Thanks for the offer Jeff! I am in Fredneck, ooops I mean Frederick :) I already ordered more pussytoes. They should be here by Wednesday, so hopefully everything will turn out ok. I will wait and see how this turns out and let you know if things get dire. So far I havent hand reared any cats. I have let nature take it's course. I want to give them the best chance possible though. I did put pop up hampers on my fennel last year, so I did protect a few. This year the plants are too big for that, so I don't know what I am going to do. Thanks again! Melissa @Coolbutterfly, I hope your plants turn out to be enough as well! I guess we will both find out how much is enough.

The best thing you can do for pond fish is to give them plenty of plants for hiding, and to add some simple structures in the deepest part of the pond. One good idea is to lay a length of terra cotta pipe or even large PVC pipe in the middle of the pond. Terra cotta is nicer looking and will eventually get enough algae,etc, on it to blend in. A large flower pot turned on its side will help, too. But the pipe helps a lot. Fish will scoot right in there when being threatened by raccoons, etc. They could probably even hide from an anhinga in there. White Birds 101: The largest white wading bird in your part of the state is the great egret. He will tower over the other white birds, being nearly as big as a great blue heron. The smaller white waders will usually be either immature little blue herons (grayish beak with a dark tip) or snowy egrets, who have bright yellow feet. That makes them pretty easy to ID. Then you have white ibis, with long downcurved pink beaks, and cattle egrets, who are the shortest of them all, and seen more often in pastures and along the roads. And there you have it. That's everybody except wood storks which are HUGE and have massive blackish beaks and heads, and aren't easily confused with anything else. Anna, your green heron picture is beautiful! Some time back, these were called Little Green Herons (we always said it was because they had very little green on them, haha). But then they dropped the "little" for some reason. They are very clever and adaptable little birds. I used to watch one at the Periwinkle Trailer Park swan pond on Sanibel Island who had perfected the art of fishing with the pelletized bird food. He would take a couple of pellets out of the dish, go over to the water's edge and drop them in. Then he just waited for the all the little fishies to come nibble at the floating food. He had his technique perfected and was a very successful fisherbird. You both have such lovely natural areas in your yards, where you can really enjoy nature when you garden! I swear, I'm going to get my horse trough next month, for sure. It will make a perfect birthday present. And then I can at least have a few goldfish and a lotus or two. Marcia

Well, it isn't exactly rare. This was a young black bear. My guess is a two year old. We live on the southern side of a mountain, and have had "visitors" before. One rather large one tore a bird feeder off the house. It had only a few sunflower seeds left in the bottom. We know enough to stop feeding the birds in the spring so as not to attract the bears, but apparently sunflower seeds are a real treat for them and he was just coming out of hibernation. As far as my distance from this one, I guess I was 25 feet away. What I didn't capture was the way he stood up to get our scent first. I think he was about 6 feet tall when he stood up. The one that took the bird feeder was much taller. I kept knocking on the window to get him to go away. He actually huffed and puffed at me! I am not scared to live with them, but we don't do stupid stuff. What is upsetting is when some local people feed the bears. Very dangerous and foolish. We have a lot of raspberry and blackberry bushes and have cut a trail through the woods for berry picking. We are now taking a break from our "berry walks!"

They're definitely more active at night, although we've seen them on the roads during the day--and of course my son took this picture in daylight. Last year I was driving over a mountain when I encountered cars stopped in both lanes. They were watching a family of bears--mama, papa, and two cubs--cross the road. It was a charming sight. I wish "my" bears would head over to that mountain. I hadn't thought about booby-trapping the garbage. I don't know if I want an angry bear on the property, but there may be a way to simply frustrate him.