Mine have been gone for over a week. Last evening I had a very hungry and thristy and tired little migrant show up. It drank and rested and rested and drank for over 5 minutes before exploring the rest of the garden. Every time she came to the feeder it was the same thing ... sipping like it was her last meal. She was back at the feeder this morning before daybreak and aboutevery 20-25 minutes. My feeders will stay up until I can no longer keep them from freezing. Penny

Hi Ron48, I actually got that tree that way. It was a freebee from a nursery I worked for. They say that paperbarks are more attractive as multi-stemmed shrubs/trees but that's not entirely true. This tree as "BoTann" points out is going to be beautiful specimen just the way it is. It'll have a large rounded top and a nice beautiful single trunk. You won't believe this but when I brought it home in 2001, the trunk was only an inch wide at the base and it was almost 10 feet tall I'd guess. It looked like the weakest, most fragile specimen I'd ever seen. Now it's really girthed up quite a bit, has established well, and just about every other year it puts on quite a lot of growth. I love it basically. Dax

G.M., We're fine but we had a pretty rough night. We had 3 to 4 separate waves of storms after the NOAA weather alert went off to let us know that bad weather was approaching from Jefferson County. Just about 3" of rain, high wind, power out, some tree limbs down, but nothing serious at our house.....well, except for a serious lack of sleep. Marietta had more damage in town than we had here. There was a strip of power poles along Hwy 77 south of town where one pole went completely down and then quite a few others snapped in half. We got our power back more quickly than Marietta did, I think, 'cause our particular power lines run up to us from Thackerville, instead of down from Marietta. We saw lots of ornamental pear trees split right in half, which is typical after a big windstorm. We made a quick run to Ardmore to Lowe's this morning so I could get bags of mulch. Figured if I couldn't plant, I'd mulch what's already been planted. You wouldn't believe how many trampolines we saw in the middle of nowhere.....fields and pastures.....alongside the road (with no houses nearby).....piled up on top of cars or sheds or swingsets or fences. None of those trampolines looked salvageable. During the worst of last night's wind and rain, (before the power went out....so we still had light to see by), our trees and shrubs were blowing in a rotating manner, but none of the trunks snapped. It is very wet and windy out there today. I am operating on a severe sleep deficit. I never really went back to sleep after the NOAA alert went off because every time I was almost asleep, it went off again for a total of 3 or 4 times. At least mulching is a easy task and I don't have to think real hard to to it. LOL Did you know the Roosevelt Bridge over Lake Texhoma was shut down half the night and most of today (one lane is currently open) because all the power lines and poles are covering the bridge? The stuff during the night was scarey, but I was more afraid of the storm cell that was moving our way sometime after 8 or 8:30 last night....it was the one that spawned a tornado or two near Breckinridge, Texas, and then very slowly and laboriously made its way towards us. Just south of Gainesville, though, it veered southeast towards Whitesboro. We had watched it on KXII for an hour or more and I was just relieved it slid south of us. On the radar at the time, it looked like we'd take a direct hit, but we didn't. That same cell may be the one that did all the damage that has been reported near Denison. It looks gorgeous outside today, but the wind is really blowing hard out of the west. Dawn

I have been trying for hours to get the post out of my profile page and cannot houzz u have stuffed a great forum