First of all, according to various people, you may want to reconsider keeping your catfish and pond fish together. I posted a link below - or you can do a search yourself on the subject. In our pond in Upstate NY (similar in zone to you), I remove all my tropical plants in early October. We cut back our hardy water lilies which are planted directly in the pond and drop to the bottom the other hardy plants. Our pond is 3 feet deep and approx. 3,000 gallons so the fish overwinter in the pond. I don't know what you should do with a pond that small. We purchased a plastic 100 gallon tub at Country Max for our tropical plants, and I think that would work well for your fish if you decide to bring them indoors. You would have to add a pump or air stone for aeration and something for filtration. My husband altered the "plug" with a faucet and we can drain it pretty easily with a garden hose into our basement sewer come spring. Here is a link that might be useful: catfish in a pond

Birds will eat butterflies but it is not cost effective for them to do so. Butterflies look like lazy fliers but are actually very difficult to catch. Just head out with a net and see! Butterflies are built to be anti-bird,their 4 wing construction gives them on the dime turning ability. As stated before, some taste horrible (monarchs actually concentrate cardiac glycosides in their wings so a nibble will release them), and some even give off chemicals to ward off would be predators (monarchs do this too). The biggest predator of adult butterfies (as opposed to larva)are spiders. I believe crab spiders are the biggest, as they hide in flowers that bees and butterflies visit. Ever notice how there are pictures everywhere of a crab spider feeding on a butterfly? The birds will eat a lot of caterpillars. They will probably make a major switch from seed to larva in the spring when feeding youngsters. Mostly though, it is probably pest species they will feed on at this time. Many of which are found in large numbers (group feeding). A favorite of small birds are sawflies (not butterflies but the larva get confused with butterflies). So, feed away, but if you want to raise butterflies, best to bring some eggs in the house to watch and raise. Too many other boogie monsters besides birds that get the little ones. Cheers, Elisabeth

I saw one yesterday too. It surprised me. I don't think I've seen them in October before. I don't have any feeders filled but I have lots of salvia blooming. I have only seen one tanager in my life several years ago when we were in Branson. I think it was a Summer Tanager. I thought it seemed as red as a cardinal but slightly smaller and no crest. There are also Scarlet Tanagers that are bright red with black wings. Could it have been one of those Ceresone? Here is a link that might be useful: Summer Tanager

Hi PM2! Nice to see you over here! I think you are asking about cold season vegetables? (looks like you missed a word there!). I sow everything I can using the WS method because it's easy, I can do it a bit at a time and I can do it in February or March, when I have a tad more spare time, before I have a ton of garden clean-up chores, and then when I get the beds ready I can just transplant. I've never really had any kind of transplant problems at all with my plants. I separate the seedlings and transplant and they are fine. By the way, I always ws tomatoes, and I have two friends who always give me tomato plants they have started in their greenhouses. Their plants are definitely bigger when planted out at the same time as mine, but I never cease to be amazed, year after year, at how the winter-sown plants catch up. It really does surprise me every season, and I then ask myself why I'm surprised when the same thing happened last year, lol. I just think that the ws seedlings are so much smaller than the greenhouse-grown ones that it seems like mine will never catch up, but they do, and quickly! Actually, I can say the same for cuke and pepper plants, as my co-worker usually brings in some greenhouse-grown ones to share, and they are always bigger than mine, but mine do indeed catch up! :) Dee