Chapter 239: Moby Dick

In which a karma quarter gets me my hummingbird.



Our first stop on Grocery Day is always Aldi. They use the quarter-for-your-cart system that's quite commonplace where I am from, but for a lot of people here it's a foreign concept. (See what I did there? HA!)
After putting our stuff in the car I brought the shoppingcart back to the corral and there was an old man, looking a bit lost.
He said: "I can use that" and nodded at the cart. I looked at him, expecting to see him waving a quarter. He wasn't. Nor did he make any movement that suggested he was going to.
Dilemma: do I tell this really old man that I want a quarter from him? Does he even know you need a quarter? Maybe he has been trying to pull a cart from the corral and doesn't understand why they are all "locked"! But maybe he just doesn't have a quarter. Or, he's trying to to get a 'free' cart out of me.
It was taking me entirely too long to come to a decision so I said: "Uhhmmmm, okay!" and gave it to him.

I told the Beloved and he said it was a karma quarter. I objected that being duped out of a quarter doesn't get you good karma, but he insisted.

On our way home we stopped at the Hatchery, as usual. I hung around the Monarch station for a bit. Saw (and photographed) two ginormous caterpillars, shuddered at the amount of orange-y beetles on the Milkweed, let some Milkweed seeds blow into my camera-bag ... and then it happened.

Hummingbird-alert!

I was not moving, for fear of spooking it, but she was surprisingly relaxed. Just hanging out, flower to flower, yummy yummy. I was clicking away like a maniac and she really didn't care one bit. And then she sat down on an Obedient Plant, about three feet away.
I'm sure at that point I gasped.

One hundred photos later she'd had enough rest and nourishment and it flew away.

Ofcourse, the best posed photos were taken when she was on the further away branches, so there was still some massive cropping needed. I don't think I'll get anything better this year so there you have it:
Moby Dick.

Best quarter EVER.

Rejects:
Monarch-to-be

:P! Silly bird!