inviting joy

 hummingbirds - John James Audubon

Life is a wonderland of delight -
darting from one flower to another,
tasting the sweet nectar and
radiating the colors of the rainbow.

Hummingbird a symbol for accomplishing
that which seems impossible.
It can teach you how to find the miracle
of joyful living in your own life.

Hummingbird medicine is herbal; it shows us how to use flowers for healing. They teach us how to draw life essence from flowers and create your own medicines. This totem reminds us to explore the past and extract the sweetness from it. It can help you find joy and sweetness in any situation. Grab joy as swiftly as you can. Hummingbird reminds us to find the joy in what we do and to sing it out. - Animal Totem - Hummingbird - Joy

check out this great book for more about Animal Totems

We have four second floor windows in this old brick house that face the harbour which is also south something, very sunny and all have extra deep cat lounging, plant loving windowsills (the depth of the sills is 18 inches - shouldn't all windowsills be so lucky ?). Two windows belong to the much loved chocolate brown bedroom, the other two are in CE* headquarters (the extra wide & deep sill itself the domain & office of one dudalicious cat & associate creative director). Both rooms have geraniums blooming away in those windows - happily, madly red, red, red  - which until a week ago was driving the poor hummingbirds crazy.

Now every summer I fill hummingbird feeders & hang them from trees out n/ about in the vast & still somewhat tangled lands & gardens of 29 Black Street and very occasionally I might glimpse a hummingbird at one of said feeders as I walk through with a load of laundry to the clothesline or while out doing a bit of my (extremely rare these days) hacking & pulling weeding of the terracotta gardens. Sadly I have yet to develop the garden potential on the sunny side of this property with the bevy of hummingbird/butterfly attracting perennials that I hope and dream to one day have. Hollyhocks, bee balm ... you know all those bright & cheery reds & pinks and because of this lack of  I've always just assumed our big, beautiful yard wasn't a popular place with the hummingbird crowd. Boy was I wrong.

Last week I popped into the hardware store & purchased two suction cup red smallish window hummingbird feeders - whipped up a batch of sugar water (1 part sugar/4 parts water) filled the vessels, suction cupped them to the windows just above the geraniums & holy cow !! non stop-ago-go - it's hummingbird central - from very early morning while we're having our coffee in bed 'til later in the evening when I'm here at the TTD** burning that 8:30pm oil ;-)

Such a simple, very inexpensive thing has brought me such immense joy ... joy, joy.

& very gorgeous hummingbird photo from Sara Hurley fellow Passionate Observer

* Creative Empire ** Teak Topped Desk