A Sign of Spring

It hasn't felt much like spring around here for the last few days.  We've been waking up to temperatures hovering around the freezing mark.  BRRRR!!!  I'm ready to be done with that and move on!

We did have a sign of spring of Friday afternoon.  A lone hummingbird showed up, looking for the feeder.  It's really early to have a hummingbird here on this mountain. They usually show up later in the season, after the weather has warmed a bit more.  I was a little worried about this bird, since we're still dealing with such cold overnight temperatures.  But he was looking for food, so I set about getting the feeders filled.

That turned into a comedy of errors!  For starters, I messed up the proportion of sugar to water.  Instead of 4 cups water and 1 cup sugar, I dumped 4 cups of sugar into the water!!  And since that was all the sugar we had (I hadn't yet done the grocery shopping and sugar was on the list), I set about trying to rescue some sugar out of that gloppy mess and transfer it to a different container where I could mix the proper proportions.

Once the food was mixed, I poured it into the feeder, attached the base and carried it, upside down, out to the porch.  I got my stepstool in place, since I'm too short to reach the hook otherwise.  I stepped onto the stool and turned the feeder right-side-up to put it on the hook.  At that point, the bottom part of the base of the feeder popped off and I was covered in sugar water!

I jumped backwards off the stool in an attempt to get out of the way of the deluge of sticky water.  But I couldn't move fast enough to escape!  The good news is that I didn't fall off the stool.  The bad news is that I twisted all my parts in my attempt to avoid the water.  I'm still feeling the effect of that today.

Fortunately  I had enough sugar water to fill two feeders, and the second feeder was filled and hung without incident.  We didn't see the little bird again until yesterday afternoon, and he's already been back this morning.  So I guess all is well with him, in spite of the cool temperatures.

We didn't think to bring the feeder in on Friday night, so some critter (probably a bear) helped himself to it and the remaining bits were on the ground Saturday morning.  On Saturday we bought some new feeders and more sugar, and so the "buffet" is ready for our little feathered friend and for the rest of his friends when they decide to venture this far north.

And that's what the beginning of spring is like here in the mountains!

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven."  (Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV)