Ah nature! Those look like flat millipedes. Don't worry, whenever we see an explosion of something like that, it slowly disperses. Whether by disease or predators. The first year in our house, we had tons of milipedes everywhere, the house, the yard, the pool. Now, we only see them if we are looking under rocks outside. Milipedes are eaten by other things. This is from the Kentucky Extension Office; ECOLOGY Millipedes are common in soil, under rocks, and in other dark, moist places. Millipedes cannot move very fast, and most species feed on decaying plant material. Millipedes do not have venomous stingers or fangs, but some of them can secrete bad-smelling and bad-tasting chemicals from pores in the sides of their bodies. These chemicals help keep many predators away. Despite this defense, millipedes are often eaten by centipedes, spiders, and predatory insects.

OH MY-I don't know what to say. lol

Finally back home after a temporary fix on my heater has it running again. Hope to get seeds out now to everyone promised. Sorry for the setback here. Got my seeds from Remy (Sample Seeds), of Salvia subrotunda, a red flowering subshrub Salvia, that is supposed to reseed here, Frank's Extra Large Dill, a dill that is supposed to be super tall, about 6-10', so wanted to try it. Dill doesn't generally like our hot summers, so usually wilts when it gets hot, so will let you know on this one, Salvia coccinea 'Lady in Red', Nicotiana sylvestris, Phlox paniculata New Hybrids, and Victorian Dwarf tomatoe. Will start seeds this week. On Austrian pines, I have two. One is about 20-25' tall, but very fat and squat, the other is about 12-15' tall. They have never lost any branches to ice or other elements so far. But they are so thick, the branches are so heavy and thick, and none of the lower branches have been removed either. I can't foresee them ever going down in a storm because of their sturdiness. Tiny Mama Wild Kitty came up for food yesterday finally. She is so precious. Very small, predominantly white with black spots. We hope to get her spayed this spring or summer (an effort of us neighbors) as she has become more used to contact with humans now and will come to us and let us pet her. Took a very long time. Wish someone would adopt her and Zena, the male Manx, who is very friendly and sweet. Kenna has been very sick with diarrhea, vomiting and chest congestion. I've never seen her down this long. She usually springs back after a couple of days, and it has been 4 or 5 now. The black birds discussed are probably Starlings. They love suet. I have had them on my suet feeder quite a lot, and of course, they tend to scare the other birds away. I have never seen the Cowbirds which don't come to my feeder or suet. They scrounge on the ground for food. especially food dropped by us humans. We had tons of them at Leadership Square when I worked there, because people would drop scraps of their lunch, etc. The grackles don't come to the feeders either. However, the Eurasian Collard Doves will come to scrounge on the ground for seeds or pieces of suet dropped by other birds. I wish I had my little white-breasted nuthatches back, but think all those sparrows scared them off, too. Have a nice day everyone! Susan

I'm on Central NJ. The rains began Saturday evening and continued up until late morning Sunday. Water started coming into our basement at 10:30 Saturday night...we began using our 2 wet-dry vacs and called for reinforcements. We worked all night all the way through 3PM....yes 3PM Sunday...until the water stopped coming in. We do have a sump pump, however the water was coming into and overflowing the french drains on the other side of the basement. We lost power several times, but fortunately, only briefly. We then didn't have any internet service or TV service from Sunday through Monday afternoon. My son didn't have any electric power until today. It was a very unpleasant storm. My neighborhood has tons of trees and debris....it looks as if there was a tornado or extremely high winds because of all the tree damage right around me. We had been under a tornado watch as well as high winds and rain. Entire neighborhoods are now under flood watches for the next several days and people continue to be under evacuation orders. We are still trying to recover from our overnighter and finish drying out the basement. You can't even imagine the amount of water we drained out. I'd rather we never saw another storm like it and don't think it was overhyped at all. Helene