and life is good

We have been busy at work and, as such, the evenings have been restful and fun for me. I've worked on my genealogy and almost finished the main part of Grandpa Frank's section; I shored up my fantasy baseball team with hotter closers and a very hot Jedd Gyorko for my infield; and I've spent time each day with my herbs and vegetables - chatting quietly and letting them vent, as the birds are not very good listeners.
I found a Pioneer Woman stuffed mushroom recipe i am looking forward to trying this afternoon, and we've been pleased with our winning Tigers all week.


A couple weeks ago a large population of very small black ants found the hummer feeder hanging from a wire outside our kitchen window and I was sad. I cleaned the feeder and made a fresh batch of nectar and hung the feeder back outside on another wire near the first one. It only took the little effers about a day to find it again and lo! the water was soon full of dead and dying ants - certainly an unfit meal for our precious hummers. I brought the feeder in and cleaned it once again; but before I filled it and set out more ant-food, I consulted the forum where everyone has an opinion and the most vocal are usually the closest you can get to garbage: the WORLD WIDE WEB!
Besides water moats, pesticides, Vaseline, and double faced tape (all of which I've tried - with minimal success), a new suggestion (to me) seemed to make sense. Instead of wire, someone used fishing line and said the ants can't march on such a small road. Well, let me tell you, the hardest part was tying the picture hook with a good knot in my four pound test to hang the feeder from. But once we got the food hanging, our colorful chirping friends returned and have been back ever since (this was about four or five weeks ago). The funny thing at first was he (mostly the male did this) would land, which would cause the feeder to rotate slightly So he would hop to the next hole to be in roughly the same 'position' relative to the house and the open space opposite it. One or two seconds later, he'd be turned too far again so he'd hop to the next clockwise hole; this continued until he finally learned that it didn't matter really where he was geographically, as long as he was getting a good drought of that four to one sugar water. The main point is that the ants have not been back and life is good.