Cactus Bloom, Hummingbirds, Cat and A Closing Rant

The prickly pear in the front yard has begun its bloom.  It would be cool if they'd all pop at once, but they don't.

Here is HRH feeding one of the kids. In the time it took me to grab my camera and cross from the kitchen to the living room window, she was wrapping things up.  In the next frame she was gone.

I took this later.  See the arrow mid-chest on the chick?  It's pointing at the crop, which is full of partially digested bugs.  That baby is full!

Look closely at the eye.  Does that look like maybe it's open?  I can't tell.

This is HRH in Bill and Sue's tree next door.  She sat up there for quite awhile, I had time to go in the house, grab the camera, and take a bunch of photos before she left the branch.  She was dislodged by a big gust of wind.  My theory is that she's sitting up there keeping an eye on the kids.

Here is a good thing from WAPO.  It's about a Scottish man who decided to ride his bike around the world.  While he was in Bosnia, he was chased by a kitten.  He picked up the kitten and they have become traveling companions.  It's a good read.

Nala the cat.

Politics alert.  The next paragraph is a politics paragraph.  Skip it if you're sick of it all.

Every morning I get up and wonder if it can get any worse, and every morning it does.  Today (!) we learned that Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather Pizza, who had to abandon his 2012 foray into running for president due to escalating allegations of sexual misconduct will be nominated for the Fed Board.  He's not qualified for this, other than the fact that he'll do what the president tells him to do.  Remember the book the "The Jungle" in which the sale of contaminated meat was chronicled?  The book so inflamed the American public that laws were put into place to ensure meat was properly inspected and people were not being fed rotten meat.  The administration has decided that pork producers should be able to do their own inspections done by their employees.  There has been a trial of self inspecting plants and it showed that those plants were selling more tainted meat than ones overseen by the USDA.  However, we're going ahead with this anyway.  Testing for e.coli will no longer be done.  Mitch McConnell has changed the senate rules to delay consideration of judicial or low-level executive nominees to two hours from the current thirty.  All of this was covered in the WAPO if you need, or can stand more detail.  I have fifteen episodes of Stargate SG-1 recorded, so I'm excused from watching the news for two weeks.