Can you tell if the area is wild or is it near your house, and potentially planted by someone? What is the diameter of the main trunks? Do any of them climb a tree? Often times by looking at the surrounding area you can see if someone has been in the area and if they have been planted or not. If they were planted, chances are they will at least be good for eating or jam. Zone 4 needs a very hardy vine to make it through the winter. If the main trunk is very very wide, its been there a while and is proven a hardy variety. There is a chance of them being concord really. (IF they were planted) I wouldnt recommend doing nothing this year. You can at the minimal clear the area of other weeds/branches. Let the sunlight get to the vines. Put a stake in the ground if the vines are weak and need supporting. Get the canes off the ground (!!!). You dont need a full blown trellis. Come up with a temporary situation, such as a wire strung between some stakes, for example. Canes on the ground invite summer fungus and should be lifted. You should be able to see fruit, if they are fruiting this year. It would be in your best interest to check them, and thin. Grapes as a general rule, need thinning just as other fruit varieties. Left alone, the fruit may not reach its full potential, making you think its not a worthwhile vine. Some time and energy will show you if this vine is worth more time or not. Lastly.. I have seen wild grapes where berries and clusters are much smaller than grocery store bought. Good luck. Dan

I love Cracker Barrel's Country Store. They always have quality, unique items for sale ... old fashioned candy, preserves, etc too. I also love their Chicken Fried Chicken, and their Sunrise Sampler! I have a few modern Jadeite pieces I bought at Cracker Barrel, made for Fire King in Brazil in the '90s. They were discontinued because of quality problems. You can tell the difference right away if you're familiar with how the old authentic Fire King, Jeannette, & McKee pieces look. The real ones will glow under a black light. Susie, that is really pretty, I never would've thought that chandelier would turn out so nice. Girl, you got it goin' on! ~tenderlee

Not a particularly rare plant as it's often available by the big box stores. A spreading mound with an indentation towards the middle generally is what gives it it's name. My specimen here grows about 3" a year, almost all laterally. This can give you good size approxiamations - It may be 2' tall by 3' wide in ten years and then 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide in 100 years! Just remember, conifers don't spot growing once they reach a specific size. They grow until death. Eventually it will outgrow it's spot if you're only leaving it 2x4 space. Maybe 10 years from now it'll be colliding with everything near it. -Will

It could have been the nest of American Crows and they left the debris on the ground. I checked the Birds of North America online site (I can't link to it because it's a subscription site, but I hope it's OK to quote from it) - Great site, well worth joining. If you participated in the GBBC you get a free trial subscription. Apparently crows sometimes pull living twigs off trees to make their nests, and they line them with various materials including bark strips. From Birds of North America online site: "Nest Construction Both sexes build nest; no information on relative share of each sex. Although both sexes bring in nest-lining material, female does more of detailed fine-tuning of nest lining than does male (CC). Builds nest mostly between 07:00 and 11:00 (S. S. Dickey in Gross 1946); early in morning, as early as 8 min after sunrise (Reaume 1987b); likely throughout day (CC), as in Northwestern Crow (Verbeek and Butler 1999). New nest distinguishable from old one by presence of fresh, dead twigs on ground below; these twigs fall accidentally and are never retrieved (Reimann 1942). In Encino, CA, and Stillwater, OK, pulls and breaks off living twigs from trees as well as picking up twigs from ground (CC). Gathers materials from different directions around nest tree, not from nest tree itself (Reaume 1987b). Helpers in Florida (Kilham 1989), Cape Cod, MA (Chamberlain-Auger et al. 1990), and in Oklahoma (CC) participated in bringing material to the nest. With 2 adults and several helpers bringing sticks, the congestion around the nest resulted in birds having to wait for a chance to get to the nest; helpers usually left their sticks for the female to work in (Kilham 1989). Period between completion of nest and egg-laying in Florida 6Â16 d (Kilham 1989), but Emlen (1942) reported building right up to egg-laying in California. Time to complete first nests in California 13 d (range 11Â17, n = 6 nests [Emlen 1942]; 10Â14 d [CC]); 5 and 9 d in 2 nests with helpers in Florida (Kilham 1989), 10Â14 d in Oklahoma (CC). Second nests take less time to build: 9 d (Emlen 1942); 6Â8 d (Graber et al. 1987); 5Â10 d in California and Oklahoma (CC). Structure And Composition Matter Bottom and sides consist mainly of dead branches, 0.6Â3.5 cm diameter (Reimann 1942) and usually Claire