Hummingbird rescue and Pumpkin surprise

Hummingbird rescue on 16th

Hummingbird release 19th

Sunday we saw a small hummingbird being attacked by other hummingbirds. I found it later laying in the front yard upside down. I thought it was dead until I picked it up. I brought the small bird inside with a feeder. It was so weak it didn't do anything but sit on Lee Anne's hand. Fortunately, the bird sat on the feeder and drank. So we placed it inside Speck's dog cage and waited to see if it would live.
The next day to my surprise it was alive and still sitting on the feeder drinking every so often. We decided it needed 24hrs to heal before we attempted to release it. It again made it through the second night, however, that day we had a major storm and we decided to wait another day to release the small injured bird.
During the day it didn't move a lot but now and then it would let out a small hummingbird chirp. Since it is getting colder into the upper 30's at night, I hoped it would be strong enough to make it on its own and fly the long distance it needs to fly to go South.
So today was the day. I took the video camera out as Lee opened the cage and we hoped it could fly. It hadn't made any attempts at flying inside the dog cage so I wondered if it would just fall on the ground.

Volunteer pumpkin plant

 To our delight as the little bird struggled to get on top Lee's hand it fluttered its wings, then jumped taking a bit of a fall before climbing into the air and flying to the apple tree. We hope it survives and the other birds leave it alone. We felt we did all we could to give it a chance. But ultimately, it is up to the little bird to get to a warmer climate.
On another subject, last Fall I threw a rotten pumpkin over our fence. And up popped a nice pumpkin plant the one plant has gotten huge and we will get at least one nice pumpkin, which by the looks of it will be a bit bigger than the pumpkin I threw over the fence.
It isn't often we get free things, so we had two reasons to smile this morning: Free pumpkins and freeing a hummingbird. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Free Pumkin

October Snow

Well it looks like the next couple days are filled with snow. It is snowing now and although much of it is melting as it hits the ground some is not. The trees are still holding quite a few leaves and the snow weight is bending them.
The first picture is near the top of Cedar Mountain. I took it as I went out to get mail. For those of you who don't know our mailbox is 7 miles from the house at the end of the State Forest. I generally don't get mail everyday for this reason.
The next four days are promising to stay cooler than usual highs in
the low 30's and mid to lower 20's at night. It is also supposed to continue to snow on and off as well. Not the kind of weather I expected when I put the kids pumpkins outside. I think I can see one of the pumpkins teeth chattering.
This is also not good news for the painting and other outside jobs I have not finished. Hopefully, it will warm up next week so I can squeak the last few jobs in.
Mountain girl, Paula, logging out and putting some more wood on the fire.