happy

This past weekend I got a surprise little treat.

A hummingbird (my favorite bird) got stuck in the top of our garage and it was just flying around and banging it's head on the ceiling because it couldn't figure out that it needed to fly lower to find the exit.

As soon as I saw it I stopped what I was doing (which was cleaning up the MASSIVE mess that Silas made on the carpet with my entire collection of acrylic paint) and determined to help it.

I fixed some sugar water in a bowl and then climbed up on a ladder to try and catch it.  It flew all around my head for about 10 minutes before I even tried to get it because I didn't want to give it a heart attack or make things worse.  There are wires hanging from the ceiling (for the door openers) and one was right in front of my face. She would land on it every minute or so and I took that as a sign that I wasn't freaking her out too badly since it was so close to me.  I could tell she was running out of energy, and all of a sudden she flipped out and was flying stuck to the ceiling in little tiny circles.  I thought she was about to die and so I was freaking out too.  Justin grabbed a broom and gently pushed her over to me and she landed for a second on the wire.  I grabbed her (gently!) and immediately stuck her beak in the water.  About 2 seconds later her tongue started going ninety to nothin' and I was breathing a huge sigh of relief that she wasn't going to die. {seriously - I LOVE these birds and was very attached to her.}

I fed her some more and walked out of the garage and opened my hand up so she could leave when she was ready.  She stayed for about 2 minutes, just drinking and looking at me, and then she flew up to the top of a tree in our backyard.

I WAS SO HAPPY!

I love having up-close, wild animal encounters.

This is not the first time that I have loved on a hummingbird.

When I was about 10 I found one wrapped in a spiderweb on the floor of the gym at the Louisiana Lion's Camp.  I picked it up and ran to the cafeteria to get a bowl of sugar and water.  It was barely alive - lethargic and sad. I picked all of the web off of it (it was a super thick web...must have been a BIG spider) and stuck it's beak in the water.  After a few seconds it stuck it's tongue out and then very slowly it started moving. And then it moved faster, and faster, and faster. Then it stood up.  And then it started moving it's head.  A few minutes later it flew a few feet away and then returned to my hand to drink some more. And then another few minutes later it flew way up in a tree. My heart nearly exploded.

To this day that is one of my favorite memories.

Yesterday when I got out of the van a hummingbird flew in front of my face and hovered there for a few seconds.

I like to think it was my friend from Friday coming to say Hi.

:)

{and I have a feeder hanging right in front of my kitchen window.  there are 2 that come around quite frequently.}