Click images for desktop size: "Fractal Fury" by Lawn Elf I saw a humming bird the other day. It surprised me. I hadn't seen one outside of California before.
This hummingbird was bigger than the ones I grew up with. Its colors weren't as vibrant and startling. It was more a mottled black with some green iridescence about its wings and sides.
It hovered about three feet in front of me. It was inspecting me.
I don't know if my nose was so sunburned that it wasn't certain that my nose wasn't some giant red flower. (Humming birds like red flowers.) Then I thought that maybe I was looking sort of mealy. Humming birds eat meal worms.
Once after a big santa ana winds I was out walking my dogs when I found a baby humming bird on the street. I assumed that the winds had blown it out of its nest. That happened a lot in my neighborhood. My rate on saving these birds was less than 50% but I'm not good at walking away from something in trouble.
I never tried to save a hummingbird before but . . . I tried my usual method: dry baby food mixed with milk and sugar. It wouldn't eat it. I ended up buying instant nectar, the stuff people put in humming bird feeders. That worked pretty well.
Pretty soon we had a tiny little red and blue humming bird flittering around the house. He annoyed my little female finch, another rescue bird who had refused to go back to the wild. The finch had decided that its natural habitat was a shirt pocket.
At three weeks the humming bird was about the size of two joints of my pinky. That seemed small. I took it to our vet, who had gotten used to the various exotic animals we bought into him. I then found out that the little bird probably had not been blown out of its nest. Its mother had probably dumped it. She had a birth defect. I didn't know that her legs weren't supposed to look like they did. I mean, who has ever seen a humming bird's feet?

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Hajime Sorayama I also found out I had to grind up meal worms to mix with her nectar. Protein. And pretty disgusting protein. Fortunately we had a disgusting mixer we used for other disgusting pet remedies so it was okay.
The little girl did fine. She even got to the point of teasing the dogs, an obvious rite of passage in my house. Any animal who lived with us eventually had to devise a way to torment the dogs, who were the dominant species in the house.
The cockatiel rejoiced in bathing in the dogs drinking water. The rabbits liked to pounce on the dogs when they were napping and then hide under the bed just out of the reach of tooth and claw. Even the finch enjoyed landing on their backs and steal wisps of fur so it could build its nest in my shirt pocket. The dogs, of course, bought all their complaints to me, so annoying the pups had the added benefit of making more work for me.
The humming bird just enjoyed buzzing around their heads until the dogs just had to snap at it, of course the humming bird had moved three inches to the left before they got there.
For the record, and records are very important to dogs, the dogs never hurt any of the animals in the house. They bore them easily and took the others intrusions as validation of their native superiority.
At about 6 weeks the humming bird was looking pretty fit. I took her into the vet and he operated on its feet. Its feet were very malformed so it couldn't grasp a perch or a stick. With some surgery we had hopes.
The little girl survived the operation. And after a week could sit on a
Click images for desktop size: "Lena Horne & Dean Martin" perch, although she still preferred sitting on top of my head the most. After another week I decided she could go back to the wild.
I took her out to Bronson Canyon and released her. She took a huge 50 yard arc, darting back and forth like a dragon fly on crystal meth. Then she made a screaming dive bomb and landed on my head wrapping her claws so tightly around my hair I couldn't pry her lose. She didn't loosen her grip until we got back in the car.
I thought maybe if I released her in the back yard she'd live outside happily, still close to the friends she'd grown up with. She wasn't having that either.
She only lived for about 18 months after that. She was too little and too messed up. I never really minded grinding up the meal worms. I did mind the meal worms though.

My puppy is an orphan now. Her mother passed away. Cancer. I only met her mother the one time but I liked her. She liked me too mainly because I'm very free with treats around dogs.

Click images for desktop size: "Green Forever" by Cyreuss It was from her mother that my puppy inherited her equipoise, her grace and her willingness to address her fears. She also got her stubbornness and determination from her. And beauty. You can't talk about this family without noticing their incredible beauty.
I met my puppy's mother in the company of one of the greatest dogs I've ever met, Uncle Hank. He was great because he was so happy being a dog. Even in his overwhelming happy company you had to notice the mom. All the dogs went to an abandoned dog park. My puppy, so tiny, jumped into a little pool there and was having a wonderful time keeping everyone else out of it!
After the adult dogs got bored pretending to be intimidated by my little puppy they went about their own games. My puppy bolted the pool and headed straight towards her mother. The mom turned on her and snapped at her fiercely, really yelled on my puppy. My puppy ran over and sat at my feet looking to her mom for approval.
The world is emptier for Reina's passing. I know its okay to grieve for the loss of a dog. I will be grieving for her and for my newly orphaned puppy.

Aside from watching the birds that are watching me my job hunt continues unabated. I thought I'd be working much sooner than this. Its still possible.
The doc's called. I did have a major heart attack caused by the Canadian jerks refusing to give me the proper meds. I survived it. The doc's still aren't certain why or how. Their was significant additional damage to my heart but not to the point of changing any of my meds or diet restrictions. I still don't like it but I've learned to cover my flinch reflex when they say its pretty miraculous that I'm still alive. I guess that's the only way people can congratulate you on surviving life. Doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment to me. All I did was not die. I didn't even realize that was an option.
The only real negative is that before it was possible I could heal my heart back to 100%. That doesn't appear to be an option anymore. But I'll wait on that call till they've done all the research.
The shoulder is still bad. I'm maybe being to gentle with it now. I got scared by the idea of
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by GBR "irreparable nerve damage."
They're trying to find me an orthopedist who'll see me in the program. I believe they're working hard at it.
I've been taking some criticism for not updating this site everyday. Its because I'm locked into an obsessive mode and hate being repetitive.
there's also the odd thing. It used to be that this site averaged 100 to 200 unique visitor a day. Cool by me. Since the prison story I've been averaging 50,000 a day. With 600 coming through the front door. On days with a new post it goes up to 80,000 and 1,000. This is just weird to me.
A part of it is the new fangled competition between google and bing I think. A lot more people squawking about graphics and stuff. But that only accounts for about 20% of the traffic.
I don't mind, I actually like people coming to look at the pictures but I don't really care about their critical comments which to me seem to be about nothing. Like I'm somehow obligated. Like they're paying me. They're not.
I don't understand the sudden continuing surge in traffic at all.