My mom has the purple one, and she always said it was a trumpet vine and I thought she was wrong, but now that I see yours I am going to have to eat crow on this one. I love this vine, do you grow the purple trumpet vine in the shade or sun. my mom grows her's in half sun half shade. Where did you get yours my mom picked her's up at Home Depot but it has been some years now since she purchased hers, I want one. I need some color in my garden in the summer, it is so plain right now, I guess I should ask does yours bloom in the summer, I can't remember if my moms does or not. I see the orange ones quite a bit at at Home Depot but I have never seen the purple ones. Thanks Carrie

Hey Sherry, Just tell DH that you're just saving him the trouble of walking outside and he can see butterflies right inside the house. Besides, how many husbands can say that they have butterflies in their house? Hmmm? Heh. Of course, maybe it's not something he'd want to admit to anyone. ;-) I guess we all have stories to share at one time or another, but yours really are amusing. I bet you're really an entertaining type of person. :) My hubby thought it was bad enough when I'd bring gourds in the house to work on to make them for birds to live in, but now that I've been working on this butterfly cage that takes up a big space in the living room, he thinks this project is even "better" yet! Hahahaha! I forget which of my many projects I was working on at the time, but one day he said to me, "I knew from the time I met you that you'd be different!" Now, I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or an insult! HA! He knows that I'll always have my quirks and have to do this nature stuff, so he's given up trying to reason with me so that we would have a "normal"-looking house. This year since I'm anticipating having pretty many cats around, I'm putting up "Beware of caterpillars" signs on all the doors where people would come into the house because I don't want any to get stepped on. I didn't have any problem with them wandering last year, but you just never know. Ever since I had gotten into birds, I think I've been teased about my projects. I made a gourd rack and put it up in the backyard. I think just about everyone who comes here has such a dumbfounded look when they see it and of course have to ask what it is. My daughter's one friend says it looks like I'm trying to contact the aliens. Ha! Maybe I just like to amuse people or something because it sure hasn't worked to attract martins here. I do get tree swallows in a gourd on a shepherd's hook every year and bluebirds in houses, etc. One year when the weather turned cold in the spring I ordered crickets for the birds. The van driver who brought them had a smile on his face when he brought them to the door and said they had serenaded him from the time he left that morning and got them to my place (mid-afternoon). He enjoyed them on the ride. :) I supposed most of us nature "nuts" would be considered eccentric by those "normal" people out there who haven't a clue about these things, but I'd rather be eccentric than uncaring about nature. Anyhoo, I love hearing about other people's stories of what happens in their lives because of their being into these things. So keep on telling us of your adventures, Sherry! We love 'em! Cathy

According to two articles I read, the way to get rid of voles is to put slices of apple under upside-down clay pots. If you find apple pieces with little teeth marks, you've got voles. Then get the old-fashioned spring-loaded traps and put apples on them under the pots. Do not spring the traps for a number of days, then load them and catch the critters once you have gotten their confidence. The poison in a covered area is good, too. Barb, I saw no tail or ears on the furry critter going between the garden blocks. It did not seem rodent-shaped, but I only got a glimpse. I guess if mice can go through a dime-sized hole, it must be possible for them to get long and skinny, so maybe it was a vole. It was furry and seemed very black. A giant furry caterpillar seemed the best description, but it was FAST, like a centipede. The mousy part came in when I saw the little babies earlier in the week in the garage. They were way cute and had round ears. Since I have not been able to find a photo of baby voles, I cannot know for sure. I guessed that maybe ears may be more pronounced in rodent infants, as they are in puppies. Any ideas on the insect end of things? By the way, Barb, that is the best picture I have seen of a vole. Is it yours? I searched the net and found nothing that good.

I am in Northeast Ohio. It looks very much like the one I saw. I had my 1yr old in my arms, ran to get my video camera, I must not have had it recording properly trying to balance son, and camera... i was so upset I lost the video I thought I had. It was about 3-5 mins of REALLY good video too as I saw in through the camera. Is it possible it was the hummingbird moth in Ohio? It was extremely fast