Thanks to the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, apple-stealing squirrel, I was forced to cover my entire apple tree with netting if I ever hoped to make my apple pie bars with my own apples. The tree is about six feet tall and we covered it 2 weeks ago. It’s been keeping the rodents and the birds away but yesterday, I kept hearing a noise inside the netting that sounded like a bee. No problem. But the sound became louder and it couldn’t be a bee, especially at dusk. Denis and I went to look and it was a hummingbird!

He must have flown through a small opening and now was trying desperately to get out. He would fly wildly around (there isn’t much room inside with all the leaves and branches), grab onto the net to rest, and then fly again. The opening must have been near the bottom but he kept trying to get out at the top or sides. At one point, he was able to stick his face out at the top and I thought he’d be small enough to poke through, but couldn’t.

So Denis and I went to work. I cut a big opening in the netting at the side where there weren’t as many leaves and Denis tried to guide him to the opening, but he wouldn’t come over. It was starting to get dark and we had to try something else. By now the scared little bird saw the top as his only escape. So Denis went and got a ladder to reach the top of the tree and cut a hole in the top.

We were prepared to take down all the netting if we had to but as soon as Denis stepped away, the bird found the opening and flew out… gone in a split second, never stopping to say “thank you.” No high five. No fly by. Oh well. It felt good to do the right thing but they don’t appreciate us. Maybe it’s time for their favorite feeder to get a visit… from my plastic snake. Then I can pretend to wrestle the snake away as it tries to choke me, and I finally subdue the scary snake and they get their feeder back. Maybe then we’ll get a “thank you.”