Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh Hummingbird

I just wanted to share with you other images of the Hummingbird outside our bedroom window.
Nice screensavers. :-)

Ramblings

We've been out on the trail for a few days...all a little short of the stucco work...but we'll get to that in the next few days certainly. Anyway, this week we all put in a 15-hour day going thru Jasper, Alabama near the far-side of Smith Lake...

and then off to Millport, Alabama which is in really rural Alabama a stones throw from Mississippi. R was driving so fast to keep me on schedule that I couldn't get the shot of the huge, three-story Antebellum mansion with the lake in front, the Cedar Tree lined curving cariage way up to the second-story portico entrance, and the blond-tressed carriage horses roaming around inside the four-rail gleaming white wooden fence (not to mention the huge 24-row pecan tree orchard next door, and the little road-side lemonade stand, 5-cents a glass!) R and Lucia didn't see it!

About mid-day we went back across country to Gordo, Alabama and back home.

Once we got back, there was some great news for the FAM...Calling Dr. Nurse Tyson....Calling Dr. Nurse Tyson....

In recovery now from the big road trip, and waiting for another one this week, trying to rest my weary eyes on some of R's flowers in the back yard...

There was a wonderful surprise visitor this morning!

So I can only hope that we have more pleasant surpirses as we finish off a long, long week.
Speaking of "fly away, fly away" (re: Seals & Crofts, "Hummingbird" visit pandora.com), Brian comes home from Ecuador on Monday, and Lucia leaves for Slovakia in about 8 days or so.

Tuna, Chickens, & Burros

Friday was an interesting day in my farm-visit exploits (aka, the part-time farm inspection gig). I started very early...

it was a very beautiful sunrise driving across the mountain top roads south of Huntsville (well, they are "North Alabama Mountains", anyway), and a pleasant temperature at dawn.

One really neat agricultural item of interest that I haven't seen in North Alabama was this hedgerow of Cactus and flowers...more reminiscent of what I saw during our family trips Mexico in the '90's.

As I took pictures and studied the colors and the Tuna (that's what the flowering fruit on top of the Cactus is called), the sun burst into the morning and I could feel the penetrating heat on my back - it was only 6:30 so I knew it would be a rough morning...

and as I wound down my lengthly stay (the poultry/cattle farm covered quite a large area and I walk most of it), I made new friends along the way by talking to the animals...

I must admit that I was a little suspcious of these guys, they always strategically positioned themselves this way, as if they were saying, "OK, I'll take the left leg, Jorge you take the right one, and Manuel, you flank him and we got'em!"

I escaped the stable area safely...to ride herd on another farm another day. :-)