Enjoying all of these posts...thanks so much for sharing them with us!! I feed a number of squirrels and have a bird feeding table and suet hangers,etc. I have one very fat squirrel who fusses at me when the seed gets low or gone. One morning I was about to step through the garden gate when for some reason I stopped. Not 6 inches from my face on the gate post was this squirrel...not moving a muscle...I stared in to his face and as luck would have it I had my camera. Now..I'll have to go and find out how to post the picture. I admit I was scared...one never knows what these fellas will do. He just sat there and then suddenly jumped down and ran to the tree where the feeders are. It was a little close for comfort..but..he's here all of the time and a lot of mornings he's on the fence outside the back door...just waiting for me. He will come on the patio and get seed but I don't try it often...it's best if he continues on in his own world...too close to mine might make him a little too tame. He actually let me move my hand up and snap a photo...glad to have it of him..he's really a part of the garden and back yard...now I can remember him! :)))))

I have not been on this forum much the last few days as I have been mesmerized by this storm from very beginning. It first appeared in the GFS model, then the Euro Model picked up up, at which time the GFS dropped it, and took Sandy out to see. That was where things remained for about a week, at which point both weather models came into agreement, and the picture was always some version of horrendous after that. I have every compassion for all of you that have lots trees, had wild areas distroyed, trees striped to trunks, etc. We had similar effects during our Jan 2009 ice storm, and everything is STILL recovering. Sandy turned out to be even worse than forecast, and that is saying something. But long term, it will be good for the forest, as it will weed out the weaker trees, and it will give more room for the remaining to expand, and it will allow new colonization, and in more mature forest, understory trees that have been waiting their turn will burst forth to fill the void over the coming year. Dogwoods will get more light, and flower more prolifically, same with serviceberry, and many other species especially wildflowers. Maybe the native pollinators can catch a break, and you will be rewarded with butterflies. The opening of the canopy will also help to control dogwood anthracnose, by drying the foliage so that the fungus can't take hold, giving much needed relief to those species in the NE. Point of all this being that while this is a horrible event, so good will actually come from it, and all of you can set yourself in the right mindset to see these things to make it all more tolerable. Have a prepared mind to appreciate those positives. Arktrees

Tomatoworm, I currently have no plans to plant anything although I'd love to plant loquats sometime in the future. Our usual rainfall is about 38-39" and we've only had 14" this year, so it is a struggle just to keep the plants we already have alive, and I won't know until spring just what has or has not survived. Our clay soil is as hard as concrete and has cracks varying from 1 to 3" in width. A long, dry winter lies ahead of us. We've lost one peach tree but the plum trees are still alive so far. Most of our grassland is a dry, dormant wasteland at this point, and our woodland isn't much better. Even my prickly pear cacti withered and dried, although some of them are starting to show some signs of recovery. Very little rain has fallen here since May and the last 365 days are our driest since we've moved here, and officially our area's 1st or 2nd driest year ever, so most of my daturas are so small that if I took a cutting, I'd be cutting off the entire plant because the surviving plants are so small. My tall datura plants died to the ground in July or early August. They have regrown a little since then and are blooming but are only about 6 to 8" tall so the flowers aren't even very big either. If they make some growth in October, I might be able to take cuttings for you then. They are just in pitiful shape, as is everything here. I'm so far beyond worrying about any specific plants that it isn't even funny. I'm just trying to water enough to keep some green around the house for fire protection, and am spending whatever time I have at home just keeping the bird feeders, hummingbird feeders, and 10 wildlife and bird waterers and birdbaths filled, as well as putting out feed twice a day for the wildlife. All our creeks and ponds, except for the lily pond which we keep filled with water from the hose, are long dry, and I've been hauling water jugs out to fill the wildlife waterers since July. It takes a lot of time and muscle, but the wildlife need a reliable source of water since Mother Nature isn't providing them with any. At night, this place looks like a wildlife refuge although during the day you only see a few deer, a couple of armadilloes and some cottontail rabbits out eating with the birds. There's significantly higher activity at night. I haven't seen many moths the last couple of weeks either, but am seeing plenty of monarchs. I might be able to find seedheads from some of the summer daturas this fall when I rake leaves under the pecan trees, but can't rake until after a freeze or I'll likely encounter more timber rattlers, and I've had too many close encounters with them in August and September as it is. I'll let you know if I find any seedheads or if the plants grow enough to take cuttings from them. No rain is in our foreseeable future, so I'm not very hopeful the daturas will grow. They're all in a non-irrigated area. Scott, My pecan trees have held up better than anything else this summer and have produced pecans, but since we have so little else for the wild things to eat this year, I'm letting them have the pecans. I'm amazed we even have pecans with so little rainfall, but now the squirrels are busy gathering them and the acorns from the trees in the yard, so the squirrels aren't eating as much of the deer corn as they were a few weeks ago. I've even put out unroasted peanuts for the squirrels this summer. Even the squirrel population is very low this year. I've only seen a handful of squirrels this summer. You know it is a bad year when I am feeling so sorry for the squirrels that I am feeding them. Dawn

My family, and some friends, know I post on GW, so I don't post anything I wouldn't want them to read. I've recommended it to several for gardening/computer/home improvement advice. I posted pics of my painted play room floor, and my brother's step daughter was excited to recognize the pics when she was searching for painted floors (she wasn't searching GW specifically). There was a similar thread in the KT recently. I typed in a few key bits of info I've shared on GW and realized how easy I am to find, even though I've never shared my exact location. A GW'er from Ohio once asked if I lived in the same town as she. I do not, but I remembered the post later when she posted a picture of her home, with the street sign visible and legible. I emailed her and suggested she delete the pic, since the two pieces of info put together could lead someone to her door. Years ago, before I knew about all of Google maps features, someone with whom I'd exchanged flower seeds and bulbs mentioned in her thank you email that my place was in a nice location. She had typed my address into the search field and looked at the aerial view. I was surprised, but since then I've realized that we no longer have an expectation of privacy.