Steven's Hummingbirds

My friend Steven from the United Kingdom came to visit last week, but had to leave today to fly up to Ohio. I bet he wished he could be a bird and fly over everything, including St. Louis, and skip the airport and the layover and the possibility of getting stuck there again like he did last week during the great storm and power outage. But we hear tonight he's safe in Columbus, and already has birding glasses on.

Now, while he was here, Steven and I spent many hours on the deck outside watching birds in my backyard. Here are two pictures my Big Guy took this afternoon after Steven left, of a family of hummingbirds coming to look for Steven at the feeder and wondering, like me, where he'd gone and when he will come back to visit us again!

Vegetables!

The tomatoes and eggplants are in full swing in our garden. Big Guy and Big Lady did a smart thing this year... they planted all the vegetables in big whiskey barrels so that Patrick and I couldn't knock them down. The tomatoes are a lot of fun to watch and poke at with my nose. And Big Guy and Big Lady say the romas taste really good. Patrick and I aren't much for salads unless you pour a whole lot of salad dressing on everything. Considering the heat we've had lately which has made us very hot dogs, we really like the tomatoes. When Big Guy and Big Lady come out to water them every night, we still chase around the barrels and Patrick especially likes to chase the water stream everywhere, and then he becomes a wet dog instead of a hot dog. I will get photos of him sometime when he's like that, but Big Lady doesn't like to use the Digital Camera around Patrick when he shakes all his water off.