On a comment, in passing, I happened to mention I might be prone to write about those three things tonight — the silly search for ‘purpose’, bees, and rocks — and I thus felt compelled to do so . . . first up:

It’s that time of year when the bees aren’t finding enough flowers out there in the wild, so they take over the feeders. They can do so because of two flaws in the design of those feeders. One, the holes are too large. A hummingbird can feed through a very small hole, but those are large enough for the bees to nearly squeeze through.

As it is, they can get their whole head in there to reach the sugar water.

Second, the top portion of the base — and in fact, the whole base — does not provide enough separation from the top of the feeder to the surface of the liquid; meaning, the bees can reach it. Given the length of the hummingbird’s back beak, they could make that base deeper and keep the bees from reaching the solution (thus having them go search elsewhere for food).

I’ve tried contacting the company to offer them my feedback, but they don’t offer the option for customers to contact them . . . a huge strike against them (yes, I’ve rated these on Amazon). My only recourse is to buy a couple of different feeders for use late in the year, like now, when there are still hummingbirds migrating South but not enough to warrant the eleven feeders I have hanging around the house. Mind you, I’ll still keep a few of these feeders out for the bees.

Here are the rocks I’d mentioned — well, I didn’t mention these specifically, but rocks like these. Meaning, I didn’t have specific rocks in mind when I wrote the comment, but still, these fit the bill since, you know, they’re rocks. Sorry about the leaves … consider it a bonus?

Finally, we come to ‘purpose’ — the ‘why’ many people ask about; the BIG question. Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Do we have a purpose?

Of course, whole books have been written about it (and it’s the running gag in one of my favorite movies — LINK), and I’ve covered it at length in a number of posts (I recently linked one such, but few people click on links, and them who would, already have, so I won’t bother linking it again).

The short answers are:

1. Because one of thousands of sperms connected with an egg during one of the times your parents got it on. It’s biology. Congratulations; you won the existence lottery!
2. ‘Supposed to do‘?!? You’re here by chance; no one planned for you to be here (well, maybe your parents, but since you probably already disappointed them, they don’t count). If you want a more specific answer, ‘don’t be a dick’ is a great start — and end — to answering that question. This also applies to non-males since ‘not being a dick’ is more about the way one acts than what kind of equipment one flaunts.
3. No, you don’t have a purpose; didn’t you read #1 and #2? But if you insist on donning the mantle of purposefulness (it’s green, with red trim; it looks awful), how about this: live so that others will miss you (rather than cheer) when your time here is done (see #2).

… really, I don’t understand why people make such a big deal of it or think it so important.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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