Omar, the silvery thing is one of the Mountain Mints Pyncnantheum muticum. It's very nice and does well in a monrning shade afternoon sun spot which is always hard IMO. Roselee, I got the original Tithonia at the Texas Discovery Gardens. Last year I had it and one of the cultivars and spider mites really ate up the cultivar and the specied did fine. The ones this year are from seed I collected so I could share seed again this fall. It's a heat lover so I started the seeds in the spring. I like the little pitcher clematis as well, I just hope next year it has more than three flowers! RC-as for rain it's been weird. Wet Dec-April, not a drop in May and then random pop-up showers in June. I've been lucky and been underneath several of those pop-ups. Temps are at least 10 degrees lower than last year as well.

Insurance will more than likely pay for a new building. Hopefully donations will be rolling in to their local rescues to step in and help until homeless animals have a new shelter. I'd be curious to know how this plays out. I feel so sorry for the way those kitties died. I imagine the dogs need a place to go, and hopefully other shelters and rescues will be able to lend a hand. It really is amazing to me how in times of disaster, people can pull together and get things done.

Having been a cat owner all of my life, under alls sorts of circumstances, in various areas and countries, I will of course depend on my observations. The primary reason I believe I keep/kept/would keep a cat housebound is for their own safety. If my cats were a nuisance to those around me, I'd also confine them, but since one never knows what a non-cat lover would do to a nuisance cat, it still comes down to the cat's safety as the paramount reason. I do not believe the bird kill numbers, either. I have had a barn cat for twenty six years. That's a misnomer, because they were actually inside/outside kitties. In addition to a barn cat, I have also had at the same time totally inside kitties. I know there are times the barn cat has been outside my observation, so I don't know what they may be preying on, but I do know they have all pretty much stuck to the property, and often in my proximity since I worked outside in agriculture. Overwhelmingly their trophies have been rodents. Hundreds of them. Heck in that time, hundreds and hundreds. Most of their kills ended up at my doorstep in displays. And as the cats aged past their early years, their danger to the rodents were more intimidation than mayhem. We are serious bird watchers and keep numerous feeders, all within eyesight. Not only does birdseed attract birds but rodents. The cat(s) usually ended up with a mouse or chipmunk at those feeders and not a bird. I think I can count on both hands the number of bird kills in twenty six years of living here. The feathers are left behind, and are an easy spot. I know when they had bunny kills, the fur is also left behind. I know what they prey on and how often they have success. I don't appreciate the very rare bird kill, but it's infintesimal compared to the rodent kills and rodent containment is a necessity for my greenhouse operation and large poultry flock. I'd still prefer those who can to keep their cats indoors, but I'm also getting tired of uncontested statistics to automatically be assumed valid. The are gathered by vested interest, even if it's humanely, and not commercially slanted. I suspect more birds are killed by light pollution in cities. I read about an ACTUAL count of one apartment building in a major city. The corpses were counted. I forget how long the count had been going on, but it was over 35 thousand. ONE BUILDING!

"I'm still wondering about the questions I asked a few days ago. If we could agree on some kind of rational number of birds cats kill, what would become of the birds if we removed the threat of cats? At their reproduction rate, would they overpopulate within a few years? Everyone is saying the cats are such a grave threat on the birds; we'd have to be talking about millions of birds just given the number of ferals out there. I'm envisioning that the old Alfred Hitchcock movie :) Everything has a cause and effect. No cats outside = more birds = less butterflies/ beneficial insects and less food for coyote. No?" Good to think about. The problem is that the people who blame cats for destroying bird populations are completely ignoring their own culpability in the decline of avian populations. Any homeowner using fertilisers and pesticides is endangering the birds (and other wildlife). Anyone who builds or buys a new home contributes to habitat destruction, which results in bird population decline. Commercial farming operations contribute to avian population decline. The local guy who calls himself a landscaper because he has a big lawn mower and a pesticide permit is a single-handed death machine causing avian population decline. Golf courses are big juicy contributors to natural declines of all sorts of populations. All of these not only directly kill birds, but add to levels of toxins in waterways, killing fish and other aquatic creatures, including some food sources for the birds who "the cats are killing". I wonder how many birds are eating the poisoned insects that suburban homeowners spray? Yet the folks who blame cats for the destruction of bird populations glibly ignore all this. My neighbour's dog was fantastic at grabbing birds who were unlucky enough to fly within his leap range-he killed far more birds than the feral cats who drag their kills to my front walk. I suppose that means that ALL dogs are out to DECIMATE the wild bird populations. Silly? not at all, in light of the view taken on cats. Other bird killers include raccoons, skunks and opossums, coyotes and foxes, plus birds of prey and even other birds who destroy eggs in the nest to eliminate competition for resources. But, LIKE CATS, most of these animals ALSO kill and consume VERMIN-such as rats, mice, and insects (skunks love eating grubs too!). I've seen a raccoon grab a grass snake and put it to death. Oh noes! That must mean that raccoons are decimating the grass snake populations! There are no credible figures for the cats-destroying-birds claims. It's a lot of alarmist bs but people will believe what they want to believe without making the effort to verify the crap they're swallowing. Even the basic ability to use rational thought would make it apparent that cats aren't as huge a problem as they so desperately want to believe. NO ONE knows how many cats are in, for example, the US, let alone how many are feral, how many are working cats (barn cats), and how many are pets let outdoors. Therefore it is IMPOSSIBLE to know how many birds the cats are killing. It is impossible to exclude cat kills from all other factors. And the problem of bird over-population, although remote, is a pretty disgusting concept of its own. Sure, I love to hear the songbirds. But I don't want their poop all over my house and gardens and yard and trees. I don't want to worry about illnesses that sicken and kill birds possibly sickening and killing people. I do believe that the animals, whose existence the "cats destroy bird populations" camp are apparently unaware of, and the pesticides and fertilisers and habitat destruction that they also don't seem to know about, would keep the bird populations in check. Are cats a problem? They can be. But to be blamed for all of the causes of avian population decline is inaccurate. And that's the nicest way I know to say it. I still agree with the original poster-KEEP YOUR PET CATS INSIDE. They are safer indoors, as long as the home environment is well monitored. And they're not annoying other people if kept indoors. If you have feral cats, get busy with Trap-Neuter-Release. Around here we can trap a cat on our properties and have it spayed or neutered-even if it has a collar identifying it as a pet. Keeping the outdoor cat population in tight control is healthier for everyone. Cats will always be blamed for more havoc than they can create. I wish we had the same freedoms with the unneutered dogs that are let to terrorise the neighbourhood. I wonder what avian population declines would be blamed on by the "cats kill bird populations" camp if all the cats were removed? Avian populations would still decline and any change might not even be noticeable.