Hey crazy, thats so funny with the name thing. Just got two shub and two fan tail to start our population and guess what their names are. The two fantails are lucy and ethel( because they r orange like lucy and ethels hair). then we had named the shubs ricky and fred. rickie has a red spot on his head that kinda reminded me of the fedoras and hats that desi used to wear. Fred didnt make it past the first nite so i just replaced him yesterday with our new shub named nemo. Also picked up a couple of feeder gf's that were pretty good size, havnt figured out one of the names but the whitish one with a hat like rickies is now lil ricky. spent too much time with the new plants yesterday to take any pics of the fish but if i take some tonite ill post them here. Have the pond pic's and looking for some plant anchoring advice in my Windy City Planting thread if you care. Mike R

Congratulations on your new blue fledglings! It may be getting a little late in the season for another nesting, but who knows! This is just my 2nd year to have them, and they've nested twice each season. Your location may have alot to do with whether they nest again or not. Some lucky ones get 3 nestings! My Mama began her first nest on 3/11 and her 2nd one on 5/24 and since the last brood left on 7/3, they are MIA! Here's what I did to get them to the feeder when I first started feeding mealworms. I took the blue cup out and placed it where they seemed to frequently perch. Once they found it, I placed it back in the feeder and left the top off for a few days and it worked!. My blues have never come to the suet feeders since they are on the opposite side of my yard from the box, among other feeders. Occasionally, I have placed some crumbled suet next to the mealworm feeder but they never touched it. Many on this forum have the bbs at their suet feeders almost daily! I think 4 boxes are just fine for your 2 acres, as long as they are properly spaced apart. Again, so glad your babies made it! Donna

We're done in Montreal. I have to admit ii did reach a point of not wanting to eat another tomato, but after canning all of mine, I actually went to the market to buy more for sauce! I got bitten by the canning bug. I've ordered seeds for next year and will continue to scour the catalogs. Picked the last of the cucumbers last week.. Now it's time to dream about next years crop! It's true, soon we will be wishing for our fresh tomatoes instead of the supermarket bland ones! Wish I had a greenhouse.

yes, our dogs hav ekept us at home the last year. prior to that my grandmother would go watch them for us, but she passed about 18 months ago. we tried to go on vacation shortly after and boarded the dogs. Hooch, my choc lab, had panic attacks the whole time and the vet had to keep him sedated. so with no one to watch them, we had no vacation this year. if my wife and i wanted to go for a night, my mom would come check on them, and if we went for more than 1 night it was usually to my inlaws house anyway so we would take them. but vacations are always us and my parents so no one to watch them. Hooch was overweight due to glandular issues and stayed inteh house all the time. he came close to heat stroke a few times just being out palying, no way we could leave him out. so if we went out of town and he could not go, someone had to come to the house to let him out several times a day. we tried getting a friend to do this for us, but he would not go outside for her. she had to drag him and then he turned and ran right back to the door and sat shaking. the poor thing stayed inside without relieving himself for 18 hours that day. i swear i heard him sign with relief as he peed when i got home to take him out! Hooch was hit and killed by a car Tuesday night, so now we have only Beau and 3 fish. we can put him in the big pen, it is the size of a normal city lot sized back yard, and have a friend come by to feed him and the fish twice a day. i don't mean that to sound the way it does, i would much rather have Hooch still here. i jsut don't know how to type it out.