Suzy, for all we've complained about service (or the lack thereof) in retail establishments, today's customers are the ultimate horror story. A friend recently took a part-time job at Target to help out with the family finances "in these troubled times" and she has been regaling me with customer tales of terror ever since. Clothes left laying about in fitting rooms and carts scattered around parking lots are just minor offenses.There is, of course, the theft (and did you know the #1 category of things stolen at Target is baby formula?), and the potenial thieves who when thinking they're going to be caught just shove the merchandise somewhere behind things on the shelves. There are the parents who tell their little darlings to "go play in the toy department" while mommy shops. There are the people who insist on opening boxes & taking out the hair dryer, lamp or whatever & you know once that's done no one will ever get the stuff back into the box the right way. And finally there are just the plain gross things: the tobacco chewers who spit on the store shelves, the half-drunk drinks left on shelves, the spilled pop corn and the packages of candy that are left ripped open because someone was feeling peckish & wanted a snack. No wonder store employees are a little surly! And Agnes those travel sites! DH loves to go to them & tweak people. Like telling the person who wants advice on how best to travel to China with a 6-month old baby - Take the kid to grandma's & give everyone on the plane a break! Marda, that house is a gingerbread delight, but I've had too many dealings with old houses to have real estate lust over it. Unless I was able to employ a full time staff of painters & cleaners, I know what its maintenance would entail. When it comes to homes, I'm chanting Thoreau's mantra - "Simplify! Simplify!" I'm getting ready to drive all me tax stuff to the accountant. It feels great to have this stuff off my desk and into someone else's hands. Today should be our last (I hope)seriously cold day & we should have temperatures in the seventies by the end of the week. I'm ready for spring & itching to work outside. Winters don't last long down here, but after almost 12 years in the south, they're long enough for me.

That feeling of wonder from the first years' sprouts continues for me each spring. Glad to share the joy those of you in the higher zones are having as your seeds begin sprouting. I am just getting started sowing most of my seeds. Have about two hundred kinds to sow in March and April. Will be a long time before I have any sprouts.

This is my third year winter sowing. I was a little reluctant the first year and only did a few dozen containers. Mostly of seeds that were really old that I couldn't bare to throw out. Well they did great, and I was hooked! Last year I did a lot of perennials and a few annuals. Well the annuals did so great I'm planning to winter sow most of them this year. I'm a gardening nut, can't help it, it's in my blood :) I did a lot of perennials: blanket flowers, mexican hats, daisy, lemon fuzz, forget-me-nots, wall flower, dwarf iris, white coneflower, allium, black eyed susans, dianthus, honeysuckle, double decker coneflower and salvia. I started some of my annuals too: African daisies, cleome, pink baby's breath, cornflower (a few different kinds), lavender, red corn poppy, gloriosa daisy, white baby's breath, larkspur, globe gilia, alyssum, pennie blacks, brachycom, nemesia mello. I have a lot more annuals to do, but there is a 3-4 foot snow drift in the way right now ;)

Aggie, Yeah, I know what you mean about the wasp problem. I have the same thing here and also spiders. I'm pretty sure if I'd leave the eggs and cats outside, almost none of them would make it. I think I will surpass my goal of raising 200 this year. I'm glad that you're finding a lot of eggs too. Maybe we can "pollute" PA with lots of Monarchs. :) About the three eggs on a leaf...I just found three again on a plant outside last evening (one of the ones I had outside in cups), and the eggs are placed so neatly in a triangular pattern. I just hope my daughter gets home before these eggs hatch so I can take a picture of them with her camera. I guess they won't hatch until Wednesday or Thursday since they were just laid yesterday (I just checked the plants the day before, so I know there were no eggs on that plant on Saturday, so I should be able to get a picture of them before they hatch. I didn't look for eggs last year, so I don't know if this same thing was happening last year or not. Maybe the Monarchs are laying lots of eggs because there are more predators around this year...I'm just guessing. I'm glad you didn't get stung by that wasp. My daughter was just stung about a week ago and of course, it didn't feel too good. I'm sorry that you lost your first eggs this year, but at least now you and I are taking them in. Now I'm wondering how many cats I lost last year because I didn't collect the eggs at all. I didn't feel confident enough to do that yet, but now I do, especially after I discovered that I think spiders had eaten some cats in my milkweed patch soon after they hatched. They aren't going to get any more if I can help it. Sherry, I wish I could get some GST's so I could find out how much easier they are to deal with than the Monarchs. :) I have rue planted but it's not real big. I have 14 plants in the ground and probably twice that many in small pots that I haven't decided where to put them yet. I want to make sure I have plenty for them for next year if they don't show up this year, so these should all be a pretty nice size by then. I will also be planting some gas plants, and maybe someday I'll buy a ptelea trifoliata. I'm even going to plant two different colors of gas plants (the flowers) in case they're fussy about the color. lol That's one butterfly that I really really want to get here. Another one I really want is the Common Buckeye, but neither the Verbena hasta seeds nor the Agalinus tenuifolia seeds came up (bought both off of ebay), so I don't have anything for them other than the plantain that's growing all over the yard. I planted snapdragons but if only go on the wild ones, then they won't go on these. I planted a few Paw Paw seeds for the Zebra Swallowtail, which is another one I really want to get here, but they are so slow growing! I planted them back in March and only one of them sprouted and has its first two leaves out. I have a feeling that I might have to also buy trees sometime, but I asked around the area and nobody sells that tree. I never even saw a PawPaw tree. I have parsley, dill, and rue planted for the BST's but I only got the male here one day about two weeks ago and haven't seen any since. I have a few Black Willow saplings growing for some others I'd like to get and Spicebushes for Spicebush Swallowtails. I really want to get to see that caterpillar...I think it's just the neatest looking cat with those "eyes"! I have the butterflies around here but don't know where they lay their eggs. It could be anywhere since we're surrounded by woods. We have small sassafrass trees growing along the edge of the woods and I've been checking them for cats but I found none. Oh, I saw my first American Lady here ever yesterday! There are loads of butterflies outside and it looked so nice. I hope it comes back tomorrow (it's raining today) so I can get a pic of it. Have fun on your trip even if it is for business. Sorry that you have to let the cats outside to fend for themselves, but if it's too much for hubby, I don't blame you for doing that. You already go above and beyond what 99.999% of the human population does, so you're allowed to "slack off". ;-) Randy, Thanks very much. I've been meaning to email you and tell you that the Willow trees I have are doing great! I will look forward so much to them hosting some butterflies that I want so much, i.e. Compton Tortoiseshell, Eastern Comman, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Mourning Cloak, Red-spotted Purple, and Viceroy. So far this year I've seen butterflies that I hadn't seen last year (my first year). RA's are here, Painted Ladies, and now an American Lady showed up yesterday. As I will have more of a variety of blooming plants here this year and following years, I'm anticipating seeing butterflies that I didn't see last year. I did the bulk of the planting this year but am also going to put a few more things in next year. Susan, Yeah, woo hoo is my exclamation for now. I just hope it doesn't turn into boo hoo if I run out of food for them. I seriously thought that 200 + plants was going to be enough, but now I'm starting to wonder since the female or females just keep dumping eggs here like crazy. I'm not complaining, but I'm kind of in shock that they would do this to me. I wouldn't be concerned if my plants would all be big plants, but I just started most of them this year, so a very large percentage of the plants are only 1-2 feet tall yet. I just hope that the ones in cups the caterpillars already ate will sprout out again so they can feed some more caterpillars. I must have 100 milkweeds just on the back porch, but most of them are in cups so aren't really more than 1-2 feet tall. I have been bringing most of the eggs and cats in on the computer stand so they cat eat in peace and grow until I'd see they were pretty big and would pupate soon, so then I'd put them into individual jars and feed them leaves for a day or two. I will still keep some in here, but now it's getting to the point where I can't do that for them all or I'd have to get rid of the printer and the monitor and still not have enough room for everyone. Ha. I pinned a lot of eggs onto plants on the back porch and hope that spiders don't find them. [Note: I'm not doing any more of the pinning because it's awkward for me and I ended up losing two eggs in the process.] The porch just isn't airtight or even close to it, so I know that spiders can crawl in there. At least I'm pretty sure the wasps and flies won't get in unless they come in when one of us is going in or out the door, but if I see one, it's a goner. I don't like any kind of flies, so it doesn't matter what kind comes in, it's dead. Anyway, I will raise these caterpillers I have right now and they will pupate in jars, but I think the whole slew that I will have hatching from eggs this week will go into the big cage. Since none are in there at all yet and since these in eggs will all be pretty much the same size, I don't foresee a problem. I guess any eggs I find right after that will have to be brought in the house or the back porch because I wouldn't want to put those in with the big guys. Maybe after the ones in the cage pupate it would be okay to start putting some in there. Do caterpillars get after pupas? If they do, then I don't know what to do because I only have so many places to go with all of these eggs and cats. No doubt about it, this is a fulltime job. It's good I'm not working or I'd have to call in sick everyday. :) Thanks for sharing in my happines. I was hoping to get other kinds of cats to raise, but I think I'm about as happy as I can stand right now. lol Cathy