It's just past 7 am and the weather gizmo on my computer declares that the outside temperature is 31.8 degrees but feels like 32. The sun isn't up yet although the sky has red streaks in the clouds so the sun is progressing toward disclosure of itself in another sunny, or mostly sunny, day. The dew point is, thankfully, about 22 degrees. There were several times these past few days when it registered at -10 or so. I didn't know a dew point could go that low. Just goes to show you can learn something new every day.
It's been a frigid past few days -- lows from 24° to 29° or so, highs from 43°-55°. I hope I will remember these days when it turns to 110°-115°. We usually have at least two nights during the winter where it gets too or just passes the freezing point and people usually rush out to cover tender plants so they would not be damaged. Some have done that, these past three or so days, and admittedly I have covered the hanging baskets on the patio to protect the spider plants I've been cultivating for years. The rest of the plants are/have been on their own and it appears they have survived quite nicely, thanks be. When it warms up a bit outside (supposed to go up to 61° today) I'll go out and give them a good watering that they haven't gotten for a bit. That will give them time to soak up the water before nightfall.
One thing that started this whole train of thought was that I looked out the front door to see if my pet outside cat were around. I've worried a lot about him in the cold but so far he seems to be doing okay. Cats know where to go when things get tough. As I was looking out the door, though, I noticed a blur of motion that stopped and hovered next to the feeder. A hummingbird, out before dawn and looking for nectar (or sugar-water) to provide the energy for it to continue to survive. I'm always amazed at the resiliency of these little guys; it's so cold out and they are so tiny, but yet they are still around, still zooming around, still protecting "their" feeder from usurpers.
Ok, I know. They say we aren't supposed to feed hummers in winter to encourage them to migrate to warmer climates. I don't think anybody has told that to these little ones. Every winter there are hummers about, even if I don't put juice in the feeders for them. On a good day in the warmer months I can have as many as 6 dipping and zooming and climbing and diving through the air like well-trained dancers or skillful fighter pilots engaging in dog fights through the air. Even a couple of days ago I was outside talking to a neighbor and we got buzzed by a pair, one chasing another away from his/her feeder. The heck with those big lumps of whatever standing there mouths agape. Chase that (chitter chitter chitter) bird away from that feeder! I guess it was chitter, not being at all fluent in hummingbird language.
Somehow it's easier to believe that, in Dame Julian's words, "all shall be well, and all shall be well and in all thing all shall be well," when watching a hummingbird zooming through the air in temperatures that send me scurrying for sweatshirts and heavy socks. This tiny bird has somehow survived outside with no additional covering than its own feathers and what it can find in the leaves of the orange trees across the road, yet was able to emerge in the cold pre-dawn to visit the feeder Had hopefully be able to suck up a bit of energy to keep it going. Ok, so it's following a pattern set down for hummingbirds since Day One but that doesn't decrease the absolutely awe-inspiring fact that the tiny creature has survived great adversity to bring some brightness (and occasional amusement) into a world that so often seems cold, dark, unfriendly and even frightening.
The hummer doesn't have to deal with taxes, legal matters, a depressed economy, rising prices, decreased options and even occasional crises of faith that is pretty common in the world of the big lumps of whatever that hummers can zoom around with impunity. Of course, I don't have to survive outdoors with only what the Good Lord gave me for a covering in sub-freezing temps. I don't have to wait for either flowers to bloom (oh, the orange blossoms are nice but red flowers taste best!) or someone to fill a glass feeder with sugar water; I can open a can, go to the market or even occasionally pick something off a tree when I get hungry. Hummers have limited choices, but I have far more.
The songs of hummers are kind of like people who try to carry a tune but seem to have left it in a bucket somewhere. They make sounds, clicks and chitters it sounds like, but they certainly don't make the kind of music songbirds do. They can't even make the laughing sound of some gulls that so intrigues me when near the water or the honk of Canada geese flying in formation overhead. No doubt any and all those sounds are pure musical perfection to God, just like a Bach chorale or Taizé chant.
I don't know if they believe in a God, even a hummingbird-sized or -shaped one, or whether the bright colors (and the duller ones of the females) they flash while dashing through the air are a sort of visual prayer as they go about their daily lives. Perhaps their primary duty (besides survival, that is) is to remind people like me that the God who made the hummingbird with its beauty, speed and resiliency, also made us and cares for us.
I just went to the door and was only there a second or two when a ruby-throated male flew to the feeder, got three quick gulps and then flew off, perhaps to impress the ladies, perhaps to find shelter, who knows? What I do know is that the hummers live, look to me right now for sustaining food and, in the course of just being him/herself, remind me that there is not just survival but rather hope and even joy even in cold, gray dawns. They'll be around in summer, too, despite heat that wilts me. They'll still be buzzing about, chittering to other hummers, whirring of wings and zooming of flight, when I'm panting in the heat and sweating as I move albeit so slowly.
Hummingbird theology --- God creates, God watches over, God loves, and in turn, God accepts the kind of thanks and praise we can give, even if just clicks and flashes. Beyond that, all else is just sugar water.
It's been a frigid past few days -- lows from 24° to 29° or so, highs from 43°-55°. I hope I will remember these days when it turns to 110°-115°. We usually have at least two nights during the winter where it gets too or just passes the freezing point and people usually rush out to cover tender plants so they would not be damaged. Some have done that, these past three or so days, and admittedly I have covered the hanging baskets on the patio to protect the spider plants I've been cultivating for years. The rest of the plants are/have been on their own and it appears they have survived quite nicely, thanks be. When it warms up a bit outside (supposed to go up to 61° today) I'll go out and give them a good watering that they haven't gotten for a bit. That will give them time to soak up the water before nightfall.
One thing that started this whole train of thought was that I looked out the front door to see if my pet outside cat were around. I've worried a lot about him in the cold but so far he seems to be doing okay. Cats know where to go when things get tough. As I was looking out the door, though, I noticed a blur of motion that stopped and hovered next to the feeder. A hummingbird, out before dawn and looking for nectar (or sugar-water) to provide the energy for it to continue to survive. I'm always amazed at the resiliency of these little guys; it's so cold out and they are so tiny, but yet they are still around, still zooming around, still protecting "their" feeder from usurpers.
Ok, I know. They say we aren't supposed to feed hummers in winter to encourage them to migrate to warmer climates. I don't think anybody has told that to these little ones. Every winter there are hummers about, even if I don't put juice in the feeders for them. On a good day in the warmer months I can have as many as 6 dipping and zooming and climbing and diving through the air like well-trained dancers or skillful fighter pilots engaging in dog fights through the air. Even a couple of days ago I was outside talking to a neighbor and we got buzzed by a pair, one chasing another away from his/her feeder. The heck with those big lumps of whatever standing there mouths agape. Chase that (chitter chitter chitter) bird away from that feeder! I guess it was chitter, not being at all fluent in hummingbird language.
Somehow it's easier to believe that, in Dame Julian's words, "all shall be well, and all shall be well and in all thing all shall be well," when watching a hummingbird zooming through the air in temperatures that send me scurrying for sweatshirts and heavy socks. This tiny bird has somehow survived outside with no additional covering than its own feathers and what it can find in the leaves of the orange trees across the road, yet was able to emerge in the cold pre-dawn to visit the feeder Had hopefully be able to suck up a bit of energy to keep it going. Ok, so it's following a pattern set down for hummingbirds since Day One but that doesn't decrease the absolutely awe-inspiring fact that the tiny creature has survived great adversity to bring some brightness (and occasional amusement) into a world that so often seems cold, dark, unfriendly and even frightening.
The hummer doesn't have to deal with taxes, legal matters, a depressed economy, rising prices, decreased options and even occasional crises of faith that is pretty common in the world of the big lumps of whatever that hummers can zoom around with impunity. Of course, I don't have to survive outdoors with only what the Good Lord gave me for a covering in sub-freezing temps. I don't have to wait for either flowers to bloom (oh, the orange blossoms are nice but red flowers taste best!) or someone to fill a glass feeder with sugar water; I can open a can, go to the market or even occasionally pick something off a tree when I get hungry. Hummers have limited choices, but I have far more.
The songs of hummers are kind of like people who try to carry a tune but seem to have left it in a bucket somewhere. They make sounds, clicks and chitters it sounds like, but they certainly don't make the kind of music songbirds do. They can't even make the laughing sound of some gulls that so intrigues me when near the water or the honk of Canada geese flying in formation overhead. No doubt any and all those sounds are pure musical perfection to God, just like a Bach chorale or Taizé chant.
I don't know if they believe in a God, even a hummingbird-sized or -shaped one, or whether the bright colors (and the duller ones of the females) they flash while dashing through the air are a sort of visual prayer as they go about their daily lives. Perhaps their primary duty (besides survival, that is) is to remind people like me that the God who made the hummingbird with its beauty, speed and resiliency, also made us and cares for us.
I just went to the door and was only there a second or two when a ruby-throated male flew to the feeder, got three quick gulps and then flew off, perhaps to impress the ladies, perhaps to find shelter, who knows? What I do know is that the hummers live, look to me right now for sustaining food and, in the course of just being him/herself, remind me that there is not just survival but rather hope and even joy even in cold, gray dawns. They'll be around in summer, too, despite heat that wilts me. They'll still be buzzing about, chittering to other hummers, whirring of wings and zooming of flight, when I'm panting in the heat and sweating as I move albeit so slowly.
Hummingbird theology --- God creates, God watches over, God loves, and in turn, God accepts the kind of thanks and praise we can give, even if just clicks and flashes. Beyond that, all else is just sugar water.
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