I sent you a message but don't know if it arrived or not.. I have a son in Queens.. I'd like to know if you'd consider 'flat rate shipping', cuz I'd sure like to pay for such cool things. I'm working on a funny garden art bird.. he's made with plywood and a steel band. that makes his head wobbly and it's a riot to see the bird with his neck all weirded out, in the least bit of breeze. anyway, please let me know.. I have a couple things going and would love some embellishments. just toss an email to me, if you'd like. Becky ;(*_*);

Scotts' reputation has long been wrecked for me -- didn't even need the latest news of them pleading guilty to violations of FIFRA/concealing evidence. Around 2006 they took over the manufacturer of a once-great and reliable product, SuperSoil, and pretty much destroyed it. The first sign of trouble was me nearly losing all of a year's tomato seedlings to the obviously toxic potting soil. (I saw signs of trouble at about a week and moved most to a different potting soil; the ones left in that soil as an experiment withered and died by two weeks or so.) I was looking up the Rod McLellan Co.'s address to complain and saw they had been bought out. My letter of complaint to Scotts brought a condescending, generic reply that somehow it was my fault (I've only been gardening 40+ years, not to mention being a working plant ecologist...). Further research of the Scotts company culture and politics and reading of interviews with the CEO, Hagedorn, pretty much killed off buying their products for me. I have, to be fair, tried SuperSoil a few times since and have found the product inconsistent and untrustworthy -- like the company. Particularly annoying is how Scotts constantly pushes "magic-button" products with their humungous advertising budget that promise ridiculous visions of perfection with no sweat while disregarding the harm the products cause the environment. Excessive fertilization and pesticide application are the curse of this age of "more is better" and "easy-living through chemicals", a culture Scotts continues to cynically exploit, though science, and my personal experience, have convinced me otherwise. Debbie

I think I want to have a little chat with that groundhog- early spring indeed! ha! I participated in the great backyard bird count again this year. At the website you can print out a sheet that lists all the birds found in this area of New York. The GBBC always seems to do its count on the coldest days of the year. I only find one or two birds then because it is so cold, but I'll continue marking off the birds I find for the rest of the year just to see how many I can get. No robins yet, but I did get my eagle. They are common around the lake and easier to see in the winter. Here is a link that might be useful: my webpage

I have found 9-pound bags of a mix of mostly millet with some sunflower seed and, I think, safflower seed, at a dollar-type store here called Big Lots. $7 per bag. Birds gobble it up in winter, but in the winter they'll eat anything; in the spring they are picky, kicking out the milo for the pigeons and doves, so I stop feeding them and concentrate on hummingbirds and, this year, suet for Ladderback and Downy woodpeckers. Also I have nyger thistle feeders (both metal mesh feeder and sock feeder) out for our sweet, tiny lesser goldfinches. To complete my first post in this forum, I spotted and got pictures of a male Northern Cardinal this morning, a rare sighting for our area (Albuquerque). A similar male bird (the same one??) was reported a few miles further north back in February. I also photographed a rare Vermillion Flycatcher in April. Maybe more birds are moving into my state -- and I'll have figure out how to feed them if they visit my apartment complex :)