sugar water bath

hey gang! i haven’t been around this blog much. and after some thinking, i realized this blog has gotten away from it’s original premise.

ridiculousness.

i love sharing other things with you other than ridiculousness: love. life. happenings. emotions. however, i must include some ridiculousness too. am i right? i am right.

so, today, i have a silly little story to share.

we live in a condo. it’s located on the second floor and it offers us a small outdoor porch space. the porch is about 12' x 8', if i had to guess. i have tried to make it our small patio oasis. my dream is to have beautiful green plants and colorful blooming flowers. well, i fail at all of that. everything i plant, i kill. well, almost everything. currently i am successful growing a pineapple plant [yes! i know! isn't that awesome!!], a wandering jew [yes, that is the name. it is a hanging leaf plant that is green and purple.], and a lantana [i thought i killed it, but it magically started to grow and is doing awesome!]. i have several mint plants that are doing well - only because mint is the easiest thing to grow. ever. a moron could grow mint. i have a dead rose bush, lilies and maybe a climbing hydrangea.  

it's sad. i need to figure out really easy things to grow. and plant those. so, in order to mask my suckiness of growing vegetation, i've added other beautiful patio adornments. we have a bird feeder and a reflective sun ornament. we have a beautiful iron corner shelf for our non-growing plants. i have a hanging basket for the wandering jew. we have a cute bird house. so, i try. i really do.

i also got a hummingbird feeder. not just any hummingbird feeder. i saw this feeder at target, i think, and i just had to have it. it is gorgeous. a red glass feeder, shaped like a teardrop, with the spout for the hummers at the bottom. oh! so cute. no other feeder would do. however, it was like $20. YIKES. all for some more birds. i kept searching and searching and finally found it on ebay for $10. whoohooo.

i mean, look at it. it is glorious. absolutely to die for. ok, let's not get carried away. but, needless to say, i was excited to get my hands on one. well, when i got mine in the mail, this is what it looked like....

GREEN. since this hummingbird feeder was difficult to find at that point, i decided to just keep it. but it arriving in the wrong color should have been my first red flag. notice in the picture of the red feeder how the spout points down? well, due to this design flaw, the feeder always dripped. this was a problem for many reasons. it dripped on the railing and wall of the porch. this kindly invited ants and bees. plus, with it slowly dripping, the feeder simply emptied itself without allowing the hummers to get any food. brilliant!

as you can see the the picture with the green feeder [mine], the spout is in more of a "U" shape. i melted the plastic so that i was able to bend it into the shape that made more sense. by being in a U shape, it still allows the juice to reach the end for the birds, but not allow it to drip all over my damn porch.

ok, so we have the hummingbird feeder - the porch is now somewhat complete. fast forward to yesterday, as i was sitting at my desk, i saw a hummer come up to the feeder! he was a pretty greenish color. i've never seen a hummingbird look like he does. yay! victory is mine - i finally fixed that feeder and it works. 

so later that morning, i go outside to water the plants that i am delivering a slow death to, and i notice that the siding on the porch is all dirty and moldy. this immediately made me crazy. i had to clean it all. i mean, why is my oasis dirty and filled with mold? how did this happen? why are things so out of control out here?! so, after 45 minutes of scrubbing vinyl siding, my job was done. i then noticed that the hummingbird feeder was dripping a little bit. why the hell is it dripping? i fixed that piece of shit plastic spout. why is it dripping!? plus, i just cleaned the railing and wall that it is dripping all over. AHHHH. so, naturally, i went to the feeder to adjust the spout to point up a bit more. maybe that was the problem with that piece of junk. and guess what? the entire spout came out. and since it hangs upside down, the whole feeder spilled its sweet sugar water all over me and the wonderfully clean porch. are you serious with this?

#$%@$^&&!!!!

i wanted to smash that feeder into a million little pieces. i also didn't feel like scrubbing the porch. AGAIN. but i had no choice. otherwise, i'd have a very serious ant colonization within minutes. so, i cinderella-ed my ass and cleaned it all over again. i took the empty feeder down. i washed my sticky arms, face, legs, and feet. 

and i said, "that's it. i'm done with that hummingbird feeder. it's been nothing but trouble."

well, later that night......

that beautiful hummer was back, in search of food. i felt horrible that there was nothing there for him. so guess what? i made some more sugar water and hung that godforsaken feeder back up. 

i went outside today. and i noticed it was dripping. 

if i want this hummingbird feeder, i guess i will have to have a porch covered in sugar water, ants and bees.

xoxo,

ks