I had an amazing visit with my friend, Lynne, in Santa Clarita.  I paired the visit with a haircut (yaay Farida at EFX Salon in Canyon Country...she fixed the haircut errors of my OC stylist) and shopping for the upcoming cruise.  Interestingly, I was well provisioned with formal and semi-formal wear but my casual wardrobe looks a little...well, bedraggled.  So I spend most of Wednesday afternoon shopping.

Without much luck until Lynne arrived.  Before she got there, I had 1 shirt and 1 pair of pants.  After she arrived, I had four additional shirts, two pairs of pants and skirt and a knit top.  We enjoyed dinner at Salt Creek along with a long, catch-up chat.  There's nothing like hanging out with a true friend of the heart.

The next morning we went to our old hiking grounds, Towsley Canyon, and impressed ourselved by completing the nearly six-mile hike.  We took a bit longer than we used to, but we stopped along the way to enjoy the flowers (read, catch our breath) and once to help someone with their geocache search.

At the end of the hike, there's a tar pit and as we approached it, we saw a young man poking sticks into the tar pit.  I was about to comment that he was just like a little boy when he looked up with panic on his face and announced that there was a bird stuck in the tar.  He prized the bird free and it turned out to be a very frightened hummingbird, wings, legs and lower body covered in tar.

I tore the packaging from my emergency blanket and he deposited the bird into my hands.  We promised to let him know the status of the bird and he went off to complete his hike.  (He was going the opposite direction of us on the loop trail.)  I held the bird in my hand for the rest of the hike, about 1/2 mile.  The bird, which we took to calling "Tweeters" was alert and struggling to free its feet from the tar periodically. 

We debated what to do--take Tweeters to Lynne's house and use dish soap to remove the tar?  (That's what they use for wildlife mired in oil spills.)  Take Tweeters to a vet?  We had decided to take the bird to the ranger's office and were headed to the car when the ranger drove up. 

As an aside, he looked exactly like my brother, Darrell, except for the ZZ Top goatee he was sporting.  Lynne and I both remarked on the eerie resemblance.

Darrell's doppelganger didn't hold out a lot of hope but took Tweeters literally off my hands, saying he'd wash him with dish soap and see what he could do. 

It's the second time in a month that I've held a hummingbird in my hands.  The first came when a blue-throated bird got stuck in our house.  Dan and I blocked it against the window and I picked it up in my hands, carrying it outside and setting it free.  No worse for wear, I've seen it flying around my flowerbeds in recent days.

I hope that Tweeters recovered at the hands of the man who looks like my brother.  If the resemblance goes beyond the skin and into the heart, I know that the Ranger devoted his heart and soul to rescuing the bird.

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