Oh man! You guys were feeding dat Robin a little too much for her waistline! lol Robin landed here yesterday morning just as I was leaving for work. I managed to delay leaving long enough to rip open the package and stare at all the goodies! This was a LOT of fun and I sure learned a lot. I may do another RR some day but will have to make some changes to accommodate what I've learned. Thank you all for participating!! This RR took exactly 8 weeks to travel from coast to coast. You all should take a bow for keeping things speeding along. I now will get my Winter Sowing started - I was waiting for this package before I start my planting. I have to do a LOT of research about some of these seeds... never heard of some of them before. I am SO excited about getting the Kiss-Me-Over-the-Garden-Gate! I have been wanting that plant! and some of the fragrant goodies that came along... someone of you must have known I have a fragrance weakness! lol Only six of my contributed seeds came back to me. I believe I put something like 20 in the original box. So I am glad you all took a little bit from me. I'll be emailing some of you with questions about these seeds. I am also in the throws of transferring all my files and bookmarked sites onto a brand new computer! So I am surprised I am able to get in here right now to post this! lol I had to look for my passwords for all the sites too! Good grief! Upgrading is exciting but a pain at the same time! Now let's all get growing! Hugs from the Momma Robin! Marly

At what temperature is pollin viable? I have been growing pumpkins for 40 years here in Alaska and am having trouble producing and using what pollin there is to set the fruit. We are having an unusualally cool summer.

Here in SE MA, I also have winter robins. At first there were only a couple checking out the big old winterberry. After a few weeks a flock of about 15 showed up and pretty much stripped the tree of berries, leaving just a few fruits. On New Years Day a small flock appeared to scavenge leftover berries. A couple of years ago I posted the same question when some robins arrived in winter. I'll probably continue to see them sporadically until there are no more berries, or until the spring worms arrive. Claire

I think seeing robins in winter in Il depends largely on what habitat you have around, and yes, how far north you are. I am in south-central Il, Jefferson County, and I don't ever recall a winter here where you couldn't find large hordes of robins holed up in deeper woods or along river corridors. I think that must be the key: the ones that do stay have a hard time finding adequate shelter/ food in backyards during the winter months so they are still here, just not as visible as they would be during the rest of the year. I just watched one such group about a month back, noisily flocking about the edges of the creek where the ice was melted and they had access to the water. It was a good year for hackberries here and the combination of easy food and water often makes this area a hotspot for wintering robins. My preferred signs of spring? Barred owls on eggs! Harbinger-of-sping blooming on the forest floor! Patience!