Hummingbird on Broken Branch

Hummingbird on Broken Branch / oil on black canvas, 5x7 / $68 including shipping

(I've been having trouble lately with the PayPal buttons. If this one seems not to work, and you want to buy this hummer, please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com)

SOMETIMES, WHEN PEOPLE BUY a serious number of paintings from me, I like to include a little thank-you gift. These run the gamut from interesting things I've found to interesting things I've bought. 

One of the latter is a book of postcards about missing President Barak Obama. I think these are wonderfully fun and funny - but, of course, should only be sent to Democrats. 

Usually, it's fairly easy to tell someone's political party - but not always! And the last thing I would want to do is send a thank-you gift that irritated the recipient. So if I really can't tell, I send something else - or I ask. 

The other day, I asked, and suddenly, it felt like an incredibly invasive question. In recent memory, it would have been a nothing question. A "what-did-you-have-for-lunch" question. This time, it occurred to me that it felt like something along the lines of asking whether the person was wearing underwear. You're pretty sure you know the answer, but what if you're wrong? Won't you wish you never asked?

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A Last Thought

"Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create." 

- Roy T. Bennett

Hummer by Orange Flowers

 Hummer by Orange Flowers / oil on black canvas / 5x7, unframed / $68 including shipping

This bird has flown!

HERE ARE SOME FUN FACTS about hummingbirds, from Kaytee.com 

• They are the smallest migrating bird, but don't migrate in flocks. Typically, a hummer will travel alone for up to 500 miles at a stretch.  
• The name comes from the humming noise their wings make.
• They're the only birds that can fly backwards.
• Hummingbirds have no sense of smell, but have great color vision. Different varieties prefer different colored flowers. The ruby-throated hummer likes orange or red flowers best - but red dye should not be used in nectar as it could harm the birds. Instead, plant naturally red or orange flowers or use feeders that have red coloring in their structure.
• Your average hummingbird weighs less than a nickel. 
• They use their legs only for perching and moving sideways on a perch. They can't walk or hop. 
• A hummer drinks from a feeder by moving its tongue in and out - about 13 times a second. That hummer can drink double its body weight in a day. 
• The female typically lays two eggs only. They're about the size of jellybeans, and have been found in nests smaller than a half-dollar. Some varieties, like the black-chinned hummingbird, make nests with plant down, spider silk or other materials that can expand as their babies grow. 
• A group of hummers can be referred to as a flock, a bouquet, a glittering, a hover, a shimmer or a tune.
• There are more than 330 species of hummingbirds in North and South America! 

For more, see https://www.kaytee.com/learn-care/wild-bird/hummingbird-facts.

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A Last Thought 

"If you have talent, use it in every which way possible. Do not hoard it. Do not dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke." 

- Brenda Francis

Hummingbird

Hummingbird / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

this bird has flown!

SEPTEMBER ALREADY. The days slip past, the months, the years, a blur, a whirl, a twirl of minutes and moments, feelings and ideas, tasks done and undone. The promise and the promises of a life. 

And September, one of Peter's favorite months. Mine, too. Both my parents were born in September. School started in September. New clothes, new shoes, new friends, new books. New thoughts. 

When I was young, September days were cool enough that the sun's warmth cut through, delicious on my cheeks and my head. We lived near the Sound, and in September, the smell of salt would call me to the deserted, tourist-free beaches, where one secret was that the water was warmer than in any summer month. 

Later, September meant the start of the good fishing for Peter. He would stand at the end of the jetty in Misquamicut with his friends, and they would cast huge rods far in front of false albacore - they swim so fast that casting at them meant you'd be far behind them by the time the fly hit the water. More often than not, he would come home skunked - but always happy.

Here in Virginia, September was when the weather became reasonable and the sunsets phenomenal. We would sit outside in the evenings and watch the sky and the dogs, and enjoy the cool air and the sense of things beginning. 

Another September is here, and I will celebrate for us both. 

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A Last Thought

"As long as the hummingbird had not abandoned the land, somewhere there were still flowers, and they could all go on."

- Leslie Marmon Silko

Little Hummer

Little Hummer / oil on black canvas / 4x4 / $48 including shipping

sold! 

MY FRIEND CAROL has been here about 10 days, and I've enjoyed every minute of our visit. She has, too - but it's not the vacation paradise one generally imagines. 

She came down from Pennsylvania during one of the hottest stretches of the Wachapreague summer, and stayed in my little house, where the central A/C is broken. She is leaving Monday, and the new A/C is coming Tuesday. We've managed with a couple window units, but only by tolerating a quite warm house, living with curtains and shades drawn, and watching TV in the evenings in the dark. 

Koko is quite in love with Carol, which is a delightful thing to behold (yes, I am a little jealous, but only a little). While it is of course, wonderful to be adored by a sweet dog, it bears remembering that Koko is a sweet and very warm dog, who loves to snuggle, and that's fine if it's cool but not so great when it's 86 inside the house. Also, Koko has the sharpest elbows of any dog ever. When they dig in, it's like no other kind of pain. 

And finally, Koko has a terrible habit of flinging herself to the ground and rolling on her back in the path of the people she adores. She has come to know that I detest this particular form of adoration, and so, usually, she doesn't do it to me - except, it seems, when I come in from a long outing, and really have to pee - then she does her flinging three or four times as I make my way from the door to the bathroom. Someday, I will end up peeing on her, I know. She does this to Carol pretty much every time Carol walks anywhere in the house, and my friend, bless her heart, puts up with it. 

All the doggies seem to love Carol, and that's great. It's given me a little break from the rigors of my daily festival of dog love. I'll be happy to be the target of their affections again, but it's been nice to be the sideman for a bit. 

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For Today

"...when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too bush searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous." 

- Henry Miller

Hummer by Hanging Flower

Hummer by Hanging Flower / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold!

THE DOGS, my marvelous, celebratory, loving dogs, have been driving me crazy this week. The reason is the overabundance of golf carts that the weekend people insist on driving up and down Bayview Avenue. 

Dr. Cooper and Lulu have a passionate hatred of golf carts, and bark ferociously whenever they go by. The bark and bark, and snarl, and the hair stands up along their backs, and sometimes, they get so riled up that the turn on each other, growling and snapping and looking for all the world like wild dogs. 

It's not only the barking, which has been blistering and unending, but it's also their latest and related endeavor, redecorating the living room.

When the couch is in the right place - where I, the HUMAN, wants it - the left-hand arm of the couch is where you see it in the photo below. 

But. 

See the little table? Before I took this photo, Doc and Lulu had managed to move the couch so that the left-hand arm was snuggled up against the table where it is in the photo. Of course, they had moved the table, too. 

They do this by pushing off from the couch, with their considerable muscle and vigor, as they leap to the bench under the window to bark ferociously at the passing golf carts. 

At first, I thought I was losing my mind. The couch was in a different place, I was sure it was. My neck was killing me as I watched TV! But then I realized what was happening. 

So this is just irritating, and while blame the dogs for it, I really blame the darn golf carts.

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A Final Thought

"Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, 

still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings." 

- Victor Hugo

Hummer by Purple Flowers

Hummer by Purple Flowers / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

sold! 

IN THE MIDDLE of the unpronounceable tropical storm, and in the midst of the even-stronger straight-line wind that blew through a few days later, hummingbirds showed up at the feeder. 

How is it that a wind that can break giant limbs off ancient trees can't keep a hummingbird quiet? 

I found an explanation of sorts from Science Daily, which described an experiment being conducted (this was 2010, so it's probably already done) at the Extreme Fluids Lab at Los Alamos National Lab. 

Hummers' wings move in a sort of figure-eight pattern, so they get lift on the upstroke and the downstroke. Other birds' wings don't move this way. The figure-eight oscillation gives them a huge lift, and allows them to hover. And they adjust the angle of the wing-stroke constantly, to let them weave their way though huge winds. 

But another article, from Backyard Wildlife Connection, said that scientists put hummers in a wind tunnel, and found that the little birds couldn't fly in wind stronger than 27 mph. But I saw them out there! Maybe they were flying just in the lulls between the big winds. 

Here is a cool video about hummingbirds and the way they fly. You have to scroll down in the page a little to find it.  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/64201/how-do-hummingbirds-hover-rain-and-wind

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For Today

"By the way, did you fellows know that a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter? Do you think a hummingbird also weighs the same as two dimes and a nickel? But then she asked a question of her own: How do they weigh a hummingbird?" 

- Calvin Trillin

Hummer at Red Flower

Hummer at Red Flower / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

sold!

TODAY AND YESTERDAY, in the amazing, heavy, mind-blurring heat, I've decided to take it easy. I've stayed inside, in the air-conditioning, napping and reading and watching "Silent Witness," a British crime drama that goes on for season after season after season. 

It's never hot in British shows, have you noticed? It rains, sure, and sometimes there's snow, or weather identifiable as "winter," but I've never seen a character wearing shorts (except for tennis) or sweating, or even looking like she is out on a hot summer day. Or am I just thinking narrowly? 

In the heat here, the ants seem to have found magically instant paths to invade the hummingbird feeders, and of course, the hummers won't go near them with the ants - would you? So I've taken the feeders down for the time being. I miss them! Miss the buzz and blur of the birds, their nasty battles for dominance and ownership, their beautiful colors flashing in the sun. In a day or so, I will try again. There are plenty of flowers available here on the shore, so I think the hummers will be OK until my feeders go back up. 

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For Today

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." 

- Neale Donald Walsch

Rufous Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbird / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / unframed / $68 including shipping

sold! 

I KEEP THINKING I see hummingbirds, but when I look again, nothing. The twitch of a branch, a wren flitting through the coming leaves, or just a trick of the mind. 

The 2020 hummingbird migration map does show one or two nearby, so maybe I have been seeing them - though it is unlikely. 

Still, like spring and summer and the end of this quarantine, the hummingbirds are coming. So today, I will make some nectar and fill up some feeders and keep looking. 

Have you seen any hummers yet? 

***

For Today

Silence

I catch the pattern

Of your silence

Before you speak.

I do not need

To hear a word.

In your silence

Every tone I seek

Is heard.

- Langston Hughes

Hummer

Hummer / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / unframed / $68

sold

HERE ARE SOME COOL hummingbird facts: 

• There are more than 350 species of hummers, all in North and South America. Two species have gone extinct since hummers were recognized, in the 19th century
• The average hummer weighs about 4 grams, or 0.14 ounce. The smallest hummingbird is the bee hummingbird, which weighs about 2 grams. 
• Hummingbirds flap their wings generally 50-80 beats per second, though some flap as slowly as 12 times per second, and some as fast as 200 times, when they are diving. 
• They live three to five years on average in the wild, though some have been known to live 12 years or more. One in captivity lived to be 14. 
• They need to consume about half their body weight every day. They would starve overnight if they slept the way other birds do; they go into a state called "torpor," which is sort of like a short hibernation. 

You can find these facts and more at Discover Wildlife. com -  https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/facts-about-hummingbirds/

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For Today

"I would rather die of passion than of boredom." 

- Vincent Van Gogh