I’m Going to Miss Him

 

I’m in a funk, feeling rather sad and melancholy. I’ve been so crazy busy lately, you’d think that would keep my mind in a happier place, but I’m still feeling as if I’m walking in pudding. Trying to adjust to lots of different things going on around me, one of those things being the changing of the seasons.

I’m NOT happy about that AT. ALL.

(Tile Wall Art at Explora Science Center, ABQ, NM)

I love summer here in our mountains. It’s my favorite time of year up here. Spring and Fall are fleeting and barely last a couple weeks. And this year is so weird because it started off with severe drought and wildfires, with no grass in sight. Just dry, dusty brown. It was downright depressing.

(Yalla!, Scout, Apache, and The Ravens 5)

Then the Monsoons arrived and we received rain almost every day. Everything greened up and we had grass growing. It was wonderful!

        (A bench in a Santa Fe, NM park)

But our July-August Monsoon Season still hasn’t ended. This is not normal for New Mexico. I’m grateful for the rain, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just too suspicious. Makes me wonder and worry about what winter will be bringing us this year.

(Our backyard and our barn up the hill, as seen from my bedroom window)

 

Just today, a huge horde of yellow jackets caused me to believe that a noisy dust devil was flying over our house, but when I looked outside, I was horrified to see that instead of a dust devil, there were at least 200 yellow jackets, lifting, spinning, and flying out over our home. I have no idea where they came from. We don’t have a nest on our property that I have seen. So, in my head I was asking “What does this mean?!”, like the Double Rainbow dude from You Tube. Is this a sign that winter is going to be more challenging than what we’re used to?

The temperatures have been dropping every day and aren’t rising above 70F, and it has become very cold at night, dropping down into the 40’s. I went from turning off my ceiling fans a week ago, to closing my windows at night, this week, because it’s just too cold. A friend and neighbor, about 5 miles south, and 600ft higher in elevation, said she woke up at 5am on Friday morning and was greeted by snow flurries! I’ll need to start digging out more blankets and my down quilts at the rate we’re going around here.

But, we still have hummingbirds visiting my feeder.

I probably should stop refilling the feeder, but instead I’ve just been making their sugar nectar more like sweet, sticky syrup instead, trying to give them as much of an energy boost as I can before they leave on their journey southward.

I’m really going to miss them. Especially this flamboyant fellow.

When he first arrived, he was a holy terror and made sure everyone knew that he was boss when it came to who was allowed to share the nectar feeder.

He was tenacious and was constantly a blurr as he chased everyone around that got too close to “his” feeder without his permission. I just love his fierce, determined look, don’t you?

This is the first year that I’ve had more than one or two hummers visiting my feeder. This summer we’ve had 6 or more hummingbirds zooming and buzzing around our backyard, flying up to my bedroom window to stare at me, and jetting past my head when I’m working in my garden, just to see if they can startle me. They are very enchanting and bring me so much joy.

Some of the drab, brown birds that will stick around into winter have been hanging out around my bird feeders and the suet feeders, waiting for that routine to start up again. Seems rather early to me. Perhaps they know something I don’t?

My ears are going to miss the hummer’s unique sounds and winter will just seem dreary without their brilliant colors flashing me as they hover around the feeders.

This little cheeky guy has been my favorite and I’m going to miss him.

                       Please bring summer back? Please?