Get a thermometer, and put it directly under a light on the brooder floor. If it doesn't read at least 95 degrees then it is too cold. If it is too cold, lower the light until it does reach 95 so they can get directly under it if they need too, or move away if it is too warm. Are the chicks making a lot of noise? That usually means they are cold. Always dip their beaks into the water when you first put them into the brooder. They need to drink before they eat. You can lower the temperature each week by 5 degrees, by raising the light, or, place your light so they can get away from it to a cooler part of the brooder if they wish. I put my light on one side of the brooder, so they can get away to a cooler spot if they want to. As they get older, you will see them lay down further away from the light. Its important they have that option. M

we just had the same thing happen. The nest is high-on a rafter under our porch roof. Parents have been feeding like crazy and they were getting big, but after a weekend out of town I looked up yesterday to see if they had fledged while we were gone and saw the tops of their heads so thought it would be a few more days. But today the heads hadn't moved and now there is no movement in the nest and the parents have disappeared. There seems to be no disturbance of the nest and it isn't near any kind of toxic exhaust. The nest, which was a holdover from prior years, was crawling with mites and I put some DE in and around it when the eggs were in it; I'm afraid I may have caused a chain reaction of some kind? I'm bewildered. Any thoughts?

Thank you to all, especially Sara Malone, Embothrium, and Alley Cat. We’ve been more vigilant about watering deeply with a hose at the base and will continue to do that until Thanksgiving and for the next 2-3 years. Our soil tends to clay which may have a finer texture than what was in the original potting soil. The tree was planted in the Spring and gets 7-8 hours of sun mostly from the east. Some of the roots were cut to promote growth before placing the tree in the planting hole. So will hope for the best and be patient. My concern had been that cutting off the leader – even a dead one – would lessen the chance for a new leader to grow. Other than being unsightly, would leaving the dead leader on for a while longer be a detriment? A source for insects?

Walnuts have compound leaves that consist of a long, stiff stem and multiple leaf-like parts that branch off of the stem. It would be easy to think you had branches and simple stems. If you had some black root rot in a pot, you probably overwatered it. I don't know how long you can keep a big tree like a walnut in a pot, but my butternut (white walnut) is pretty prolific about sprouting in my yard. Of course, the squirrels move the nuts all over the place. If you have dreams of your tasty harvest, I've heard black walnuts are hard to shell. My huge 100-year-old butternut is very prolific. You have to pick up all the fruits before the worms get them, then getting the fruit off is a pain. The best way is a hammer. The fruits produce a staining dye, so wear old clothes. Smash the fruit with a hammer, pick off the remaining bits. It will take you several minutes per nut. Now, you have reduced 3-4 buckets to under one. Then, they need to dry. Putting them on top of a wood-burning stove is a good way to do it. After that, you need to crack the shells. Get our your hammer again. Be sure to have the nut on a very hard rock, otherwise, when you hit the nut with a hammer, the nut will make an impression on your board or make your soft rock crumble. Whacking hard enough to crack the shell, but keep the nut intact is hit or miss. It will take several minutes per nut. Then, you need a pick to extract the few minute bits of nut in each shell. Your bucket of shelled nuts has turned into a handful of nut crumbs and you have invested many hours to get to this point. While the fruits can be used as a dye and walnut products are supposed to be good for skin, meaning you can make a yellow hair dye that will dye your gray hairs turning them into natural highlights, you need to process the fruits into dye immediately, as, once cut, the fruit flesh turns into a nasty, black, fly-infested, staining mush pretty quickly.