Tag: hummingbirds

Hummers and bummers

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
“Belly up to the bar, lads! Lads?

This morning we cleaned, refilled, and set out the hummingbird feeders for what may be the last time in 2026.

We didn’t see a single, solitary hummer all day yesterday, for the first time this fall, and we fear the beautiful little buzzbombs may have called it a year.

Maybe they stuck around just long enough to see that Combover the Barbarian didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize for starting pointless wars, threatening to shove this and that up people’s arses, and otherwise jacking his draft-dodging jaw on antisocial media while his Secretary of Snapping Little Guys with Wet Towels in the Gym Showers livestreams the execution by firing squad of the Fort Hood shooter, who is confined to a wheelchair.

It recalls the scene in “Blazing Saddles” where Boris is preparing to hang a man on horseback — and his horse, too.

Except “Blazing Saddles” was funny.

Coyotes 1, hummingbirds 0

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Open for business, but traffic is slow.

The hummingbirds are scarce so far this April. But Herself reported seeing a coyote just down the street as she drove to work this morning.

Ain’t that just the way it is? God’s Dog is on the job while Her colorful little buzzbombs are off screwing the pooch somewhere.

Hope the ICEholes haven’t scooped ’em all up. That would be the cutest detention center ever.

No golden escalators here

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Going up. …

Herself and I slipped out for a short trail run before lunch yesterday, hoping to dodge the predicted rain.

She was taking a break from work, which continues although the feddle-gummint mostly doesn’t. I was taking a break from being indoors, the Monday Geezer Ride having been canceled due to the weather forecast. We are not Portlanders, ready and eager to ride nekkid in fair weather and foul, aiming wisecracks and buttcracks at Beelzebozo’s buttheads.

Our short-run loop is only a couple miles, and mostly flat — just 268 feet of vertical gain, with one lump going out and another coming back — and we were back at the ranch before the clouds opened for business.

And business was booming. Nothing like the Durango area, where Tropical Storm Priscilla really brung it and then some. The official tally here was 0.21 inch. But it felt like a lot compared with the usual nothing at all.

Just ask the lone bedraggled hummingbird who spent about 15 minutes camped at one of our feeders, which hang out of the weather beneath the back patio cover. Every so often s/he would glance skyward as though thinking: “Jaysis! Where is everybody? I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”

Freecipitation

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Splish, splash, etc.

What a gloomy day. The ceiling is all the way down to the deck and the drizzle is intermittent. Reminds me of Oregon, only without all the ICEholes and Natural Gourds wandering around, growing fungus in their footwear and moss on their north sides.

Ordinarily I’d slip out for a jog between sprinkles, but I’ve already logged two 5K runs this week and fear a third would leave me a smelly puddle of tears, shredded connective tissue, and bone splinters.

Still, slouching around indoors muttering over the news ain’t no day at the beach neither.

That Tennessee explosives factory? Holy hell.

Public “servants” trying to suppress free speech? Par for the course. Public excoriation for thee, but not for me. Shove the First Amendment right up their fat asses by attending your local No Kings! rally on Oct. 18.

Government employees being shown the door because … well, because Rumpleshitskin likes it? Remember his two-word catchphrase from the unreality show he keeps reliving over and over and over again in the throes of his growing dementia. He’s a man of few words, because he can only remember a few, and can pronounce even fewer.

And to top it off I’ve got one lonely, disheveled hummingbird parked at the backyard feeder, like the old soak lost in thought who just can’t seem to hear the phrase, “Last call. …”

Just humming along

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Open for business.

I suppose I should be laser-focused on the doings in Manhattan, but I’m more interested in whether we’ll get some hummingbirds at the feeder this morning. We saw our first hummers of spring last evening, just before dusk, doing an aerial dance around the ornamental plum.

Speaking of feeders, do you think that when Porky hears “Order in the court!” he reflexively blurts, “Two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fishes, and a large chocolate shake!”