Hummingbirds

All Summer, Every Summer

I am “back in the saddle again!” More about that below.

This weeks article on the website is about hummingbirds. Because:

Summertime is hummer time! Flowers are blooming and hummingbirds are zipping and sipping. Drinking nectar, and consuming a few insects while they are at it.

The free article on the Gardening With Soule site discusses how to have a yard that makes these little beauties happy to call it home.

The paid subscriber post at the very end of the newsletter ((because that's where Substack puts them)) is about the hummingbird attracting plant called trumpet vine (Campsis radicans).

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Garlic Chives – Tasty and Durable

Over on the Savor the Southwest site I posted about this lovely plant – in case you have some and keep forgetting to use them.

Garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) make a graceful green statement in the landscape, are low water users, and bloom in September and October with a fireworks-like burst of white bloom on a tall stalk held above the grassy green leaves.

Yes, I shall have to write about growing these pretty plants because if you live in Pima County, you can get free seed through the library. The Pima County Seed Library lets you “check out” seeds with your library card and grow them at your home. All they ask that you donate some seed back if you can. I donated about a pound of garlic chive seed.

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An Unexpected Hiatus

First – all is well. I will be getting back to my weekly writing.

Some Backstory

You may have had this happen to you. You are traveling along the road of life, and you think you have your journey all mapped out. Then, just when everything is running along smoothly, something unexpected comes along and all of a sudden you are off on a different road, no plans, no maps. It may take a while to recalibrate the journey. Well, we just had that happen.

Retirement Someday

My spouse and I were working towards his retiring in two more years. He worked for a massive multi-national corporation – and he had been there for decades, a loyal worker. But - giant corporations can be inhumane. Unless maybe you have one of the “C” jobs like CEO, CFO, CIO. My husband was just one of the guys with boots on the ground that actually did the work that brought money into the corporation.

Simple fact of life for corperations is “No workers, no income.” But sadly, the workers that do actual substantive, billable work are not appreciated by the C people. Workers are not human in their eyes – just tools to be replaced with less expensive tools.

The Rest of the Story

This winter, after a number of issues, we took a good hard look at just how much of a toll working for the uncaring mega-corp was was taking on my spouses overall health. Unappreciative bosses, unresponsive management, the freezing of pensions, the elimination of stock options, unconsidered HR choices that advanced new hires to places well above their skills and abilities, creating extra burden on others.

Enough was Enough!

The 2 years until retirement became more like 2 weeks, and we have been scrambling to make this new lifestyle, with him home all day, work for us. (We do need to get my office finished so I am not trying to work in the living room.)

side note. My husbands customers still ask where he is and audibly wish he had not retired. The bosses might not care but the real people do.

Writing!

So folks, we have negotiated that patch of uncharted territory (spousal retirement!) and I will be back to my weekly posting. My plan is to continue to write until I retire.

When do I plan to retire? When they pry the keyboard out of my cold dead fingers.