I have attempted to allow all to come and speak civily. If I have done nothing else. Yes I can send out what I recieve and I can even take from everyone else the information they give because it dose make for my benefit as well as dose my information for some. If I held every answer in the book I would not have come to this forum or to any other forum to ask questions or to simply make a statement of my experiance, be it with tomatoes or with a tree. As to those un named who simply can not see past thier own actions in conversations. I post for those who want to try and work as a community here through the true exchange of ideas not through arrogance . that hostility towards new or old ideas and methods makes any thread of knowledge mute to others. I have seen over my fifty years thousands of crops and gardens lost to blights late freezes or other factors including droughts. so Is it a gamble every year you plant? you bet ya. but as gardeners and farmers we go out every year and plant our gardens and fields. and we wait and we harvest from our toils. Is my way the only way out there as we can plainly see it is not. dose it make me a better gardener or farmer if I make no effort to allow others to give to me knowledge of some kind towards a different idea in gardening no it dose not. But to jump up and treat people the way I have been treated by some in this post may amuse some but with it comes the loss to others who really are thirsting for knowledge. to that end for those who really want a civil conversation please feel free to have one. and please do use the almanac to get if not just the basics for those new to gardening but to those here who truely have the ability to give thier views with out malice. because the only thing I learned from most of you here is you have grown too set in your ways to let in information even if it was just part of what was given in total. I was asked to introduce my self several times and did so including where i live and my experiances including in many of the areas of you here in this post. but instead I recieve a continual out pouring of arrogance from those just wanting to see just how far they can push some one. I can bark back or I can set back and listen to ideas and pick up some new methods including those that may infact make me wonder. If the way you grow your crop works for you by all means share it. it may make some one else actually have a crop or garden that has exceptional yields we as gardeners and farmers pray for three things an early spring with out a freeze, plenty of water, and a great harvest season- long and fruitful. We as a group need to stop the nonsence and try to reach for those goals instead.

How about buying a tub you haven't bathed in? We bought the Kohler Tea for Two whirlpool after I discovered it, I believe for the first time, in a home magazine. I finally got to eyeball the tub, but not the whirlpool version, at a plumbing supply store. It wasn't the same size I wanted, and it wasn't a whirlpool, but we ordered one anyway. While I love the tub and the look of it, we are slightly disappointed that the jets aren't stronger than other Jacuzzi-type whirlpool tubs we have been in. We even asked a company representative to come out and check it out, to make sure it was working the way it was supposed to. They said it was, but how would we know, as we never got to try it first. But along the same lines, we also ordered three toilets for three bathrooms, some of which we hadn't seen, and we also didn't know what the flushing was like -- strong, not so strong, etc. At the time, like maybe many of you, I was wishing someone would have a store where they displayed all these things in working order, kind of like a television or stereo store. You get to see the picture on TVs before you buy them, or hear the sounds of stereo systems before you purcharse. Why can't you know how toilets flush or tubs work? They even let you lie down on mattresses before you buy them! I can't believe we all spend so much money on these plumbing things and know so little about them!

A Clockwork Orange -- now there's a movie that is a favorite of many I have known. But the book brought tears to my eyes just reading the violent parts; don't think I could stomach watching it (or should I say viddying it?). Same with Passion of Christ: too graphic for this Catholic! Think I'll stick with the book ;) The Battleship Potemkin is a movie I frequently see homages to and feel I ought to see. The original Ben Hur is one I'd love to see. A documentary on movies I saw years ago showed side by side comparisons of the chariot race from the 1925 version and the 1959 version. William Wyler, who directed the 1959 version, felt the scene in the 1925 version was so perfectly done that he recreated it as an homage to the original -- same camera angles, same props, etc.

Popmama, I usually see about one orchard oriole a year. Apparently we had one here at the house last spring according my eBird checklists but I honestly don't remember it. This year I got photographic proof! The bullock's are much more common. That thicket they are hanging out in actually gets a really good cast that I never noticed until this year when I have been in there trying to get oriole pictures. We've had the usual characters, like robins, grackles, and downy woodpeckers, but I've also seen brown thrashers and spotted towhees, a clay colored sparrow, warbling vireo, yellow, yellow-rumped, and Tennessee warblers, and a Swainson's thrush hanging out in there. I have always spent more time birding out on the back side of property mostly ignoring what was going on right here next to the house, but I can see now that was mistake. I'm pretty amazed at how much diversity is in that little area. Hummingbirds are a rare sight out here on the Eastern Plains. I hear a few of them at the refuge every year during spring migration, but I have only ever seen a single one here at the house back in the fall of 2018. Mom gets loads of them where she lives over in Jefferson County. Mostly broad-tailed but a few rufous swing buy on their back south from the Northern Rockies and even a calliope showed up one year. I do miss them out here. Right before the grackles showed up, we had a family of 5-6 blue jays hanging out around the house. I still hear one or two every now and then but otherwise they seem to have moved on. I don't see very many ospreys. I had one I thought was a ferruginous hawk fly over a few weeks ago until I reviewed the photo. But other than that I haven't seen any. Last year when we went to Oregon, they seemed to be pretty much everywhere. I guess out lack of water makes the "fish hawks" a little scarcer haha. That's cool you've got a nesting pair nearby! Catherine, Right?! How dare they think of me as a threat! I'm only 1000 times their size! Oh well I guess. Some weeks it seems that NOTHING wants their picture taken and others it seems I get at least one good photo of practically everything. Our grassland migrants have shown up in force, and probably the "tree birds" too I'm just really bad at birding anywhere that isn't open country. The lark buntings have shown up at the refuge I work at in numbers I have never before seen. It's probably just a fluke, but at least a good one. The western kingbirds have shown up in force, but I've seen comparatively fewer eastern kingbirds than I have in the past I feel like. They usually show up later than the westerns, so maybe it's just a bit early yet. the number of grasshopper sparrows seems to have gone down significantly. Our former biologist who comes in as a volunteer and I've been emailing since shes been staying home this spring, thinks it's possibly because our bison herd has reduced the grass height to below what they prefer for nesting. I heard a few buzzing from the roadsides early in the month but haven't heard one in several days. We do have more Brewer's and chipping sparrows than I have seen before though, or I may just be paying closer attention to the "LBJ's" than I typically do. The Swainson's hawks, which fly all the way up here from Argentina, have started to nest. Lark Bunting. Our state bird that is neither a lark, nor a bunting. Originally it was classified as a finch (called the "prairie finch") but is actually a big, fancy sparrow. Swainson's hawk with dinner Loggerhead shrike, also with dinner Western Kingbird Brewer's sparrow Our shorebird migration is pretty much over down here on the prairies, but it was fun while it lasted. I saw several "first for Colorado" and even a couple "first time ever" species on my list, including marbled godwits, snowy, piping, and semi-palmated plovers, Baird's and semi-palmated sandpipers, plus our more common ones like long billed dowitchers, great and lesser yellowlegs, willets, Wilson's phalaropes, least sandpipers, and my all time favorite, avocets. An array of shorebirds, marbled godwits, Wilson's phalaropes, and a long billed dowitcher. I got this photo after they had just been flushed by a peregrine falcon! Another new bird for my "Colorado" list. Snowy Plover Semi-palmated plover Baird's sandpiper I'll try not to be a stranger Catherine! And yes, I'm very glad that we have nature in this time. As John Muir once said "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." I'm also very glad that travel restrictions don't affect migratory birds! Thank you Pudgeder!