Ha, postage size yards... that would be me. I live in New York City, proper, so this is a big yard comparatively. It's roughly 30x30 feet in the back. We have about 16 roses in the back, and 3 on the side. This is their 3rd year in the ground, so just starting to get to a good size. I do a 2 step cleanup for the roses, the first cut is usually late November. Just enough for good measure for winter, usually once most of the leaves have dropped, and I'll do another shaping in early march. I put mulch on after I've done any requisite fall bulbs. But we have such a small space, I garden very intensly, I've dug a lot of organics in, made somewhat of a raised bed with rocks I dug out of the ground, so the point in relation to the pruning, is that in a good year, these roses get gigantic, even though it's North facing (in summer it gets full sun 12 hours a day). Most are hybrid Teas or similar high maintenance, particularly because they are so close and get drip irrigation, there's always plenty of moisture. The first cleanup takes about 3 big garbage bags after I've tied up the stems and cinched them tight in burlap so they won't cut through the bags. It takes me most of the day with other various cleanup tasks. We're looking to start a family and get a larger house with yard, so I'd be taking most of these with me, and revert it back to grass or similar low maintenance plants. I love the roses, but I need more space for them. You can see the progression over a year in the pictures below. Each picture links to a collection you can see more pictures at that time of year. The pictures are "roughly" March, May, June, September. Each link goes to the collection. I've ommitted the July-August picture, because honestly with the veggies, you can't even see the roses! It's so overgrown... June is the prettiest month, nothing else has caught up yet.

First are you in an area that would naturally have them. In this area during the winter they mix with what I call the crew. The crew is a flock of mixed birds including a few English sparrows. They seem to like the small grains and a place to scratch in leaf mold for small bugs. I had originally thought they were winter coloration gold finches but were much too small.

The eagle is probably a 2 year old. I year olds are completely brown, 2 year olds are often mottled, 3 year olds have a dirty white head with a dark line through the eye and a white tail, and 4+ year old birds have the white head and tail. T.R. Michels TMIchels@yahoo.com

Unfortunately the critters have learned what the Cuddeback cam means and avoid it no matter where I move it. I set it up on the bank of the pond to get only daytime Wood Duck photos, but still nothing. I thought perhaps the sensor has too short a short trigger range so today I fastened it to a shrub on the bank, in front of Wood Duck tracks. This morning when I removed the SD card from the new HCO ScoutGuard SG550 5MP Infrared Hunting Game & Scouting Trail Camera, although there were wild turkey droppings on the ground in front of it there were still were no photos. I packed it up to return and it's sitting on the porch to be picked up.