Hummingbird After the Rain Showers

Sunday morning dawned grey and cold, a far cry from the usual May weather in the inland areas of Southern California.  Snow was falling in the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles by 7AM, and I’m sure the same was happening in the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains here near me.

By mid-morning Mother Nature was gifting the valleys with a rare treat — liquid sunshine!  Not just a drop here and there, but enough to leave puddles and to require windshield wipers.  While I was out doing errands I was so glad I had spent 2 hours on Saturday thoroughly washing Putt-Putt inside and out. 

After getting home and putting away all my goodies, I noticed that something outside the family room window had kitten Skittles’ attention, in a major way.  I sat next to him and gingerly moved the vertical blinds.  I caught my breath when I spied the hummingbird sitting just a couple of feet from me…err…us!

I grabbed my camera, replaced the regular lens with the zoom then started snapping away.  Watching this tiny bird was entrancing.  Rarely do I get to see this bird sitting – its usually hovering at a plant as it eats or flying past me at warp speed, the noise from it’s blindingly fast fluttering wings sending me on a search for the bird.

I was giddy with excitement at my photo opportunity even though I felt a wee bit voyeuristic.  Why?  My little flying friend was busy with her personal-care post rain shower cleaning ritual.  But it was awesome to watch…and photo!  A silver lining to showers that beats a rainbow any day!

And now…I’m going to share some of the 44 pictures with you!  Enjoy!!!!!

Skittles Is Growing Up

Over this past couple weeks I’ve noticed a few things that give me hope kitten Skittles is growing up…and hopefully nearing, or at least on the right path to, the end of his kitten stage.

First, he’s started sleeping with me for some of the night.  And I don’t mean occupying the foot of the bed, I mean curled up or stretched out against me, snoozing away, even if his older step-brother Scarpetto is on the bed too!  Until now, if both felines were on the bed Skittles took this as a hint to irritate…errr…”play” with Scarpetto.  And of course, tales of Skittles bringing toys to bed to play with by himself or with me are legendary.

But now?  He still does both some of the time, but much more of the time is spent sleeping!  I do realize that this means he sleeps a good 19 out of 24 hours a day, but with all the energy he expends when he’s awake, Skittles deserves all that snooze time…and we housemates deserve that peace and quiet! 

Second, Skittles has always enjoyed and very actively played fetch.  But now there’s a twist.  When he brings his mouse back to me and I reach for it, he growls!  If I grab hold of the mouse’s tail and pull then Skittles adds hissing to his sound effects, ditto if I pet him!  Unfortunately for the little bundle of energy, I laughed hysterically the first time he vocalized.  My reaction didn’t seem to offend Skittles though as he has continued the growling and hissing all week, and each time he does I still smile.  Okay, I’ll admit it, I growl back in between my giggles…you know, just like a parent mimics their babies’ noises, or a canine parent woofs back at their canine-kid.

You do do that don’t you?

Third, there have been a few occasions when I’ve been sitting on the sofa that Skittles has jumped into my lap to cuddle and have his back, cheeks and under-chin areas scratched (ditto for my bathroom time  but we won’t go into any details on that).  He has never been into cuddling just to cuddle, and scratching almost always led to a game of “attach the human hands”, but that’s slowly changing, emphasis on slowly.  And while he enjoys that attention he turns on his purring machine!!

Yes, my kitten is growing up, but lest you fear he’s leaving his kitten-hood behind too quickly, trust me, you don’t have to worry.  He still chases my bathrobe ties, attempts to untie my sneakers, eats paper, does headers into walls when chasing his toys, irritates Scarpetto and squiggles and squirms when I try to cuddle when he doesn’t want to.

The path to cat-hood still lays before Skittles, but at least he’s on the path!

How I Spent Mother’s Day

As wonderful as Mother’s Day is in theory, there is a group of people for whom it can sometimes be a painful reminder of a loving person no longer in one’s life.  

I belong to that group.

Within that group there is a subset of individuals who do not have children, and who therefore do not spend time honoring their significant other or being the center of attention.

I belong to that group too.

*sigh*

My Mom passed away on November 14, 2003.  Some years Mother’s Day really bothers me and other years it doesn’t.  This year started out to be overwhelming but by the middle of last week things were looking up.  I tuned out as many electronics as possible in order to avoid being slammed with sale ads, AKA painful reminders, and that seemed to swing the pendulum in the positive direction.

Sunday morning I was up before the sun, puttered until it was time for my weekly sister chat, then headed out to Lowe’s to pick up some plants for the front yard.  Once back home I fortified myself with a couple fresh glazed donuts then headed outdoors to putter in the front yard.  I love gardening, as did my Mom, so what better way to spend my day then thinking of her while doing what we both love?

The forecast was for clouds and maybe some drizzle so the wardrobe was a t-shirt and jeans, no shorts.  Unfortunately, the sun came out for a couple of hours.  Though I believe Mom sent it to brighten my day, she seems to have forgotten some of her Mom-responsibilities as she  forgot to remind me to go inside and slather my arms with sunscreen.

No, I’m not trying for the Michael Jackson white glove look, I wear gardening gloves (sometimes) when I garden.

I spent nearly 5 glorious hours puttering the front yard.  I added some plants, unburied all the sprinkler heads and removed all the flag markers, re-staked 2 trees, finished the dead-heading I started on Saturday then took more than two dozen pictures of the now really completed front yard.

And now my fingers will shut up and instead let you enjoy some pictures of my front yard.  While you are doing that, I’m off to massage some sore muscles from all those hours of bending and stretching.

Water Bill Savings

Saturday’s mail, which I didn’t retrieve until Monday, brought the first warmer weather water bill.  The bill for April usually jumps from the previous 5 months as the sprinkler system is used regularly for the first time since late fall.

I’ve been on the prowl for this bill, nearly busting with curiosity about the savings I would (hopefully) find inside thanks to my new landscaping.  My previous months’ bills were their usual low amount, and if I was right, this bill would be too.

I love it when the mail brings good, no GREAT, news!

This is the budget graph the water department has given me.

Look at how much water I used in the left April column (2010) vs the right April column (2011)!   Now to clarify, I can use more water than my allotment, but the extra water will cost me more per billing unit than the budgeted amount of water.  The water department sets the budget by using a formula for calculating the amount of indoor/outdoor water usage each household should need based upon # of residents/property square footage.

Here’s my water usage breakdown…

One thing to note is that my April 2010 bill covered 49 days where as my April 2011 bill only covers 34 days.  However, even if I add 50% of my April 2011 water usage to the bill I’m still way behind last year’s usage.

These results are exactly what I expected when I converted my front yard to drought tolerant landscaping.  So far so good…!

The wait is on for the June through October bills to see how much water (and dollars) I conserve!!