I would have thought it hard to improve upon You LooK Marvelous, but Willow Dean Smith clearly is/has. Beautiful. Wonder of It All has annoyed me for the last year. The best day it had this year was with some 8 blooms open, but only 2 opened correctly. Perhaps if it bloomed later (for me), it could enjoy some of this scorching heat we're having and have spectacular days. But no. I will just have to enjoy yours and others' pictures. Which I will (smile). Lovely photos, as always.

The birds you refer to are probably barn swallows. We discouraged them by squirting them with cold water everytime they came in to spend the night. Another great deterrent, and one that lets you get some sleep at night, is a circle of duct tape, sticky side out, put where they want to nest. The problem with barn swallows is that they imprint--meaning the young return to the place of their nativity and try to nest. Breaking the cycle can be done, just be patient. I do not recomment a shotgun. . . .

Texas_Annie: When I lived in Southern California, half of my time gardening was spent dealing with gophers. People in the East have no idea what these little buggers can do! Once, a neighbor and I were growing giant pumpkins for a contest, and as they grew larger and larger, we would try and lift them off the ground a bit, to guess their weight. Ours were each about 150 pounds, or so, until one day when he lifted his pumpkin, it came right up off the ground. Gophers had tunneled in from beneath it, and eaten all its insides out--nothing but a shell remained. This, after 3 months of special care given the pumpkin. I'm sure he would have liked to wring the little critter's neck. They do make traps for gophers that are pretty effective. You open their run (when you see soil piled up) and put the trap in the run, then put a board over it. Lifting the board and checking it periodically should yield a squashed little plant-eater. If you continue doing this for the rest of your life, you'll probably keep the gophers under control.

Yep. Pretty much align the hole with the broken bolt and drive it through. One would assume that placement is similar to the opposite side. As far as the drive, it could be that as the blower wasn't processing the snow- it had to push extra hard. Give it a try when your auger is fully operational. Otherwise increase the drive tension a tad.