How sweet Denise, Years ago I had a grapevine wreath on the side of my house right beside the patio door. After a bad wind storm a robin made a nest in the wreath and laid 3 eggs. Her and went rounds tho, she wanted to use my flowers to decorate her new home, she finally won, she got the flowers. She hatched the eggs and the babies were so fun to watch. . . they all flew away on the 4th of July. . . Maid~

Dorothy, When I have big bites out of tomatoes that low to the ground, it often st turtles. The turtles we have here love tomatoes and will stand on their hind legs with their back feet on the ground and will eat tomatoes as high up as they can reach, and we have some huge turtles with shells about as big as a dinner plate, so they can reach surprisingly high into the plants. They use the tomato cage or the plant itself to brace themselves against as they eat the toamto. It also might be possums. At my house, it also could be Duke, our rottweiler-mix who loves tomatoes, whether green or red. I've only had deer close enough to the house to eat the hollyhocks in the front porch flower bed once this year, but they are coming closer every day. I've been putting out deer corn for the nursing moms and the ones with young fawns the last couple of weeks, but I put that pretty far from the house. I know the deer are getting desperate because they are letting themselves be seen in the side yard between the woods and the house even in the middle of the day. I have to watch carefully if I go into the side yard on the north side of the house during the day or I find myself too uncomfortably close to deer. You know they are hungry, too, because instead of looking at me, freezing, and then turning and running, they look at me, stomp their feet and snort air out their nostrils, which I interpret as them telling me to "go away" (and I do back away and go back inside). I don't know what they are trying to eat on the north side of the house. All I have there is southern wax myrtle, purple wintercreeper, wisteria and Virginia creeper. My apple-growing neighbor who lives about 1/2 mile from us as the crow flies and is right on the river so has abundant deer keeps them away from his apple trees by putting a radio in the tree and playing it at night. The deer won't touch those apple trees when the radio is on, but they'll wipe out the garden that is a few feet away. He puts it in a ziplock bag to keep the moisture out. Susan, That's too bad about the sunflowers. When my sunflowers topple over in storms, as long as enough of the root is in the ground, I leave them there. They look awful, but the blooms still are useful to the wildlife. We've had one blooming about 2 weeks now, and now a second one is blooming. Not many even sprouted this year and most of them were eaten, likely by deer, before they had a chance to get very big. That's great that your plant started blooming after the rain. Sometimes it is amazing how much even a little rain helps. We had more rainfall overnight, so our 2-day rain total now is 0.20". Pathetic, but better than 0.0". Dawn

Yea! Now I won't be the only one who couldn't resist doing that little project! Good finds Jeanne, and I'm so PROUD to be an enabler! LOL I stopped at a TS today and got two metal candleholder for 99 cents each and a wooden chees tray and glass top for $1.99. Thinking I'll glue one of the candleholders on the bottom to make it a pedestal and paint it. Just have to decide on the shorter or taller one. Pickings are really slim--just no really neat dishes at all! Maybe with the economy people are started to hang on to stuff longer! Kathleen, little birds like that can be displayed anytime--not just Easter, don't you think? I can't remember what I'm going to do next week--so how am I going to remember to remind you of this project all the way into next year???? ;o)

I find the birds definitely like to have a somewhat sheltered area where they can perch, feed, etc.. Think of a small clearing between some large mature trees with a couple smaller trees or large shrubs to perch in. This blocks them from the wind and also makes it tougher for predators like hawks to attack. Bird baths are especially popular during warm dry days, and the birds are fussy about the bath being full of fresh clean water. I have a heavy, old rough concrete one that is probably more than 70 years old. I've never had a heated bath, but would imagine it would be very popular on freezing days as water would be frozen elsewhere. I also have wooden suet poles for woodpeckers and other birds that can use them. And hummingbird feeders too. Now if only they would eat more of the berries and crab apples.....