By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
A cozy group of stuffed animals lovingly nestled on a child’s grave. Crosses, creatively handcrafted out of everything from yucca branches to PVC pipe and weathered wood.
Colorful wreaths made out of red, white and blue silk flowers, positioned carefully on the grave of a soldier who died in World War II. A photograph and a frilly dress commemorating the tragically short life of a pretty young woman who was murdered in Juárez.
A descanso with flowers on the side of a busy street, where a promising teenager lost his life to a reckless driver. Ashes, scattered with a handful of rose petals, and prayers and a song for a dear friend, echoing on the banks of the Rio Grande.
An unexpected glimpse of pueblo mourners on horseback, gathered in a sacred circle in the mountains of ancient Acoma.
That’s just a small sampling of tender displays that have moved me while encountering memorial tributes here.
A sage once told me that the best way to get to know the corazon y alma (heart and soul) of a community is to walk through its cemeteries.
So that’s what I did, when I first moved to Las Cruces in the 1990s. I visited final resting grounds from Mesilla to the foothills of the Organs and the village of Tortugas.
I traced the history of famous figures and families who have buried their loved ones here for many generations, at the Masonic Cemetery on South Compress Road and San Albino Cemetery in Mesilla.
I visited artist John Meig’s backyard burial site for a beloved adopted son in San Patricio, a little community outside Ruidoso.
I found some of the most creative expressions of love and caring in the very heart of downtown Las Cruces, at St. Joseph Cemetery on Las Cruces Avenue, near what native Las Crucens still call the “new” St. Genevieve’s Church.
The graves often tell a poignant tale themselves: dates on a gravestone testify about lives cut short … in battle, in childbirth, in childhood. There are loving words, sometimes photos of the beloved, and statues of saints and angels.
Occasionally, you’ll find elaborate family compounds, sometimes with fences and landscaping; hardscaped perpetual monuments in the eternal mode of the great pyramids.
But it’s the more ephemeral tributes that speak to me: cards, notes, letters and fresh flowers, a small toy. Things that can travel with the wind or meld into the earth with the coming of summer rains.
Things like the tiny origami birds in the Peace Crane Wall, the project of a Las Cruces couple, Tim Reed and Vickie Aldrich.
They were inspired by a memorial thousands of miles away. In 1955, moved by a Japanese legend of a recovery inspired by the creation of 1,000 paper cranes, people throughout Japan folded cranes for Sadako Sasaki, who was a toddler in a home about a mile from ground zero when the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Radiation and ensuing leukemia killed her on the threshold of her teens.
The Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park features a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane, and an inscription: “This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world.”
Tim and Vickie decided to create a monument with an origami crane and a brief biography and photo, if available, of every U.S. service man and woman who dies in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I first met them when we were a few years into what has become the longest continued conflict in our nation’s history.
Since then, Vickie has taken the ever-growing memorial on a 2008 trip to Washington, D.C., and there have been displays of all or parts of the memorial at sites ranging from Día de los Muertos observances on the Mesilla Plaza to the Las Cruces Veterans Park.
“There were over 5,000 cranes when we updated it last year. We last set it up on April 9 near Johnson Park, by the Branigan Library,” she said.
Tim once told me he made it a point to really pay attention to each life sacrificed, as he folded every crane and searched online for photos and information about each person. And sometimes, even — or especially — after years of folding cranes, he cries, while memorializing people he has never met.
The truest, most enduring memorials live in our hearts and minds and souls, I believe.
But there is much to be said, too, for finite expressions in our material world which can inspire us to ponder the lives we live now and the ways we will be remembered.
And experiencing the creative, thoughtful, tenderly sacred ways we memorialize in the Land of Enchantment can make you feel good about living here and better, I think, about eventually heading for the hereafter yourself.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
¡Drat those Doña Anas!
I used to pooh-pooh those who complained about our winds. After all, I’d lived through Midwestern tornados, Pacific Northwest volcanoes and earthquakes and just before finding my querencia here, I survived Hurricane Andrew, the first of the biggies that devastated Florida.
I retain vivid childhood memories of the super-scary tornado siren and cowering, terrified, in the southwest corner of the basement of my Michigan home, something we’d all learned to do as tiny tots.
Once you’ve felt an earthquake rattle you to your very foundations, along with your home, your front yard and everything in your neighborhood, I don’t think you’re ever quite the same.
And how can you explain, to those who have never experienced them, the horror of volcanic eruptions and how it feels to see the fantasy snowcone mountain, that’s been a part of your daily landscape for decades, blow its top and transform overnight into a dark, jagged nightmare? What can you say about waking day after day to a darkened sky, getting almost accustomed to wearing masks and shoveling volcanic ash?
When reviewing disasters in order of their appearance in my life, my thoughts then turn to the monster hurricane and the rainy torrents that flooded my little coast community of Jupiter, Fla., and turned my umbrellas inside out and saturated my clothing in a drenching blast as I ran for shelter and watched neighboring communities ravaged into rubble.
By comparison, I would assure my Las Cruces amigos, a few windy spring days are nothing to fret about.
In fact, during my first years as a grateful refugee in the Mesilla Valley, I sort of enjoyed the spring winds. I bought kites and even wrote a column praising the refreshing breezes and had a contest to name them. After wading through nominations that included some pejoratives in Spanish that a kind, more fluently bilingual, reader warned me about, we finally agreed on a name: the Doña Anas. I greeted the winds fondly, by name, for several years thereafter.
But that was then and this is now. I’m about to start my 18th summer in Las Cruces and I have this to say about the once-somewhat charming Doña Anas: Enough already. I’m sick and tired of these infernal blasts.
This is the year they seem to go on forever, ruining perfectly good festivals, a lot of what’s left of my freeze-ravaged vegetation and many of the tender new plants I’ve tried to establish.
This is the year my kite collection seems to quake in fear rather than wag their tails in anticipation, every time I raise my garage door and let the furious vortexes swirl into their colorful refuge.
We all know about Charlie Brown’s famous kite-eating trees: my pretty little paper and plastic personal Air Corps have seen their comrades devoured by the kite-eating winds of 2011.
This is the year there were no April showers to bring May flowers, just lots more winds, triggering dust storms and fires in our scorched high desert lands.
Sand and dust seep in under our doors and coat everything with an aggravating layer of sticky grit.
The winds sandblast our plants, our kids, our pets, our homes, our cars and our very souls.
It’s time to strike back. I’m recruiting all of my most spiritual friends to pray for a balance in this year of floods and tsunamis and tornados. How about some relief for other parts of the globe and some rains for us, the gentle, cleansing kind?
I hope by the time your read this that our campaign, reinforced, I presume, by statewide San Ysidro commemorations and the annual Blessing of the Fields at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, has produced some relief.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
I retain vivid childhood memories of the super-scary tornado siren and cowering, terrified, in the southwest corner of the basement of my Michigan home, something we’d all learned to do as tiny tots.
Once you’ve felt an earthquake rattle you to your very foundations, along with your home, your front yard and everything in your neighborhood, I don’t think you’re ever quite the same.
And how can you explain, to those who have never experienced them, the horror of volcanic eruptions and how it feels to see the fantasy snowcone mountain, that’s been a part of your daily landscape for decades, blow its top and transform overnight into a dark, jagged nightmare? What can you say about waking day after day to a darkened sky, getting almost accustomed to wearing masks and shoveling volcanic ash?
When reviewing disasters in order of their appearance in my life, my thoughts then turn to the monster hurricane and the rainy torrents that flooded my little coast community of Jupiter, Fla., and turned my umbrellas inside out and saturated my clothing in a drenching blast as I ran for shelter and watched neighboring communities ravaged into rubble.
By comparison, I would assure my Las Cruces amigos, a few windy spring days are nothing to fret about.
In fact, during my first years as a grateful refugee in the Mesilla Valley, I sort of enjoyed the spring winds. I bought kites and even wrote a column praising the refreshing breezes and had a contest to name them. After wading through nominations that included some pejoratives in Spanish that a kind, more fluently bilingual, reader warned me about, we finally agreed on a name: the Doña Anas. I greeted the winds fondly, by name, for several years thereafter.
But that was then and this is now. I’m about to start my 18th summer in Las Cruces and I have this to say about the once-somewhat charming Doña Anas: Enough already. I’m sick and tired of these infernal blasts.
This is the year they seem to go on forever, ruining perfectly good festivals, a lot of what’s left of my freeze-ravaged vegetation and many of the tender new plants I’ve tried to establish.
This is the year my kite collection seems to quake in fear rather than wag their tails in anticipation, every time I raise my garage door and let the furious vortexes swirl into their colorful refuge.
We all know about Charlie Brown’s famous kite-eating trees: my pretty little paper and plastic personal Air Corps have seen their comrades devoured by the kite-eating winds of 2011.
This is the year there were no April showers to bring May flowers, just lots more winds, triggering dust storms and fires in our scorched high desert lands.
Sand and dust seep in under our doors and coat everything with an aggravating layer of sticky grit.
The winds sandblast our plants, our kids, our pets, our homes, our cars and our very souls.
It’s time to strike back. I’m recruiting all of my most spiritual friends to pray for a balance in this year of floods and tsunamis and tornados. How about some relief for other parts of the globe and some rains for us, the gentle, cleansing kind?
I hope by the time your read this that our campaign, reinforced, I presume, by statewide San Ysidro commemorations and the annual Blessing of the Fields at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, has produced some relief.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
Make time to daydream this summer
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
It’s almost summer. Do you know what your kids are planning? What they’ll do? Where they will hang out?
After working on today’s SunLife features, roundups of summer camps in the area and what’s new and popular at the library, I was amazed at the range of options. (And delighted to hear from Marian Elzi, Branigan’s Young Adult librarian, that “Kids still really like to read and want to read.”)
Reading has always been one of my favorite summertime pastimes, a great way to explore new worlds. I remember stocking up at book stores and on library visits and how kids went hog-wild when the Bookmobile visited our neighborhood.
Bookmobiles are long gone in most areas these days, but if you have a hard time getting to the library yourself, don’t forget about Books by Mail, a free service. Just call the Books by Mail department at (575) 528-4010 and request your titles, or go online to the library catalog at chile.las-cruces.org and put holds on the titles you want. When the system asks you where you want to pick them up, choose the “Books by Mail” option.
I also discovered that the library has thousands of e-book titles available for free downloads, so there are some good ways to stock up and save on time and gas money.
You may have to make an initial trip if you or the kids don’t have library cards. They are still free and one of America’s best bargains. Just show a photo ID. And nothing beats a trip to the real library. You can learn about new programs and services and enjoy the serendipity of browsing for books or DVDs.
I always try to make time to stop in at the Library Friends bookshop near the front entrance, a great source of bargain beach books.
If I have a road trip planned, it’s my routine to estimate my travel time and make sure I’ve picked up some audio books. I’ve “read” everything from bestsellers to historical and sci-fi novels and self-help books while driving to Santa Fe and Taos and San Diego.
Whatever your age, I think a break in routine is one of the great boons of summer.
I like to explore different kinds of music, books and movies.
When I was a kid, and now that I’m definitely not, trying something new and going someplace you’ve never been, could be the ultimate summertime goal.
I have fond memories of music camps and journalism camps at Michigan State University when I was still in high school, along with summer school sessions to pick up some extra credits.
But however tough the economy, even — and especially — in hard times, everybody needs and deserves some summer vacation time.
While we frantically multitask and master new skills, finding time for thinking, pondering and daydreaming can seem impossible.
It’s a perpetual, rewarding paradox that the “lazy” days of summer somehow inspire many of us to dream new dreams, try new adventures, explore new paths, meet new people and maybe even change our lives.
And I still believe, for our kids and ourselves, that some unscheduled freewheeling leisure time is the best way to nurture and encourage that spirit of adventure that makes life worth living.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
It’s almost summer. Do you know what your kids are planning? What they’ll do? Where they will hang out?
After working on today’s SunLife features, roundups of summer camps in the area and what’s new and popular at the library, I was amazed at the range of options. (And delighted to hear from Marian Elzi, Branigan’s Young Adult librarian, that “Kids still really like to read and want to read.”)
Reading has always been one of my favorite summertime pastimes, a great way to explore new worlds. I remember stocking up at book stores and on library visits and how kids went hog-wild when the Bookmobile visited our neighborhood.
Bookmobiles are long gone in most areas these days, but if you have a hard time getting to the library yourself, don’t forget about Books by Mail, a free service. Just call the Books by Mail department at (575) 528-4010 and request your titles, or go online to the library catalog at chile.las-cruces.org and put holds on the titles you want. When the system asks you where you want to pick them up, choose the “Books by Mail” option.
I also discovered that the library has thousands of e-book titles available for free downloads, so there are some good ways to stock up and save on time and gas money.
You may have to make an initial trip if you or the kids don’t have library cards. They are still free and one of America’s best bargains. Just show a photo ID. And nothing beats a trip to the real library. You can learn about new programs and services and enjoy the serendipity of browsing for books or DVDs.
I always try to make time to stop in at the Library Friends bookshop near the front entrance, a great source of bargain beach books.
If I have a road trip planned, it’s my routine to estimate my travel time and make sure I’ve picked up some audio books. I’ve “read” everything from bestsellers to historical and sci-fi novels and self-help books while driving to Santa Fe and Taos and San Diego.
Whatever your age, I think a break in routine is one of the great boons of summer.
I like to explore different kinds of music, books and movies.
When I was a kid, and now that I’m definitely not, trying something new and going someplace you’ve never been, could be the ultimate summertime goal.
I have fond memories of music camps and journalism camps at Michigan State University when I was still in high school, along with summer school sessions to pick up some extra credits.
But however tough the economy, even — and especially — in hard times, everybody needs and deserves some summer vacation time.
While we frantically multitask and master new skills, finding time for thinking, pondering and daydreaming can seem impossible.
It’s a perpetual, rewarding paradox that the “lazy” days of summer somehow inspire many of us to dream new dreams, try new adventures, explore new paths, meet new people and maybe even change our lives.
And I still believe, for our kids and ourselves, that some unscheduled freewheeling leisure time is the best way to nurture and encourage that spirit of adventure that makes life worth living.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Make time to daydream this summer
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
It’s almost summer. Do you know what your kids are planning? What they’ll do? Where they will hang out?
After working on today’s SunLife features, roundups of summer camps in the area and what’s new and popular at the library, I was amazed at the range of options. (And delighted to hear from Marian Elzi, Branigan’s Young Adult librarian, that “Kids still really like to read and want to read.”)
Reading has always been one of my favorite summertime pastimes, a great way to explore new worlds. I remember stocking up at book stores and on library visits and how kids went hog-wild when the Bookmobile visited our neighborhood.
Bookmobiles are long gone in most areas these days, but if you have a hard time getting to the library yourself, don’t forget about Books by Mail, a free service. Just call the Books by Mail department at (575) 528-4010 and request your titles, or go online to the library catalog at chile.las-cruces.org and put holds on the titles you want. When the system asks you where you want to pick them up, choose the “Books by Mail” option.
I also discovered that the library has thousands of e-book titles available for free downloads, so there are some good ways to stock up and save on time and gas money.
You may have to make an initial trip if you or the kids don’t have library cards. They are still free and one of America’s best bargains. Just show a photo ID. And nothing beats a trip to the real library. You can learn about new programs and services and enjoy the serendipity of browsing for books or DVDs.
I always try to make time to stop in at the Library Friends bookshop near the front entrance, a great source of bargain beach books.
If I have a road trip planned, it’s my routine to estimate my travel time and make sure I’ve picked up some audio books. I’ve “read” everything from bestsellers to historical and sci-fi novels and self-help books while driving to Santa Fe and Taos and San Diego.
Whatever your age, I think a break in routine is one of the great boons of summer.
I like to explore different kinds of music, books and movies.
When I was a kid, and now that I’m definitely not, trying something new and going someplace you’ve never been, could be the ultimate summertime goal.
I have fond memories of music camps and journalism camps at Michigan State University when I was still in high school, along with summer school sessions to pick up some extra credits.
But however tough the economy, even — and especially — in hard times, everybody needs and deserves some summer vacation time.
While we frantically multitask and master new skills, finding time for thinking, pondering and daydreaming can seem impossible.
It’s a perpetual, rewarding paradox that the “lazy” days of summer somehow inspire many of us to dream new dreams, try new adventures, explore new paths, meet new people and maybe even change our lives.
And I still believe, for our kids and ourselves, that some unscheduled freewheeling leisure time is the best way to nurture and encourage that spirit of adventure that makes life worth living.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
It’s almost summer. Do you know what your kids are planning? What they’ll do? Where they will hang out?
After working on today’s SunLife features, roundups of summer camps in the area and what’s new and popular at the library, I was amazed at the range of options. (And delighted to hear from Marian Elzi, Branigan’s Young Adult librarian, that “Kids still really like to read and want to read.”)
Reading has always been one of my favorite summertime pastimes, a great way to explore new worlds. I remember stocking up at book stores and on library visits and how kids went hog-wild when the Bookmobile visited our neighborhood.
Bookmobiles are long gone in most areas these days, but if you have a hard time getting to the library yourself, don’t forget about Books by Mail, a free service. Just call the Books by Mail department at (575) 528-4010 and request your titles, or go online to the library catalog at chile.las-cruces.org and put holds on the titles you want. When the system asks you where you want to pick them up, choose the “Books by Mail” option.
I also discovered that the library has thousands of e-book titles available for free downloads, so there are some good ways to stock up and save on time and gas money.
You may have to make an initial trip if you or the kids don’t have library cards. They are still free and one of America’s best bargains. Just show a photo ID. And nothing beats a trip to the real library. You can learn about new programs and services and enjoy the serendipity of browsing for books or DVDs.
I always try to make time to stop in at the Library Friends bookshop near the front entrance, a great source of bargain beach books.
If I have a road trip planned, it’s my routine to estimate my travel time and make sure I’ve picked up some audio books. I’ve “read” everything from bestsellers to historical and sci-fi novels and self-help books while driving to Santa Fe and Taos and San Diego.
Whatever your age, I think a break in routine is one of the great boons of summer.
I like to explore different kinds of music, books and movies.
When I was a kid, and now that I’m definitely not, trying something new and going someplace you’ve never been, could be the ultimate summertime goal.
I have fond memories of music camps and journalism camps at Michigan State University when I was still in high school, along with summer school sessions to pick up some extra credits.
But however tough the economy, even — and especially — in hard times, everybody needs and deserves some summer vacation time.
While we frantically multitask and master new skills, finding time for thinking, pondering and daydreaming can seem impossible.
It’s a perpetual, rewarding paradox that the “lazy” days of summer somehow inspire many of us to dream new dreams, try new adventures, explore new paths, meet new people and maybe even change our lives.
And I still believe, for our kids and ourselves, that some unscheduled freewheeling leisure time is the best way to nurture and encourage that spirit of adventure that makes life worth living.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Birds flock to the Humm-Diner
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — I let my hummers down this spring, and they let me know about it.
It’s been a tough year, with the freeze and the drought and the eternal, infernal winds.
But that’s no excuse.
I got my garden guy to clean up the major messes, to salvage the few agaves and the lone cactus that survived the freeze, to take away my own bumper crop of dead pine needles and the unlucky windfalls from my neighbor’s dead groves of willow and oleander that landed in my yard.
After all that, and a lot of sweeping and raking on my own, my interim spring “plantings” consisted mostly of dusting and hosing off a bunch of faux geraniums, tulips and hibiscus and sticking them in empty planters around the yard.
I got out my brand new hummingbird feeder a couple of months ago, and left it in the center of the kitchen table, so I’d remember to fill it and put it out.
But I didn’t. I figured I’d wait for the fiercest wind storms to blow over. I waited through February, March and most of April.
On Easter weekend, I went out on the front porch to try to salvage some scattered fake geraniums before a predicted mega windstorm and came face-to-beak with an indignant hummingbird, who had just emerged from checking out a bright red fake hibiscus blossom.
This hummer did not zip off, but decided to make a stand.
If you have ever doubted the reality of interspecies communication, you’ve never experienced prolonged eye contact with a furious, hovering hummingbird.
“C’mon,” said the hummer. “Get real!”
That did it. I went in, mixed some sugar and water, filled the new feeder, and braved the first of the almost-hurricane wind gusts to hang the feeder from a high hook on the back patio.
My first customer bellied up to the birdie bar before I had time to climb down and fold up my stepladder.
And I’m now convinced that hummers must be ascended masters of their own brand of Twitter.
The birds can field a feeding frenzy a lot quicker than human Tweets and Facebook rallies can foment a social revolution. The hummers’ social network was, well, humming.
I wondered, in fact, if my CEHK (Close Encounter of the Hummingbird Kind) had established a mind meld and the bird could sense me heading inside, mixing the sugared nectar and heading out the back door in time to alert and summon a hungry crowd.
And where did they come from? None of my near neighbors have feeders and the back of my yard is flanked by a strip of desert territory claimed mostly by quail, roadrunners and jackrabbits.
However it happened, the word was clearly out that Derrickson’s Humm-Diner was open for business.
Parties of two or three hovered over the three plastic flowers on the feeder and quickly discovered a new feature — tiny perches under each flower feeding station.
On the hummer Zagat Guide apps, my establishment was instantly upgraded from a mere fly-by drive-in joint to a five-star, sit-down (on perch-on) fine-dining establishment.
Instead of hovering, hummers hung out and lingered, quickly establishing their own psychic reservation system.
Singles and couples perched in a nearby pine tree and waited patiently for a flowery “table.”
And the clientele has steadily escalated from dawn to dusk, even in the worst windstorms.
I’m grateful for the CEHK alert and promise my loyal customers I’ll do my best to open early and close late from now on. In fact, I’m thinking of investing in a franchise and expanding to Humm-Diners in the side yard and front porch.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — I let my hummers down this spring, and they let me know about it.
It’s been a tough year, with the freeze and the drought and the eternal, infernal winds.
But that’s no excuse.
I got my garden guy to clean up the major messes, to salvage the few agaves and the lone cactus that survived the freeze, to take away my own bumper crop of dead pine needles and the unlucky windfalls from my neighbor’s dead groves of willow and oleander that landed in my yard.
After all that, and a lot of sweeping and raking on my own, my interim spring “plantings” consisted mostly of dusting and hosing off a bunch of faux geraniums, tulips and hibiscus and sticking them in empty planters around the yard.
I got out my brand new hummingbird feeder a couple of months ago, and left it in the center of the kitchen table, so I’d remember to fill it and put it out.
But I didn’t. I figured I’d wait for the fiercest wind storms to blow over. I waited through February, March and most of April.
On Easter weekend, I went out on the front porch to try to salvage some scattered fake geraniums before a predicted mega windstorm and came face-to-beak with an indignant hummingbird, who had just emerged from checking out a bright red fake hibiscus blossom.
This hummer did not zip off, but decided to make a stand.
If you have ever doubted the reality of interspecies communication, you’ve never experienced prolonged eye contact with a furious, hovering hummingbird.
“C’mon,” said the hummer. “Get real!”
That did it. I went in, mixed some sugar and water, filled the new feeder, and braved the first of the almost-hurricane wind gusts to hang the feeder from a high hook on the back patio.
My first customer bellied up to the birdie bar before I had time to climb down and fold up my stepladder.
And I’m now convinced that hummers must be ascended masters of their own brand of Twitter.
The birds can field a feeding frenzy a lot quicker than human Tweets and Facebook rallies can foment a social revolution. The hummers’ social network was, well, humming.
I wondered, in fact, if my CEHK (Close Encounter of the Hummingbird Kind) had established a mind meld and the bird could sense me heading inside, mixing the sugared nectar and heading out the back door in time to alert and summon a hungry crowd.
And where did they come from? None of my near neighbors have feeders and the back of my yard is flanked by a strip of desert territory claimed mostly by quail, roadrunners and jackrabbits.
However it happened, the word was clearly out that Derrickson’s Humm-Diner was open for business.
Parties of two or three hovered over the three plastic flowers on the feeder and quickly discovered a new feature — tiny perches under each flower feeding station.
On the hummer Zagat Guide apps, my establishment was instantly upgraded from a mere fly-by drive-in joint to a five-star, sit-down (on perch-on) fine-dining establishment.
Instead of hovering, hummers hung out and lingered, quickly establishing their own psychic reservation system.
Singles and couples perched in a nearby pine tree and waited patiently for a flowery “table.”
And the clientele has steadily escalated from dawn to dusk, even in the worst windstorms.
I’m grateful for the CEHK alert and promise my loyal customers I’ll do my best to open early and close late from now on. In fact, I’m thinking of investing in a franchise and expanding to Humm-Diners in the side yard and front porch.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
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