I am seeing the usual amount of Juncoes - a small flock that inhabits my yard and the thickets across the street. Probably about a dozen of them. As for numbers of other birds, there have been hardly any House Sparrows this year (yeah!), a few more Starlings than usual eating the raw suet and pooping out bittersweet berries (not good), ZERO Blue jays, which has me worried, and about a dozen eastern Bluebirds, maybe more! Yipppeeee! I guess it varies from year to year.

Not to hijack either, but I've used microfiber cloths and regular 'ol Ajax Liquid Dish Soap used to make hot, soapy water to clean my granite. Nary a problem...ever. My granite is just as shiny as it was the day it was installed almost three years ago. Now for the food sticking problem. Granite is cool, typically, and when any warm food drips or hits it, it starts to cool fast and will stick. I especially notice more things 'stuck' when we have company and I use the island as a buffet. I use a plastic scraper that I use for my pizza stone to clean up stuck food on the counter. I think I got it from Pampered Chef. I also keep a single blade razor handy just in case I need a sharper edge than the plastic scraper. It just depends on what I'm cleaning. Neither the razor blade or the plastic scraper hurts or scratches my granite. Awhile ago, I was using Crazy Glue and literally got it everywhere on my granite counter. I was in shock. I went ahead and let it dry then used the razor blade to get if off the granite. It came off without a problem and no evidence that it ever happened appeared. As a matter of fact, the fabricator suggested using the razor blade and I pulled out the plastic scraper because I did not DH or my kiddos using the blade in an unsafe manner or irresponsible manner to clean off the granite.

Hmm, I said above, "That said, a few grains are tougher to digest and generally of lesser nutritional value." I'm confused. Not feeding a "grain free" food does not suggest at all feeding corn as an ingredient. Corn is typically considered difficult to digest by a dog - and i believe by humans also. I would think it is a good idea to not feed any ingredient that your dog is allergic to. Corn is but one of many that may be an issue. The food that includes some corn as an ingredient may be fine for someone elses's dog and something your dog is fine with may cause another dog serious problems. For decades I fed a highly respected holistic food from Solid Gold. It was and is not "grain free" nor does it contain corn. The Tufts study I linked to, as I said, "Here is but a sample of the thoughts of other folks:" is NOT the FDA announcement I cited. PS It is not as common to find that a dogis allergic to a particular grain as it is to find the allergy stems from the choice of protein.If changing food due to an allergy, the conventional wisdom is to change the choice of protein. (There are a couple of proteins that particularly seem to cause allergy problems. PPS Per Merck Vet Manual - Vet School Text: "Corn is not a filler! It actually contains an amazing amount of nutrients, such as protein from corn gluten, natural antioxidants, and fatty acids."

Yes, it's Papou. I found the name later. No, the only hosta_freak photo I have is when we were comparing hosta Pizzazz specimens. He had a great Sharp Dressed Man, so I looked for a photo of that on the Houzz, but had no luck. Many of the great old photos were lost when Photobucket started requiring a paid account to display the existing photos. When I first started posting, Gardenweb did not host photos, so everyone had to find a place to host them. As storage got cheaper, sites started hosting their own photos, and the need for Photobucket decreased. So, they changed the terms of service. By then, a lot of the posters had moved on, either from death or new interests. So, those photos are lost. This was Phil's pizzazz: Bruce didn't post a whole lot if I remember correctly. He posted the bed of his fragrant hosta every year. It was in front of his porch. I can't remember if it was plantaginea, Venus or Aphrodite. I think it was Aphrodite, though. It was a real challenge to get it to bloom. I figured if an expert like Bruce couldn't do it, I certainly couldn't. So, I didn't purchase another one when mine croaked. ken has always posted good tutorials with photos, but rarely posted hosta photos. UK hostaman posted great photos. I can't remember her name, but a lady in Canada posted lots of great photos. She think she was newhostalady's neighbor (bear in mind that I may not have remembered names correctly). bkay