Here comes the sun, do-do-do!

I flipped the page today for the thought for the day and it was just in line with yesterday....
Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope. It does small tasks, can outlast anything, and is the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

In the spring my sister Suzanne and I were having coffee together at the kitchen table when a hummingbird, that I think had been around the spring before, came up to the window and stayed there for half a minute as though s/he were alerting us to its arrival. I felt like it said...."I'm here! Get the food ready". So I did and I kept it up all summer. I am not looking forward to its time to fly south, but yesterday it flew up to my window again and I wondered if it is preparing to leave and just was letting me know it will be soon. When I take Abby and Tika for a walk I have noticed some very slight changes coming, slowly announcing that fall is around the corner.  Bob and I think it had a nest close by. We are hoping that means next year we have several little hummingbirds visiting us. We did have more than one this year, but we have been told they are territorial, and the one did seem to chase of another one quite frequently. I had a 2nd feeder out front, but it didn't seem to get the same kind of traffic. I had the 2nd feeder right by a fuchsia plant, but I don't think the feeder itself attracted the birds, so I am going to change it for one like the red one I put on the back porch. I did notice that the feeder I had before the red one didn't have a perch for them to rest on, and I actually saw his/her little feet searching for a perch. They are such fascinating little creatures.
I really had a bird filled summer this year that started with my hummingbird. Then Darcy asked me to feed her fish and water the front porch plants while she was gone to Northern CA. One of her planters had a Robins nest in it with 3 eggs. I would lift the basket down carefully and water around the nest and then put it back up just as carefully. When the eggs hatched I did the same thing, and then again a few days later. The baby birds just slept away or begged for food. The next time I went to water, the babies had feathers, got all excited and flew out of the nest. We went searching for them and returned 2 to the nest. The oldest one had left the day before. Then as I was driving home (that same day), there was a very young bird on the road who didn't seem to be able to really fly. I think when they first get feathers they can fly in a downward direction and save themselves from just falling, but I don't think they can fly upwards and return to their nest. I rescued it just in time to keep it from being run over by another car. I spent a long time trying to see if I could find where its nest and parents were without success. Eventually I brought it home and placed it in a hanging basket on my front porch. Bob and I looked up info on the Internet trying to decide what to do about it. We then went off to dinner. By the time we got home, the bird had flown down from the basket and was walking in the direction of some adult birds of his own species. Bob sat on the grass to observe where these adults had their nest, and when he discovered it, he lifted my baby bird into their place. To the best of our knowledge, those adult birds took our little baby in with their babies and kept it until he could fly out on his/her own.  The interesting thing about all the different nests around the house was that when all the babies learned how to fly, all the birds were gone. Hopefully my little one returns next year and makes a nest nearby knowing this was a good place and his family will be safe.