Kristen - you contributed for me but I can include some data from previous years: 2006 Zone 7, Phila., PA (in the city but on the border line of Montco) Closest first on map = 4/9/06 My first = 4/29/06 (same as this year) Days diff = 20 -------------------------- 2005 Zone 7, Phila., PA (in the city but on the border line of Montco) Closest first on map = 4/7/05 My first = 6/5/05 Days diff = 59 My very first hummer experience was back in 2004 during fall migration season and I don't have the exact date handy of that (my very first hummer sighting ever), but it was some time in mid-August 2004. The first sighting in the area that year was 4/7/04. In general, the males tend to come earlier and in 2005, I only had a returning female, who showed up on 6/5/05. But once I got my first 2 juvie males of 2005 and they got a taste of my spot, one of them returned the next year on 4/29/06. The mom returned later on 5/10/06. There were 4 juvie males and at least 3 adult females that summer and one of the 2006 juvie males showed up this year on 4/29/07. One of the females appeared on 5/10/07.

Dorothy, I just finished harvesting the last ears from the fifth corn variety. I'm glad the corn is done because I wouldn't want to have to keep watering it in this hot weather. All 5 varieties produced really well, and the raccoons didn't get a single ear, which is really odd---almost unheard of---but I am not complaining. We've had lots of corn to eat fresh and have filled up a large portion of the largest deep freeze with corn-on-the-cob to enjoy over the next few months. It was a much better corn year here this year than the last two years, thanks in large part to the heavy rainfall we got during the last two weeks in May. Without that rainfall, I don't think our corn would have produced. I still haven't dug the last variety of potatoes. I thought they'd be ready to dig by Independence Day, but they weren't. They still were lush and green. They look considerably worse now, with grasshoppers and spider mites hitting the foliage, but still are green. I may dig them one day this week anyway. I have had grass clipping/leaf mold mulch a foot thick on top of them for the last couple of months and haven't watered them but once or twice, so not sure what I'll find when I do dig them. I expect the ground will be hard though. I do water the perennials to keep them going, and that keeps some of the annuals planted near them going as well. This year I planted cool-season annuals in the veggie beds I didn't intend to water, and planted the warm-season annuals in areas, like the pepper beds, that I did intend to water. So, when I water the veggies I intend to keep going, I'll be keeping some flowers alive too. The only cool-season flowers still alive are sweet alyssum, violas and nasturtiums, and with this heat and the fact they are in non-irrigated beds, I don't think they'll make it much longer. It is getting dangerously dry here now....the kind of dry where a spark from a mower hitting a rock, the hot rubber thrown off a tire when a vehicle has a blowout on the interstate or a tractor/bailer issue can cause grass or a hay field to ignite. It isn't a big everyday thing yet, but we definitely are seeing more grass fires occurring each week. It is likely we'll start getting busier and busier, so I'm trying to can everything the same day I harvest it so I don't fall behind. Right now, our back pasture is so dry that it hurts to look at it. I am getting ready to mow it down as low as possible in order to stop any possible wildfire that would come our way from the large, cedar-filled pasture adjacent to our property. I've just been waiting for the green milkweed to set seed, and now that this has occurred, I intend to get out early in the morning and mow it down. I am so disappointed that we are having another droughty summer. I didn't expect a really wet summer, but was hoping it wouldn't dry out as fast as it did. Back at the beginning of June our Keetch-Byram Drought Index number was incredibly low---near zero, in fact. Now, roughly 5 weeks later, it is over 350. For us, in a normal year (whatever normal is any more, who knows?), a KBDI near 400 would be more common at the end of August or early September. In a bad year it can be in the 500s or higher by early September, and that's the track we're on now unless some significant rainfall occurs. I'm not really expecting significant rainfall. We did have a tiny shower one morning last week and it gave us 0.21" of rainfall, which wasn't much, but was better than nothing at all. I'm scaling back my plans for a fall garden. I likely will start some cool-season seeds indoors for transplants this week for the fall garden, but then, if we don't get some half-decent rainfall in July, I likely won't transplant them into the ground. It is hard enough to establish cool-season plants in August in a normal year. In a drought year, it is almost impossible. There's always a silver lining somewhere.....I guess this year's silver lining is that the prickly pear cactus look really happy, and the zinnias (which do get watered since they are next to the peppers) look very happy, although with the zinnias, they only look happy because they are getting water. It took me three hours this morning just to harvest from the back garden, and I didn't even make it to the front garden. Both were watered, in part, two or three days ago and those parts look good. The parts that weren't watered don't look very good at all, but there's only so much I am willing to water. I'll spend the rest of today canning salsa and pickles, and then either this evening or early tomorrow, I'll harvest from the front garden, and either do more canning tonight or tomorrow. After this week, I'll likely have done all the canning I'm going to do. The pickling cucumbers have been doing great, but I can see the plants aren't looking as good now as they did even a week ago. You can tell the heat stress and summer pests are really starting to affect them. It is ridiculously hot and humid this week. Part of NE and E OK have heat advisories and excessive heat warnings. Seems like a good time to stay inside as much as humanly possible. We just put up the shade cloth over the hot peppers today, and may put one up over the main tomato tomorrow. The shade cloth helps, but when rain isn't falling, it does not necessarily help enough. Dawn

For those of you with 1) a smoker that can run pretty cool and... 2) access to fresh shucked oysters you can smoke your own and they are really good. we buy burlap sacks of (what I call) the cracks; oysters discarded off the production lines for malformed shells, too small, cracked shells, etc. Brine them in whatever (teriyaki, cajun, citrus, apple juice...its all good.) and place on a tight rack so they don't drip through the openings at the very topmost, coolest place in your smoker and wait. They don't freeze well at all and aren't anywhere near as good jarred up after so we generally do it in one big mess of a weekend. But if you were willing to run your smoker I see no reason you couldn't do a small batch either. I wouldn't do it with other foods, they drip and generally make everything taste like oysters for a while.

Absolutely! We're just 1 month in though with a 9550 set which is now made in Mexico (no longer GE). Huge improvement over our 25yr old Lady Kenmore (Whirlpool) set that was actually still going strong (just rusty from a mishandling in a couple of moves). Our daughter swears by these, and complained whenever visiting about the old machine....and you know what, she was right....no comparison. Underwear, towels, whatever much whiter brighter, and clothes are handled much better than with an agitator and many many gallons of water. The dryer was little changed though after all those years....still has a welded seam that makes a slight thump each rev just like the old one which by the way was never repaired after all those years. One improvement in the dryer though is the steam (or water squirt), does magically pop the wrinkles right out and is quite convenient.