Well, my compost pile has a frozen crust on it and I'm now adding materials to the old black box rather than trying to get into the pile. When the black box is full I think I'll try using birdseed bags. I have a lot of empty birdseed bags (and a lot of full birds). While the cold is annoying, I had an epiphany of sorts this morning as I walked to the pile. Frozen dog poop and frozen turkey poop don't stick to your shoes! A small pleasure, but it matters when you're about to re-enter the house and didn't check your shoes. Claire (grasping at straws at the onset of winter)

That's normal. Many, if not most passiflora blooms only last a day.

My first egg also vanished. Apparently sparrows tend to simply smash eggs, but in my case, it was a wren that got them. The consensus is that the wren ejected the first egg and another bird or predator ate it or carried it off. The remaining two I found on the ground a week later, punctured (definitely a wren). So either a wren got the eggs and your sparrows moved in, or the sparrows carried the eggs off. Probably the former. As far as the nests go, here's a link that talks about different nests: http://www.sialis.org/competition.htm In a nutshell, a bluebird nest will be of fine grasses/pine needles, a chickadee is mossy, a tree swallow will have a lining of feathers, a wren is thick sticks up to the top, and a HOSP is also very high grasses/twigs (not as thick) but trashy. Sometimes nuthatches and titmice also nest in bluebird boxes.

Keith, when you feed the mealies you should leave them out of the fridge to feed, the apple peals need to have some apple on them too, not just the peals as they need the moisture from the apple. Mine eat the apple and leave the peals. I have kept mine in the fridge from October to April and they have stayed alive. You just need to take them out like once every three weeks or so and feed them or they will die. When you feed them you leave them out of the fridge for several hours so they can wake up enough to eat, I usually leave them out a whole day but not overnight. They also eat the wheatbran or oatmeal that they are in but they need apple/carrots/lettuc etc for moisture. Do not leave the moisture source in them when you put them back in the fridge though or they could mold and kill the mealies. Donna