kitty, what a neat thing to happen; I always feel honored when a bird chooses a nest in my garden. I hope your epi can live through its ordeal. It's funny, I have the same situation in regard to the rain; I just noticed rust on one of my La France. I really hate rust! Carol, here are pictures of the roadrunners that you requested. They're such comical birds. Sometimes I can hear a cracking noise outside and will see it's one of the roadrunners breaking open a snail on the concrete. They often make a big mess in the garden and on the pathways when they're digging for snails and slugs. Mr. Meep Meep (males have the facial markings) A sunbath is a good thing I'm really rather gorgeous! Nice wheels! Just moving right along When it rains I look for snails and slugs (ignore the hairdo!) Ingrid

Sure does doesn't it? I never planted any tho. Hmmmm Look at the very new buds on this picture found of Prairie Ironweed (Veronia faciculata) at Dave's Garden/Plants Database. They look just like mine now. I don't know thou since these are a late summer/fall bloomer. Vera Here is a link that might be useful: Ironweed

Campanula , here are some seedlings from those that you have. and some that are no shows right now. Well the first is not a seedling. These were probably germinated last spring or early fall. The Ipomopsis rubra is eye level with my 5.6" stature. Some are much smaller. It depends on what soil it has its feet in. The white road is a sample of the caliche soil base that is under the the little bit of granite sand and compost amendment that I used here. We are having a wet spring and that washes the caliche level and DOWN HILL. It is in-between toe squishing out there. Rarity in the Hill country. I can say that my soil glimmers silver under the full moon. 2'one in not as amended soil. They do like sand. Here are some seedlings , I hope this helps you. I love finding seedling shots when I am doing the seedling dance in the wild..F The first one is Conoclinium havanense. OH GOD, they have taken the name out of the Conoclinium classification and put it back in the Ageratina family. I collected it as this and then it became a Eupatorium , and I was just getting used to this Conoclinium spelling and I could no longer find it on google search under it . SO I throw my hands up in exasperation. The complaint about common names is that there are so many common names well I have a few complaints about the changeability of scientific names. The LBJ had it listed under Conoclinium when I sent you the seed. LOL. Now, I find it by searching the common name. Were is the rationale for scientific names now.. Anyway here is the little bugger. The seedling is still the same guy. Here are 2 seedlings of the Dalea aurea. One popped up in late fall and the little guy off to the left side just came up not to long ago. Here is a foreshortened long shot of Dalea purpuria that came up in late winter. Sorry not good pictures . Here it is stretched out. Long and skinny. I am tempted to nip it but I will wait. What do you think. It is the first time I have grown this from seed. I bought a plant and planted it and this is the product of it.

I just don't see any warning signals at all for a scam. I am not sure many Americans are experienced with buying bank owned property but it certainly sounds like she has a realtor and a family that has some familiarity with home pitfalls. Dealing with a bank owned property is simply an odd situation. The realtor may not know the answers because the answers may follow no real pattern. She has toured the house several times and inspected the property that she is buying as is. Which is a far greater concern to me than a real estate attorney in a $35k transaction. While I will always advise someone to get an attorney, the time to get an attorney involved is before making the offer. At this point she is bound by the terms of the offer and the attorney isn't going to add significantly more value than a proper inspection and title insurance will (and will probably add less). Admittedly, I am not familiar with all real estate scams but setting up a title company, getting a realtor involved, forging documents to make yourself look like Bank of America and all the other things that need to happen for this kind of fraud, seem a little much for a $35k scam.