Madeleine L’Engle, Children’s Writer, Is Dead

Read the article from the New York Times.

Although I'm not actually a big fan, and there are many of her books I haven't read, I will say this lady was quite the author!

Feeding a Flock of Hummingbirds

This summer has been filled with new experiences for me...being dive-bombed by hummingbirds is not one I expected. Yet, it has happened several times. Those birds are greedy.

I didn't set out to be the "hot spot" in the neighborhood for hummingbirds. Here's the scoop: When we moved into this house in darkest winter (the end of March), the previous owners had left most of their outdoor adornments in place. This included windchimes, a decorative sleigh, Christmas lights, and a hummingbird feeder. One spring day I was cleaning up and organizing outside and I put the feeder in the garage since I didn't have any nectar. Within five minutes (and I'm not exaggerating), I had birds humming around looking for the feeder. Evidently, I had some repeat customers from last summer's all-you-can-eat bird buffet. What could I do? The poor things knew this was their "spot." I hied myself to the computer and thanks for the wonder of Google, had a recipe to make hummingbird nectar in a flash. It is surprisingly simple.

I make small batches at a time, but the recipe I found makes four cups a time. The important thing to remember is that the nectar calls for a 4:1 ratio of water to sugar. Here is my 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water.

The nectar doesn't take long to cook, just long enough for the sugar to completely dissolve.

Don't forget to stir constantly! If you look closely in this shot (staged), you can see the water bubbling and starting to boil. Almost done!

Once the sugar is dissolved, I pour it back into my measuring cup and put in the refrigerator to cool. (The nectar looks yellow because it's sitting in front of pineapple. As a note, I read that it isn't necessary to dye the nectar as long as your feeder is red (plus food coloring isn't good for the birds).

While the nectar is cooling, I wash the feeder. Once it's a good temperature (not too cold), into the feeder it goes. Hanging the feeder outside is the risky part. I always look around to make sure no militant birds are lying in wait and slip it over the hook as fast as I can!

Before long, your hummingbird friends will be there, eager for a snack!

Earlier in the season, we had at 3 or 4 adult birds who were constantly feeding. We figured they must have been feeding babies too. I was refilling the feeder every two-three days, but now I'm down to once a week.

We can see our feeder from the kitchen table, and the antics of the birds provided much entertainment for us during supper. Dinner and a show!

Kitchen Improvements

When we went to the State Fair on Friday, I found a few vintage advertising tins to add to the decor in our kitchen.

The smaller tins in this picture my mom and I found at JoAnn Fabric years ago, but she never used them so she gave them to me. They look nice next to the larger one from the fair, don't they?

DH and I found this print of Jean-Francois Millet's "Angelus" at a local Catholic shop that is closing. What I would like to do is frame the words for the prayer above or below the print.

It's amazing how much more homey and "put together" the kitchen looks with these few additions! Before now, we only had this hanging on the door of the coat closet. We bought this at the fair two years ago and brought it from our old house where it was hanging on the back of the front door.

The Pratt Family Singers

Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett are longtime friends and during their performance at Carnegie Hall in the early 1960s, they did a parody of the Von Trapp Family Singers. It should be noted this was before Julie starred in The Sound of Music. These ladies are both stellar apart, and together, they are just too funny and so talented!



A funny piece of trivia: at the end when Carol clocks Julie in the stomach, you can see her stop and ask if Julie's okay. Just before the show, Julie found out she was expecting, and they decided not to do the hit, but Carol forgot once she was caught up in the performance!

Look-alike Meter

Before and After-- AFTER!

For reference, the "Before" pictures can be seen here.

This is new!

Apparently, this is where we're now keeping the sippy cups.