Sorry for shouting, but I'm sooooo excited! They usually come back each year right around Pop's birthday - which is tomorrow - but our weather has been so yuck lately that he thought that he was going to have to celebrate without them. He's had the feeder up for a week or more, waiting on them. I was weeding in the front perennial bed and heard the familiar buzz and chirp over my head - ALL RIGHT!!

Them weeds can wait for later - I've got a new batch of feed cooling in the fridge (4 cups water; 1 cup sugar; boil, then chill) and am off to root in the storeroom for the other feeders. Can't wait for Pop to get back out of the woods so I can tell him!!

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2002

Answers

Oh Boy!!! A few more days and mine should be back then. Better go on my annual feeder search.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2002

Thanks for the "alert", Polly!! I brought my feeders out of the cellar a few days ago, but they're still waiting to be filled and hung outside. Guess I'll add that to this weekend's job list!

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2002

Eat your heart out cause I have no feeder and they're everywhere up here! Doncha just love em when they they buzz right up to your colorful hat and check it out for nector? ....Kirk

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2002

Ours have been back for three weeks now Polly, I get so excited too when I see/hear the first little guy back at the place where the feeders always are hung, makes me run in the kitchen and make him up a fresh batch of food!

In a month, we will have hundreds at the feeders, I go through two quarts of sugar water a day at the peak of hummer season.

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2002

Dear Kirk - Tthhbbbtttttt!!! (Did I spell that right, Alan?) Hubs loves to sit on the porch glider and watch them race in and out of the porch posts like a obstacle course. He's also very careful when he steps out the door in the mornings - says he has nightmares of having a hummingbird impaled in the side of his head!

I've had to shoo one out of the shed; and one out of the house - open a door and they just make themselves right at home!

Annie, I bought a bunch of those little 2 oz feeders that are on stakes - they have a big gaudy flower on them? I'm trying to talk Hubs into cutting the stakes off and making a hook on the end so that I can hang one on each porch post - I have a big iron hook on each one post. Usually, I use 3 big feeders (8 oz), hanging them on the hooks; plus several small feeders on stakes in my hanging baskets. This year, I have gone to hanging "bag" planters for the porch posts - they don't hang on the "hook"; but go over it to the bracket and rest flat against the porch post - so now I really need something to hang on the hook itself - looks pretty dumb out there all by itself! Filling all those little feeders should keep Pop hopping this summer! Plus, I want to hang some on the grape arbor, to attract them out to the garden. I've already got bee balm planted out there; and salvia - just need to figure out some more plants! Hmmm...what did I do with all those hollyhock seeds???

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2002

I put my feeder out April 1st and have a dozen or so camping out here and the honey suckle is starting to bloom too.

-- Anonymous, May 05, 2002