Feed the birds

The other night I was feeling totally overwhelmed. I just feel like I have very little time at home and that makes balancing everything in my life extremely difficult. Derek sweetly offered to take care of a couple odds and ends here at home but he got a little side tracked at one point.
He decided we should be feeding the birds.
Our backyard -- although a veritable weed fest at the moment -- is also home to various stages of the animal food chain. We must have a lot of worms in the lawn, which leads to a wide variety of birds flying in and out and spending a fair amount of time. This also leads to several neighborhood cats trying to make our yard their second home.
I am not a cat fan.
Still, the birds are nice (I feel a little Cinderella-ish with them all singing when I go outside) and recently we've had some hummingbirds buzzing around so Derek decided we ought to be feeding them.
My job was to find a recipe for hummingbird food online. Did you know you're not supposed to dye it red? I swear every bird feeder I've ever seen has red colored liquid, but the National Audubon Society advises otherwise.
They're the experts, I suppose.

First you boil the water and add 1/4 c. sugar for every 1 c. water.

Then you put it in the bird feeder. Ours is a little decrepid since it actually came with the home when we bought it and was who knows how many years old before that.



When we went out to hang the feeder we ended up visiting for a while with our backyard neighbors over the fence which was really fun.

The whole thing proved to be the perfect distraction from my stress of the evening, even if it wasn't the most "productive." It is summertime after all.

Old before his time?

The other day at Wal-Mart Derek -- always the helpful man -- decided to bring one of the electronic carts back to the store that had been abandoned in one of the parking lot stalls. It was like a glimpse of our life to come.

Bird feeding and now this? I think Derek is getting older before my very eyes!