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Both hummingbird chicks have flown away. The bicycle\u00a0hook nest is empty. A friend\u00a0told me new chicks sometimes come back to the nest at first. We observed that with one of the chicks from an earlier\u00a0hummingbird nest in June. I remember thinking, “Surely that bird should have\u00a0learned to fly by now,” and then right before my eyes it\u00a0did fly. According to my friend, it probably had been flying for a while.<\/p>\n
With that in mind I announced I’d\u00a0wait a week before knocking the nest down, just in case the chicks still think of it as home. Donna said I should\u00a0leave it alone. One, she likes seeing the nest, even if it’s\u00a0empty. Two, Mother Nature knows best and if I intervene it’ll change the equation in unknown ways. She’s right, of course. The old nest stays, and next year’s mamas can deal with the cleanup. I’ll content myself with hosing the dried hummingbird shit off the patio floor.<\/p>\n
We’re in the heart of southern Arizona’s monsoon season, but most of the rain has fallen\u00a0in other neighborhoods. We get\u00a0lightning,\u00a0thunder, and the occasional spatter, and I guess that’ll have to do. Would that we\u00a0could turn our sprinklers off and not have to add water to the pool every few days.<\/p>\n
Some day the southern Arizona water table will be exhausted and the entire region will\u00a0have to be evacuated. We’ll be refugees. I wonder if people up north and back east will set up immigration checkpoints and try to keep us out. No, not really.\u00a0I don’t wonder at all. I know they will. People suck.<\/p>\n
Dogs don’t suck, thank goodness. That’s Schatzi, who is nine years old this month. In dog years she’s catching up with us. I hope her knees don’t bother her! Chewie the cat was born in August too, we think, which makes her nineteen,\u00a0an elderly cat. She howls a lot and spends most of her days curled up\u00a0in Donna’s bathroom sink. Doesn’t seem to have any problem leaping up onto the bathroom counter, though, and she always\u00a0puts in an appearance at mealtime.<\/p>\n Parts and pieces for my next motorcycle maintenance session are arriving daily. Just waiting for the new tires, which’ll probably come today. Have I mentioned how much I love online shopping? I get motorcycle\u00a0parts from a\u00a0Honda dealership in Ohio … good prices, fast and free shipping\u00a0…\u00a0and have\u00a0been a loyal customer since 2001. For everything else, though, I use Amazon. You can accuse me of\u00a0drinking Jeff Bezos’\u00a0Kool-aid, and that’s fine. Beats the hell out of schlepping all over town. Seriously, I wonder if the growth of on-line shopping is making\u00a0a dent in overall\u00a0fuel consumption\u00a0and emissions. It certainly\u00a0saves this one shopper\u00a0a bundle of gas money.<\/p>\n I’ve put in over 1,000 hours of volunteer time at the Pima Air & Space Museum, graduating from a laminated card stock name tag to a spiffy metal badge. They even spelled my name right!<\/p>\n![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5581\/14721818025_ba23be9dbf.jpg\" "\\"click")
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