A Bird in the hand is worth....

WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY
If you'd like to join Stewart with bird photos, check out my right sidebar for link...

Some of you who have visited my birding photo blog [link also found on right sidebar] have recently read about the hummingbird nest I found while traipsing along a park trail. We spotted the female hummer just beginning to build the nest. And we've returned several times to watch the progress. As we don't want to call attention to her location, we try to be discreet in capturing any photos...without being noticed. If the area is clear of other people, we'll stop and watch ...one morning the nest was without any signs of 'mother' and we were a bit concerned. The wind was blowing a gale, [hence the nest with egg photo isn't all that clear & I was atop the hood of our car to get 'into' the nest] -as the nest swayed, much to my delight...I spied the one egg that remained in the nest!! And on Sunday morning, the latest in our hummer watch, mama hummer was there again. Bud isn't feeling too well today, so maybe tomorrow we'll be able to drive there and check if any baby has hatched.







WEDNESDAY HODGEPODGE

Joyce has these questions. If you'd like to join and answer these, hop over to Wednesday Hodgepodge via the link on my right sidebar...

1. Have you learned more from success or failure? Explain. For me, there is no explanation needed...I have learned a LOT more from mistakes I've made through my 6 plus decades, and will continue to do so. And when you get down to the nitty gritty of it all, even with success, there are failures before success is even realized. Right? This question makes me remember a quote on failure and success going hand in hand: "I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work." - Thomas A. Edison [the invention of the light bulb]

2. What did you call your grandparents when you were growing up? If you have children, what do they call your parents? If you have grandchildren, what do they call you? Actually, when I was still in diapers, I had all four grandparents alive, but by the time I was 5 three had passed away, so I can't recall if I ever called them by any title. My father's father, on the other hand, lived to just shy of 100 years of age...I called him "Gramps" [by the way, he called me 'snicklefritz'--don't ask me what that meant?!!]. My children, all their grands have left them behind, but when they were alive, they called them Grandma and Grandpa. My two grandsons call me Grandma Anni. [Their other grandmother, they call her Grandma Piggy....her name is Peggy and Clint couldn't pronounce Peggy except for saying Piggy, and it stuck!!  I like that name...wish it were mine.]

3. You're invited to a luau. In keeping with that theme, what dish will you bring to share? I can tell you what I wouldn't bring!!! And that is poi!! Nasty, and all kinds of wrong!! I'd probably more or less bring hand made hair adornments for the ladies from our hibiscus blossoms. And maybe the ingredients for the drink: Blue Hawai'i ---rum, pineapple juice, blue Curacao, sweet and sour mix. Å’kålè ma’luna [phonetic pronunciation: Okole maluna] AKA - Cheers!

4. Besides Jesus, what one person's life story do you think everyone should know about? Someone that is a long distant ancestor of their own!!! It's important to know where you came from in your bloodline. And it's surprising how perhaps [more than you know] there is a great person of interest. Doing genealogy, I found that an ancestor of ours signed the Declaration of Independence....not a direct  line, but a cousin of a cousin of a cousin...you know how it goes.  Oh and another [of direct bloodline] was an Indian Scout.

5. "Don't sweat the small stuff." Agree or Disagree? Why? I SO AGREE!! Why? 'Cause I look at it this way: "In a hundred years no one will care or remember".  My first employer told me that once, and I try to live by his words.  It made sense at the time, and it still does.  I preach it in fact.

6. June is National Rivers Month. When were you last on a river? What's the prettiest river you've ever seen? What's a river you'd like to see? It may not be the 'prettiest' but, it's the most impressive!!! And that is the Colorado River that flows through and created the Grand Canyon over eons of passage, flooding, erosion. I will never forget as long as I live the first sighting of the canyon and the river from above, looking down the canyon to the mighty, beautiful terra cotta rock formation and the GREEN river!! I've been ON the Mississippi on a riverboat. And I've been as far as the mouth of the Mississippi. Not much I can say, it wasn't all that fun for me...the smell from the galley on the riverboat nauseated me, and to this day, I can still catch a drifting of the awful odor if I think about it hard and long. LOL But it is something everyone should experience if given a chance...a riverboat. Also, the river that runs through San Antonio Texas...go on the riverwalk!! Especially during the Christmas season...it's BEAUTIFUL at night with all the holiday lights reflecting on the calm waterway. One I'd like to see? I've never given that part of the question much thought. Perhaps go back to my childhood and cross the Blue River ---in my nightmares there is this old, rickety, rusted, trestle, bridge that put the fear of god in me when I was a kid; when the car would go over the old wooden slats, it rattled and shook...I'd like to face that fear now.

7. Speaking of rivers- paddling, fishing, swimming, or bird watching safely from the shore? Which activity would you choose? Yes-you have to choose. This is a definite...you know me....BIRD WATCHING.

8. Insert your own random thought here. Over the weekend, I got this crazy idea for a project. It entailed purchasing 5 new picture frames of collage design. Getting them home I counted the spaces in the frames for photos of mine. I have taken nearly 1500 photos in the last year, and I've saved over 1200 of them on a DVD. All bird photos that were saved. I told Bud recently..."Why have them only on a DVD when I can have them printed for less that $20 to get them framed so we can see them all the time?" He agreed. Thing is, try and pick out 38 [which was the total space in the 5 frames] from over a thousand images? It was a long, drug out task. But we did it. I ordered the images made to photos online, and went and picked them up yesterday, and framed them all! Will hang them on the walls in a bit...

note:  the two river images are courtesy of Google Images