Category: Dear Mom

Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you are having a great day and that you have been blessed to be able to spend some time with those you love.  I spent some time earlier to day with my dad and many of my other family members.  I love getting to do so whenever possible.  Today was a mixed blessing because besides the occasion being Easter we all also got together to say goodbye to my brother, Kolin, who is leaving tomorrow to spend about four months in the Mideast.  He does Computer Aided Drafting or CAD and the company he works for is sending him their to work.

Below is a picture that was taken of Kolin and me at our family gathering earlier today.  My family means the world to me and so I’m always looking to take pictures with them or of them.  This bittersweet occassion was no different, so I had someone take this photo of us together.  I hope you enjoy seeing it.  I know it is very special to me.

I love you, Kolin!  Go do your job and then come back safe.  We will all miss you very much.  Keep in touch with us, as I know that will make me feel better about your being so very far away and maybe it will even seem to help the time pass more quickly.

Thanks to all of you who visit this blog.  I hope you enjoy it  and will visit regularly.  I’m sorry that this particular post isn’t specifically about hummingbirds, but I wanted to wish all of you Easter blessings and share with you how my day was spent.  What a great day it has been and how truly blessed I feel about my life.  May each of you also feel truely blessed on this Easter Sunday.

Dear Mom:

Today is a bittersweet day for me; it would have been your 75Th birthday.  Unfortunately, you passed away at the age of 72 and are therefore no longer with us.  I am sad that you aren’t here with us to celebrate this milestone. The occasion makes me happy because it gives me the opportunity to remember and honor the women who gave birth to me.

You were a great mom!  You always had a way of making all of us feel loved and special.  On each of our birthdays, you would always make each of us a favorite meal and/or desert.  It is impossible for me to select one favorite meal, because I loved so many of your meals!  My favorite desert was always your homemade chocolate cream pie.  No ones ever taste quite as good as yours did!  I can’t help but wonder what favorite meal and desert you would have chosen for your 75Th birthday.  After all, it  would have been a great occasion which needed to be celebrated.  Since you are no longer with us, I’ll have to find my own unique way to mark the occassion in your honor. 

I can’t see a hummingbird that it doesn’t make me think of you and your enjoyment of these amazing birds.  Unfortunately, I have yet to see any this spring season.  This has me quite concerned because  they should have begun to appear by now, but their have been far fewer around in recent years.  This makes me quite sad, but there is no one explanation which would explain the decrease in the hummingbird population in southeast Texas.

Just know mom, you are forever in my heart.  I am extremely proud to have been your daughter.  Even now, I still miss you every day.  I couldn’t let the occassion of your birthday go by without remembering it.

Have you ever before heard the myth that hummingbirds migrate on the backs of geese?  This myth is absolutely not true!  Nevertheless, this untrue myth seems to have of taken on a life all its own.  Have you ever wondered how this myth might have come to be.  I have often wondered this and now I can offer you one possible explanation concerning the origin of this myth.

It seems that it may have been John J. Audubon, founder of the Audubon Society, who may have started or at least strengthened this untrue myth.  As the story goes, he once shot a goose and then when he went to retrieve the goose a out flew a hummingbird.

There is absolutely no validity to this myth whatsoever, but maybe the information found above will explain the possible origin of this  myth.  This just goes to show how any story can take on a life all its own.  This is the kind of information my mom would have enjoyed discovering and I hope you did also.

A hummingbird actually spends very little time in flight.  Just how much time this bird spends in flight may surprise you.  The hummingbird only spends 20 percent of its time in flight!  That’s correct, I said 20 percent of the hummingbirds time is spent in flight and the other 80 percent is spent perching.  That would certainly seem to dispel the common belief that these birds are always in motion.  Even knowing this fact does little to help us catch a glimpse of these beautiful birds or to help us capture a photo of one either.  Oh well, all any of us can do is keep trying until we finally accomplish it!

This post makes me think of my mom, because she was always interested in making new discoveries about hummingbirds.  I truly believe that the small amount of time which hummingbirds spend in fight would have come as a shock to her.  I hope you too have enjoyed making this discovery about hummingbirds.

A place can forever impact and shape your life.  The state of Virginia is a such a place for me and as a result it holds a very special place in my heart.  I spent about 8 years living there when I was growing up and my dad was in the Navy.  My family moved to Texas in 1978 when my dad retired from the Navy, and we have lived here ever since then.  Nevertheless, Virginia will always represent "home" for me because it is where I spent many years that truly helped shape me into the women I am today.  Also, I still have some of the most important people in my life that remain there and continue to have enduring, lifelong friendships with these amazing and special people.  Also, Virginia is the first place I ever remember seeing my first hummingbird.  As a result, the state of Virginia and hummingbirds will be forever linked in my mind,  Way back then, I never imagined just how important a role hummingbirds would play in my life.

Those of you living in the state of Virginia will have the following three species of hummingbirds: Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Allen’s Hummingbird and the Roufos Hummingbirds.  Hummingbirds will make their migratory flight during the day and they will enter the state of torpor during the night.  The hummingbirds will begin arriving in Varginia from mid April until the end of May.  The hummingbirds will breed from early May through mid July.