Backyard Smackdown

I'll never understand the little mind of the hummingbird.
How can such small, beautiful, innocent looking birds be so mean?
I've had a love of the hummingbird since I was young. Nano and Papa always had a feeder on their back porch in the summers, and I can remember my grandfather complaining about the Rufous hummer. As I recall they had a book about a Rufous (wonder where that book is now? I'll have to ask Nano)

I can also remember my great grandmother (Big Nana) coming to visit from PA and she'd sit on the back porch holding onto her wig, she was just sure they'd swoop down and carry it off with their pointy bills.

I've been feeding the hummingbirds here for years, and each year I have added a new feeder or two in my efforts to keep the peace. I currently have 8 feeders out. In theory that should be a spot for 30 birds to sit and drink to their content. But in reality, it's just given the Rufous that many spots to protect as his own.

Last year I had two Rufous hummers fighting with each other and that gave the other hummers a shot at a drink as the two little red birds chased each other around the yard. But so far this year I just have one and he's busy keeping up with all "his" feeders.

This weeks backyard birds

I had a good bird week. Savanna spotted the yellow headed blackbird from the window and came to get me so I could see it. (She loves watching the birds too) It sat on our fence for a long time and let me take a few pictures of it. The Meadowlark has also started coming to the feeders in the yard. For months I've been stalking (or he's been stalking me) this bird. I could always hear him, but not see him. Now he's making at least one visit to my yard each day.
I had also never seen a hummingbird in the bird bath, but this morning I had one in there splashing around... I'm guessing she must have had sticky feet.

Missing Noah

I had to have my sweet cat Noah put down yesterday. He had what seemed to be a tumor in his bladder. He was unable to go to the bathroom. The vet emptied his bladder and tried some Homeopathic treatments, but nothing was working, and he was going downhill fast. I hated him being in such pain, so needed to do what seemed like the best thing for him.

We will all miss his sweet spirit.

Tosh

We had a very sweet foster dog this week..... Tosh. I just had him for the week while his foster family was on vacation. He is going to his forever home this weekend.

Backyard Bird Watching

I've taken up the sport of backyard bird watching.
For Christmas I asked for "bird watching stuff". I got a beautiful copper feeder, a book Birds Of New Mexico... that is the BEST bird watching book, and Binoculars.
Now most everyday I go out to my porch around 6:00 AM with my cup of tea, and sit and wait to see what will fly into the yard.

Is it winter yet?

It's been a long day.
It really started yesterday. I had my MRI on my spine and neck yesterday afternoon. After the dozens of MRI's I've had over the last 3 years (all on my brain) my neurologist wanted me to have an MRI on my spine. She was thinking that with the MS symptoms I suffer from that my problems may stem more from nerve damage in the spine then in the brain. I really didn't give it much thought, and didn't think I'd talk to my neurologist about it until my next appointment with her in the fall.
Today I went in to see my MS nurse. I'm switching to a new drug, and today was my first shot. They of course have to monitor you for sometime after the injection to make sure your body doesn't freak out. I also needed to have some baseline blood tests done. Well, apparently sometime between 2:00 yesterday afternoon and 8:30 this morning, my MRI results were sent to my Dr. AND showed up in my "chart" (charts are all on the computer now) so the nurse looked at them, and wasn't to happy about it. So she scrambled off to find my Neurologist. It seems that I have two new lesions in my spine (high in my neck) that are showing signs of progression. So the conclusion is, that I'm in the very starts of a new attack of MS. I really haven't been feeling THAT bad. Just run down, fatigued, dizzy, and numb. Nothing new, just worse then normal. I was just blaming it on the heat (stupid summer) and hadn't given it much thought, other then to wonder, when will winter be here?!?!

Cast of Characters

I was up until 11:30 last night trying to make a slideshow of my "cast of characters". As most of you know... THAT is WAY past my bedtime. I was getting so fustrated with photobucket. So I gave up and went to sleep..... dreaming of slideshows for my blog. This morning I had much better luck and below you can see the fruit of my late night labors.

The Cast of Characters are the people who I deal with most everyday. This way you can put a face with the names as you follow along in my most exciting bloged life.