuschia from other angles. Bold as can be, perched on my finger while chugging away at the nectar.

He was soon replaced by a dainty little green female, then another male with the patchier neck plumage of a young adult.

I likely could have had more land, had my body been able to cope with standing statue-still for much longer, but even those brief little visitations were enough to brighten my mood.

As "winter" approaches here in Southern California, we're still in a rather nasty drought. Mandatory water conservation is in effect here in Vista, which mostly involves what you can and cannot do with your yard and such.  However, water conservation shouldn't end there for anyone living in a highly populated area, as more and more cities struggle simply for suitable drinking water for everyone, much less irrigation water.

 I'd like to share one of my preferred ways to help, since it allows me to keep alive the much-loved family rose, even with reduced sprinkling throughout the week. It also capitalizes on the fact that I have hummingbird feeders to keep clean, if I don't want hummingbirds killed off by nasty bacteria.

 Rinse water.

Such a simple little thing, but something most of us take for granted.  I now keep a large metal bowl in one kitchen sink, and rinse my hands, various dishes, etc into the bowl. As it fills, I dump the water from it into an easily-filled wide-mouthed pitcher, then dump the water onto the most needy of my outdoor plants and shrubs.  Given how frequently I have to clean and refill hummingbird feeders during the week, this is saving many gallons of water a week.

The other one that I do is more "work", but I try to be good about it. I keep another wide-mouthed pitcher (the wide-mouth makes it easier for filling, and easier means I am more likely to be good about doing it) in the shower.  When I am waiting for the shower water to suitably warm up, I fill the pitcher with the running water. Dumping this out on the plants gets the water back into environment without it having to go through the costly and time-consuming sewage treatment plants, etc.  Yes, it takes extra effort on my part, lugging it from the upstairs master bathroom to the outdoors, but, again, it can be a savings of several gallons of water a week, which makes it worth it in my book!

For those wanting more water-saving tips, sites such as bewaterwise.com are fabulous resources for helpful hints and tricks. (It also gives you a visual of how badly off we are for water as the years of droughts continue in the area.)

For those wondering how I am doing on the health front, the results from the Savella are still good.  Yep, I'm still in pain. Yep, I still have flareups. In both cases, however, they are definitely lessened, which makes them more bearable. I may be able to do a bit more gentle exercise and the like, which should also help in the long run.

As an example of how much it helped, my father-in-law was just here visiting for a week, and in the space of 4 days, we went to both the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Birch Aquarium. That may not seem like a lot on the sightseeing side of things, but it is more than I had been able to pull off in a few years without ending up flat on my back afterwards for a day.  Yayy for progress!