Long Lost

Our sign says "No Turnaround" but trucks can't read, and when backing up inch by inch to try to turn around, their tires fump down off the gravel and churn up a track of mud maybe three inches deep. In spring especially. Today while walking the trash can back up the incline I saw something odd in the latest tire track, stopped, recognized it.

I had splurged on a five-piece set of Henckels scissors around 2002, and by 2007 or 2009 had worn out its kitchen shears and flower shears and the other, and lost two including the pair I favored for harvesting herbs. Never again had a set that elegant. It's 10 years later and I notice handles?!?!? in the wave of mud.

Pull 'em out. The herb scissors. I'll be darned. The pivot is dark with rust and corroded, looks like a raisin, but the blades are still keen. Rinsed it, and scrubbed away some of the rust with baking soda. Gave it a little lubricant. Maybe I can replace the pivot.

I'm amazed. Just amazed. Durability.

Hummingbirds Can Drown

Out of electrical power for six hours as a huge gigantic terrific thunderstorm seized the world  Thursday night about 6 p.m., turning the sky as dark as 9 p.m., ripping down tree limbs and pouring rain, with nothing else to do I watched as a hummingbird clung, its bill raised and vertical the whole time, to the feeder for half an hour as the feeder swung in the pummeling wind. It did not sip. It did not flinch.

The bird's endurance was so remarkable I even took video that included the thunder, lightning, and slashing rain (and accidentally deleted the video) but fortunately also took still photographs as best I could. Even when drenched and ragged, the hummingbird clung, face to the sky as if in defiance, and only near the end of the half-hour did it waver a little before buzzing away. Hummingbirds come from hurricane country so they know how to adapt their flight patterns but this was the first time I saw this happening: It faced upward so its nostrils wouldn't fill with rainwater and drown it.