CHECK-IN: 🌸🌼🌻SATURDAY 7/18/2020🌻🌼🌸 - All are WELCOME!

Good morning all. diva49, I hope you enjoy your steaks. I found a prime rib in my freezer and thought we should use it up so we are sharing it with DD and her family tonight. Brussels sprouts and new potatoes are also planned. 

I finished my walk early this morning which is the only time I can do it without passing out from the humidity. 

I hope everyone enjoys the day. Time for coffee for me!

The steak sounds yummy!

susiq25679 , I hope you can get the new tire quickly so you can get on the road to ride.

It's much hotter today than it has been for a few days. We'd still like to go for a little hike on a new path we've discovered. Luckily, it's close to my husband's favorite swim hole.

Beyond the above, I'm not sure what else I want to do today. Our hummingbird's are always here to watch and entertain us. As usual, we only have girl visitors, and there are a lot of these cute little ladies. We usually only see one or two males very briefly at the beginning of the season. We often wonder where all of the little dudes are. It's easy to tell the difference between the male and female ruby throated hummingbirds because the males are a bit more colorful and have the ruby throats that the girls don't have. 

Cyndee - do you have trouble with ants and warps at your hummingbird feeders? I gave up the feeders because of that problem. I did see only 2 this season by the flowers - I miss them but not the ants and wasps!
Thanks
Marie

Yes, for a brief period we did have an issue with ants on our hummingbird feeder. They would contaminate the nectar, so the hummers stopped going to it.

What my husband did was to scatter diatomaceous earth on the ground and shrubbery below the metal rod that holds the feeder. This is harmless to plants and animals, but kills any type of arthropod (like ants and wasps). He also rubbed regular white chalk on the rod to serve as hurdle for the ants. After doing these things, the ant problem was solved immediately.

The diatomaceous earth can be found on Amazon or in Home Depot (about $10 for a 4-lb bag). It looks like a very fine white powder. It sticks to leaves well and lasts even through a few good rains.

If the hummingbird feeder has been contaminated by the ants, I recommend that you give it a very thorough wash before refilling it with freshly made nectar.

I know that wasps can bypass the shrubs since they fly. We do get wasps in our back yard, but they don't bother our feeder. They were getting into our house and nesting under our vinyl siding, so we sprayed that but of course nowhere near the hummingbird feeder, for obvious reasons. I don't have any good advice on that, unfortunately. Are there many many wasps? If it's just a few, this may sound odd, but my husband sometimes uses his "Executioner" on annoying bugs in and outside of the house. It looks just like a tennis racket, but has a button you press to turn on a high electric voltage (like a portable bug vapper). It zaps dead most bugs, though I will say that big carpenter bees seem to survive it. We also eventually found a remedy for them, since they were boaring holes in our wooden deck. Sometimes getting rid of a few seems to do the trick. We joke that the carpenter bees eventually told their friends to stay away from our house 😉

My husband is a sweet guy, but does get some fun/pleasure out of using the "Executioner". It's a good cheap gift for men (or women) who get a thrill from killing bugs.

Cyndee my girls would love that device! They absolutely loathe bugs. We don’t care about bugs outside but if they get in the house it’s game over for them!

It is pretty fun to use. Some savvy house and horse flies can be challenging, so when you get them it's satisfying.

That's funny you mention that your boy hummer sits while feeding. The one we had earlier in the summer sat while feeding, too. Then he'd go to a nearby branch and sit for what seemed like ages, until a girl hummer came to fight and chase him away. We named him "Lazy Ladislav" (Ladislav is a Czech name). We have names for the girls, too. We always name them, but we think there are many different girls coming this year, so it's hard to tell some from others. One girl is Midori, because she's very green (Japanese word for green). Another is You You, which is Chinese for friend, plus it sounds like the toy.