Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Peace and Quiet of Country Living...

...is really a misnomer.

Last night as I sat on the front porch, I was amazed at all the noise around me. My husband had heard a turkey gobble over the ridge so while he ran to the store for milk, I sat listening for it. Every 5 or 10 minutes it would gobble. This was intermixed with the neighbors dog barking, my stupid dog barking whenever a large bird flew over, a distant lawnmower, birds chirping, tweeting, eee-errring, hummingbirds zipping to our feeder just to my right.

I love hummingbird season. Saturday, while sitting outside, I heard the buzz of our first hummingbird, a large female I think. I immediately took the feeder inside to fill. So far we have had mostly single birds visiting although there was one chase. By mid-summer there will be full fledged hummer wars going on. You actually have to be careful in the front yard that you don't get in the way of the chase. I usually have 3 or more feeders available to minimize the territorial fighting but I usually have 3 males camp out one per feeder. (All of this reminds me that I need to pick up some more hummingbird nectar and a couple new feeders.)

Now the only thing I need for my evenings on the porch of peace and non-quiet is a porch swing (and a case of mosquito repellent.)