Resilient Hummingbirds

Ah, the last vestiges of summer! I am looking at a week vacation bounded by two three day weekends from radiation and enjoying every minute of it! The weather has been cool enough to spend a large part of every day on our deck. Whether it's the dry weather, the very awesome DrySnap we had put under the deck, or David's close mowing of the lawn -or maybe a combination of all three - I don't know but the mosquitos have been leaving us alone this year even at sunset when they have previously been at their worst.

The hummingbirds, on the other hand, have been everywhere! These little birds are amazing and beautiful. They hover right in front of us as if to say "thank you for the tasty nectar" as they make their way between the brightly colored flowers in pots on the deck and the feeders that David has been keeping filled with fresh sugar water. We delight in watching them play, chase and dive bomb each other to get the best spots on the feeder. We can pick out their unique chatter as they buzz around now and even see them in the trees when we look closely enough. They can live up to 12 years they say even with their long migrating treks to and from Mexico every year. They stock up on goodies now and hit the road soon for warmer climates south - resilience extraordinaire!

Speaking of resilience, I am well over my halfway point with radiation treatment now. I am keeping a calendar of appointments on the fridge and delight in crossing each day off with a big red X when I complete one. There are more Xes than not now and that means it will all be over before we know it. Monday they will do one more CT scan to make sure things are still all good with the mapping. The seroma caused by the surgery will hopefully have shrunk and they will be better able to target the site for the 5 boost treatments they will do just to the old tumor site at the end of the treatment schedule.

We are celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary and the 9th year since our first date began this month. This week we will spend a few decadent nights at Blantyre Castle in Lenox mid week and see Crosby Stills and Nash at Tanglewood.

We are so lucky to live in the amazing upper Hudson Valley. We have been devouring as much of the local summer bounty as we can get our hands on - like fresh farm eggs from chickens we know at Kinderhook Farm, deliciously ripened heirloom tomatoes in all sorts of wonderful colors, blueberries and peaches as sweet as chocolate, super sweet corn from Love Apple Farm, and all kinds of other fabulous veggies freshly picked from local farms like Hawthorne Valley Farm. Our good friend and Uplevel Coach Christine Kane has recently posted a great article on 22 Ways to Squeeze Every Last Drop out of Summer Before it Ends.

What will you be doing to take advantage of the last morsels of summer?