Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Signs of Growth

I'm sure this isn't news to anyone in the county, but changes are happening. There's all kinds of growth... new stores, ground being cleared, strip malls, and maybe a few houses here and there.

There seems to also be a proliferation of signs sprouting up.

Don't know about you, but I think the "GOT JUNK" signs are the worst offenders. They're junky. They stick 'em everywhere. And they're illegal in many, if not most, instances.

A few times I've traveled down Hwy. 92 going toward Christian City. Tons of signs advertising a new subdivision litter the edges of the road.

I've started paying attention to the signs. To my way of thinking, if a company can't follow the local rules then I'm not interested in doing business with them.

My understanding is that pretty much nothing will be done about signs that violate the ordinances unless someone calls and complains. I think about it sometimes, but generally by the time I get home I'm not thinking about the signs I saw 15 minutes or 2 hours ago.

I think about writing the company sometimes, too. It's a standing joke in my family that we'll all threaten to write a nasty-gram but we never do. However, we do follow thought when we decide not to shop somewhere. I can't tell you how many years our family boycotted Rich's simply because they were the only company that refused to work with my grandmother when my grandfather was dying and it became difficult for her to make all her payments in full. Every other company graciously worked with her. Rich's not only refused, they harassed her to the point of tears. Nope, if Rich's were still around we'd still be sharing the bad news with friends and chipping away at their customer base one-by-one...

I digressed, changed the subject, got side-tracked (which I often do!).

Back to the growing number of signs...

Nah, enough on signs.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Hummingbird Update

In my last post I said the hummingbirds were gone. I was wrong. We either have a new one or our summer bird changed her habits. During the summer one female sat on the feeder stand "branches" and guarded her stash. Now, we have a lone female who's out early in the morning, while it's still a bit nippy.

I'm wondering if she's just a bit too old to make the long trip and has decided to end her days with us.

I don't know enough about hummingbirds to know if possibly she has some babies she's watching over. I read somewhere that hummingbirds will forgo the long trip south if they're ill, too old, or they have young ones to guard over who won't be able to make the trip.

I'm not sure what our hummingbird is doing during the day. Could be that the weather is just nippy enough that she's filling up early in the morning then snuggling the rest of the day, maybe she slips out later in the day and I'm just missing her.

I understand they can hunker down, slow metabolism almost to hibernation ratio when it gets cold.

Maybe someone will read this who knows more than I and will give me some ideas.

Of course, it just could be that she's not ready to leave yet and one day soon she'll really be gone. I would think if she's planning on leaving that she'd be at the feeders all day, storing up fuel for the trip.