Joy!

We are starting to see a slight increase in the number of hummers in the garden, thankfully.  Still much lower than normal at this time of year, but that seems to be the case over much of the eastern states.  Anyway, this is a female and I'm guessing a hatch-year bird, based on the condition of her feathers and overall appearance.  Moments later she was chased by another hummer, both of them squeaking angrily.  

Did some house cleaning today and a quick trip to a local farm stand to buy local tomatoes, corn and cucumbers.  My besties are coming out this weekend so we'll enjoy the corn and tomatoes that New Jersey is known for.  

I am also doing a chimney swift delivery tonight.  My friend who does avian rehab is a specialist in chimney swift nestlings and receives them from other rehab facilities in the region.  A location south of me has a "batch" of baby swifts that they want Giselle to take but for her it's over 2 hours and so the swifts will be dropped here and Hubs and I will take them the last leg of the journey, about 40 minutes.  Hubs doesn't know about this yet...and chimney swift babies are very, very vocal...

I enjoyed some time outside before the fatigue caught up with me and forced a lay-down.  I think that the fatigue may be exacerbated by the aromatose inhibitor I am taking - I didn't realize that it also causes fatigue.  Nor did I know that it is classified as a chemotherapy drug!  Not that either of those things really matter.  It is also very effective at preventing recurrence of estrogen-fed tumors and that's what really matters.

While I was outside this morning I finally got a look at a nifty little planthopper nymph that I've seen flying around but haven't been able to get a lens on.  They are white and very fluffy and when they locate on the stem of a plant (they seem to favor sunflowers) they disperse some sort of white fluffy stuff around them, almost looking like a spider egg casing - it makes them almost impossible to see.  You can see a shot HERE on Flickr

So that's a wrap for today.  Oh, and today's chocolate is dark with a ganache filling....

xo
Debbi