My three year old found a hummingbird today. It reminded me of the time my son caught a blue jay and let it go in our house. We still have blue feathers on the ceiling to prove it. Do these things happen to ordinary people?
This little guy didn't make it into the house. 
The neck feathers were so much more brilliant than this photo shows. (Click photo to enlarge.)
We helped it to the feeder and it drank for a good while and then flew away. You can see the tongue in this photo.
MaddieLynn has been practicing the "bokeh" technique she learned from The Pioneer Woman Photography site.
I think she did an excellent job on these. (Click on each photo for close ups. God does AMAZING detail work!)
Those little suckers are bendy.
This would be my favorite if, you know, I had a favorite picture of a fat slug.
What do you think?
MaddieLynn got me two tomato plants for Mother's Day. Curiously, they have flowered, but never produced a single tomato.
After doing a little reading, I concluded that the it has been too hot for tomatoes. Either that or I'm not a good gardener. I suspect it may be the latter, but my official stance is that the life draining 130 degree heat is to blame. (Seriously, the thermostat at the pool read 130 the other day! I tried to take a picture, but you know... the whole camera issue.)
Anyway, I guess today the stars are aligned just so because my camera decided to function and even let me load the pictures!
Here is what we have found on our tomato plants. I guess if they won't produce tomatos, they might as well produce something we can study.
These are actually tobacco hornworms. They eat up to 4x their body weight each day and grow to about 4" long. They then bury themselves in the ground and morph into Carolina sphinx moths.
MaddieLynn made this little habitat with a hinged lid for feeding and a see through window so we could watch the whole process unfold.
We collected several sizes. Here is a teeny one.
See more tomato worm photos here.
My sweet MaddieLynn loves taking care of her aquariums (Yes! Plural!) and loves photographing her fish.
Here are a couple of her best shots.
Does this tank make my eyes look big?
She won a photography contest with this one. Look at that "smile"!
Our neighborhood has a LOT of deer, and since there are plenty of wooded areas and a prohibition against firing weapons, the deer roam freely.
We often see them on our street and even in our neighbor's yard.
Recently we have seen several tiny baby fawns and have "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over them wishing we could get a closer look.
That's why we were thrilled when we found out that some friends of ours rescued twin fawns that were trapped in a pond with steep banks on the golf course. They placed the fawns in a shaded area near the pond and waited for the mother to come for them.
The mother did come back, but would only nurse one of the fawns and eventually led it into the woods, leaving the weaker one behind.
The friends took the little fawn home and contacted an animal rescue shelter only to find out that they were caring for four baby fawns already and absolutely could not take another one. They gave detailed instructions about how to care for the fawn and our friends ran to town to buy baby bottles and goat milk.
We went over today to visit their new baby and the kids fell in love with it.
It was the sweetest thing! We can't wait to watch it grow and set out on its own.
We have a new little friend here at Smockityville.
Every evening this little fella shows up at our back door and waits patiently for the kids to come out and feed him June bugs.
He is a very good house guest - always cleaning up his messes, arriving promptly when expected, and never overstaying his welcome.
Bye, little fella. See you tomorrow.
In other news, the seven year old has been taking more photos. I thought these were pretty good.
This one isn't even cropped. It's straight out of the camera. EYE see you!
Newborn fawns
Poolside exhaustion
Sweet girls choking one another
Yea! She let go!
Naked babies on the trampoline
(I actually got out of the car and held up a passing car to get the shot of this dung beetle rolling its, um, "acquisition" across the street. I am all about documenting life in its natural state. You're welcome.)
A birthday chick holding a birthday chick! So far, this little guy is the only one. We're hoping the others will make an appearance tonight.
This chick turned four today!
MaddieLynn and I worked on this cake together. We still need a little a lot of practice, but we enjoyed using our cake decorating skills.
Everyone enjoying watching the chick eat ladybugs!
One of our 17 little chicks has hatched out right on schedule. On Katie Bug's 4th birthday!
There is no sign of any activity in the other eggs. Hopefully, they are just late bloomers!
More pictures later.
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