Hummingbird and Hurricane watch and preparation

Sunset Chesapeake Bay 

Though where we live is beautiful and serene we are not immune. Like most of the east coast of the USA we are counting down for Hurricane Irene. It entails lots of work battening down the hatches. Nothing can be loose on the porch or yard, or it can become a missile dangerous to others. We don't usually have loose items sitting around the yard, because nature takes care of all loose ends out there. It removes them forever with little mystery of where they went. They went on the wind to their next home. It happens everyday. The challenge is to make sure that doesn't happen. Too often its next home would be Chesapeake Bay and that is a pretty irresponsible way to live, so we make sure we don't leave anything sitting around to blow away. Actually it is pretty entertaining to walk the yard because if there is something out there that must stay out in the open, it is usually tied by rope to a tree or other well anchored item. The portable pool is roped to an apple tree....that should give you the picture. Life here is certainly different here on the edge than in suburbia.

hummingbirds feeding and flying at the feeders

The wildlife doesn't seem too perturbed about the impending storm. The hummingbirds are feeding like crazy. They should be doing that now, getting ready for their long trip to South America, Central America and some only as far as Texas. They fatten up for the work of the trip and leave here on a tight schedule as if a cruise director sent them all on an excursion. All males will leave the same day, and they leave first. Females and juveniles will remain for another week or two and then they too will leave us. We will miss them so much. They provide a lot of entertainment, enegry and life around here. Our feeders are about a foot outside our kitchen window, so we can see them as if they were in an aquarium. They are endlessly fascinating, they are missed the half of the year that they go elsewhere.

Its time to get to work on the hurricane prep. What a sap of energy and time. I'd much rather be painting or writing!