Real news

He doesn’t know he’s a hummingbird.  At least, that’s what I think.

We have a pair of piliated woodpeckers who arrived in our woods a week ago. They are enormous. Imagine two black chihuahuas with wings and red mohawks.  I am fairly certain they are married because they sit in separate trees and squawk loudly at each other when they aren’t gorging themselves on my suet.

Most days, the one little hummer we have perches on top of the tall shepherd’s hook surveying his kingdom until one of them arrives to eat. Then, he moves to a nearby branch to watch. He seems particularly infatuated with Mrs. Woodpecker. He does not know that he doesn’t stand a chance with her.  It is clear that while she is often annoyed with her partner, she married for keeps.

In other news, we have a major tick problem around here. Lilly the beagle is a veritable tick magnet. She is also a bundle of nerves who not only checks herself for new ones but us, too, if we are sitting in the porch next to her. Her nose never lies. This is clearly why beagles are the breed used to sniff out drugs in airports and bedbugs in dormitories. The bad news is that while she is checking she is also doing a whole lot of snuffling. The good news? No ticks stay stuck long enough to be a problem for any of the mammals who live here.

I dodged crazy weather in the Twin Cities this morning as a line of severe storms came through. The sky turned eerily green and then it hailed mightily in several suburbs. On the morning news, one of the reporters advised any individuals stuck in their vehicles during the storm to make sure they were buckled in and as an added precaution, to wear any hockey masks or bike helmets they might have in their cars until the storm passed.

Only in Minnesota. Am I right?

It is June. Sweet, lovely, June. So far, at least here “up north” we have been lucky.  No high winds, buckets of hail, or pea-green skies. Just bickering woodpeckers, hummingbirds with big ideas, and a bumper crop of wood ticks.

But hey, if you have a hockey mask in the back seat of your car, leave it there.  It might come in handy. You can’t be too careful in June.

It must be true. I heard it on the news.