Oh my. What is a passionate rose lover like you doing in that glacial hell hole? Reading about your endeavors has exhausted me and I haven't even lifted a shovel. I admire your grit and determination, but would love to see you rewarded with thousands of blooms on your rose bushes for all your hard work. I bet they could use engineers in zones 7 to 10!

Even though my list shows a decent variety I only saw one or two of many of them all season. The only thing that was around in good numbers all season is of course the cabbage white! The past few years I had been seeing at least a few "new to me" species each year. Also, there were quite a few days that were just great butterfly days with several monarchs and tiger swallowtails at a time. It was getting a little better every year. I had hoped it was due to me adding more native nectar and host plants every year. 2013 was a bit of a let-down though and made me think the past couple of years were just flukes. You'll notice from the pictures too that most of them are on butterfly bush. While I am trying to gradually switch over to mostly natives, they still prefer the butterfly bushes to most everything else. They are like butterfly crack I think :) I do try to keep them dead-headed though. I thought they would not re-seed here and weren't a problem until I found my first seedling last year! I had been dead-heading all along to increase flowering, but now I will be more diligent about it. I hope numbers will go up this year and everyone will get lots of beauties!

There were over 100 dead birds that dropped over in Geyserville, CA off the 1010 Freeway this past Saturday. There were also a rather large number of Rooks and Choughs over in Sweden that died.....not to mention the birds in Arkansas, Kentucky, Italy and the fish, crabs, etc. in various places around the world. All in clusters, all falling on or near or within two weeks of, the New Year. Scientists are saying that mass die-offs are very common in birds, especially in winter....as for the fish and sea-creatures, they're saying red tides are on the increase in those areas. So this is hard to pin point....and don't get me started on the conspiracy theorists....egads. Thank GOD He is Sovereign over *all* of it. (Colossians 1: 19-20)

Thanks, and me too..I grew up 5 miles from the ocean in Haiti. We used to have beach parties on New Year, but we're land-locked at the moment. I'm thrilled to be able to swim on Poppy Mnt, only 1 1/2 miles from here, because it's semi-deserted at the moment. DuBois and I used to drive 15 miles to swim in the Licking River or in a deserted pond over the mnt from us where we had to hike through tick-infested brush to reach it. But, speaking of oceans, this year we did skip down to FL for our anniversary over New Year and camped at Ft Desoto Natl Park but it was too cold to swim. But I could take photos of wonderful birds from the car 12-31-08, dock beside Gulf Blvd, preening American Oystercatcher, 4:19 p.m. From 12-30-08, Florida trip This is a link to the first day at Ft Desoto in my photo album. I love Kentucky warblers and other birds, but the ocean TRUMPS ALL (sigh). Slide show button on upper left corner, click F11 key for full screen http://picasaweb.google.com/rachelbro3/123008FloridaTrip#