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Weekend RoundUP July 13 and Summer In The South

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I love wearing blue jeans.  I adore the look, the feel, and that they change shape with me during the day 🙂 Actually, blue, black, gray, khaki, you name the color I just love wearing jeans.  The older the better.  Slipping into a soft, worn pair of jeans gives me a comfort that lasts throughout the day.  Between the heat, the humidity, and my inner child playing with fire, I put away my beloved blue jeans about the end of March and they hang idle in my closet until October.  Except for yesterday.  Middle of July means middle of summer. Half-way between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  And right here smack dab in the middle of the summer heat and humidity we receive a gift of cool temperatures and rain.  Yesterday our high was about 75 degrees and we had a gentle rain throughout the day that sprinkled us with about an inch of much-needed rain.  I pulled on a sweet pair of blue jeans and a tee-shirt and all the world felt at peace as I listened to the gentle song of the rain from my front porch.
As drought has plagued us this entire spring and summer, my Chief Culinary Consultant and main-man gardener has watered the vegetable garden every day for over a month! Watering is something we most generally don’t need to do in this part of the south.  It certainly adds another layer to growing a garden.  I thank you Lord for this little reprieve that has quenched my thirst for rain in body and spirit.
My front porch offers a world view and perspective that helps me keep mine in check.  And at this time of the year one of the views I enjoy the most comes from my mother’s hummingbird feeders.  Mom and I have a little flower garden that can be viewed from her living room and sun room and from my front porch.  She lovingly fills two hummingbird feeders each spring anxiously waiting for her birds to return.  Every few days she makes new nectar and waits, and waits, and waits.  And  then one day she will see one little beauty at the feeder.  And then another and another ….

The hummingbird is the smallest bird and the smallest of all animals that have a backbone.   A hummingbird has no sense of smell.

Because the hummingbird can rotate its wings in a circle, they are the only bird that can fly forwards, backwards, up, down, sideways and hover in mid-air. During migration, some hummingbirds make a non-stop 500 mile flight over the Gulf of Mexico.

To conserve energy while they sleep or when food is scarce, they can go into a hibernation-like state (torpor) where their metabolic rate is slowed to 1/15th of its normal rate. During courtship dives a hummingbird can reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour and can average speeds of 20 to 30 miles per hour.

Hummingbirds are the second largest family of birds with 343 species.
  Hummingbirds can beat their wings up to 80 times a second during normal flight and up to 200 times per second during a courtship dive.


Hummingbirds have very weak feet and use them mainly just for perching.

The hummingbird has a heart rate that can reach up to 1,260 beats per minute.  Percentage wise, the hummingbird has the largest brain of all birds (4.2% of its total body weight).


Thanks for reading along with me this week!  A quick look at this week’s recipes include:

Kitchen Disasters and Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
A Shared Recipe of Cherry and Blackberry Clafoutis
The Ultimate in Banana Bread

Have a great weekend.  Many blessings and Happy Cooking ~Catherine

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3 thoughts on “Weekend RoundUP July 13 and Summer In The South”

  1. The garden from Alice’s window is beautiful. I love the hummingbirds – we even had a few this spring!! unusual in NE.

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