I have 20 assorted goldfish varieties-shubunkins, sarassa comets, goldfish and wakins. I also have 2 butterfly koi who are now about 12" long each--second year in the pond. Last year I found and netted out about 10 goldfish babies and kept over the winter in a 10 gal tank. They went back in the pond this spring so that brings the goldfish count up to 30--all are under 8 inches long even though some are 7 years old--think it may be because they get moved indoors to a smaller habitat for the winter. This year I've seen a few very small fry-about 1/2" long along the edges but none over that length. I think the koi have been eating them as soon as they hatch. I call the koi "Scoop" and "Shovel" as they are voracious eaters! One thing I do is if notice signs of spawning--the foam or active chasing is not feed the fish for a couple of days. Some may thing this is cruel but it seems to keep the population down. I don't think my koi are old enough yet to spawn so I'll see what happens next year! You might try advertising them in your local paper if the pet store doesn't want them. I gave some goldfish away last year to a friend who has a 4000 gal indoor tank--built into the wall of his basement. I'll probably have to find a home for my two koi by the end of next summer as they will probably be too big to overwinter indoors. I don't think the fish will listen to you if you tell them they're not allowed to do the happy dance anymore.

I saw a few stray honeybees last month onthefly but I see nothing on the holly shrubs in full bloom (they smell great)..the test will be in a few months when the vitex are in full bloom. Then I will be able to assess the honeybee population compared to previous years. Two years of extreme drought has probably had a bad effect on them.

Mosquitoes are a problem sporadically for us, but since we tend not to have the heavier rainfall many of you have been having, they're not much of a problem right now. We do have a huge platoon of dragonflies and damselflies who look for food relentlessly all day long and they love mosquitoes, and we have lots of birds (including Purple Martins) and bats that eat them too. I also put Bt 'israelensis' granules or dunks in all our standing bodies of water...like the rain barrels, the ponds, etc. Suzie, It can be very hard to identify caterpillars since there are over 300,000 species of Lepidoptera worldwide but Susan might be able to tell you what it is since she is into butterfly gardening. On the website linked below, there are additional links that identify known butterflies and moths of Oklahoma. If the damage to your shrubs rises to the level that you feel like you need to treat the caterpillar infestation, you can spray your shrubs with Bt 'Kurstaki' which is a toxin manufactured from a bacteria that specifically targets caterpillars. It is organic and won't harm anything other than the butterfly/moth larvae. It is easily found in stores and the products that have it as their active ingredient include Thuricide, Dipel and Safer Caterpiller Killer. In the veggie garden, I generally just handpick cats off plants because I have so many flowers there that attract butterflies and moths, and even desirable caterpillars like those of the Black Swallowtail, so I don't like to use Bt there. In an ornamental shrub bed, though, I wouldn't hesitate to spray with Bt if the shrubs had considerable damage. Anna, I'm in Love County and have not seen any decrease in fire ants this year (I wish I had), so I don't think the winter affected ours even though our low temps this winter went down into the single digits a few times. We had them all over the place beginning about late March and running through mid-May. Since the rain stopped in our county and the heat cranked up into the mid- to upper-90s, they've gone underground the last 2 or 3 weeks and I'm not seeing them as much, but I bet if it rained they'd pop up out of the ground overnight. I still find them in raised beds in the veggie garden when I'm digging or when I'm pulling weeds, and I still run over an occasional mound when mowing. I only treat mounds in the veggie garden and in my container-grown vegetables, the dog's fenced play yard, and the backyard where our granddaughter plays and I only use organic fire ant killers. We have almost 15 acres, so there's no way we could afford to treat all of it. In the past I have used some non-organic fire ant killers, but because we have a lot of edible crops in the form not only of vegetables but also fruit trees and berry crops, I've stopped using all nonorganic fire ant killers. We have oodles of native ants of all kinds, but the evil fire ants dominate the ant world at our place. We also have red harvester ants in and around the veggie garden, but I leave them alone because they are a food source for the horned toads and because they clean up the carcasses of dead insects. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Butterflies and Moths of Oklahoma

I'm going to say that you will be fine. Inbreeding depression is a generational thing. Think of it like rolling dice, but each time, a number is removed. Your first roll, chances are you'll be okay, you might end up with a 5 and 6 or double sixes even. But, the more times you roll, the higher your chances are of getting snake eyes. that a *little bit* like inbreeding. The first time someone in the family kisses their cousin, there's a good chance their kids will turn out perfectly normal. If they make a habit of it though, and each generation continues to kiss cousins, the chances of potentially dangerous (or maybe just odd) recessive genes increases. With plants that are self fertile and self pollinating, there are biological mechanisms in place to help stave off this dilemma. Otherwise, there would be no self fertile plants (adaptation/evolution would have weeded them out eons ago). So, they can happily breed with themselves time after time and the ill effects will be much longer in the making. That doesn't mean they don't benefit from having a healthy population to cross with, but, if they don't, chances are high you wont find them much worse for the wear. While it may be minimal, there is still going to be *some* gene recombination and the offspring are not clones of the parent. Although, at some point, I would order more seeds to introduce some variation and maintain long term vigor, it's not, in my mind, a pressing issue that must be done this instant, just at the earliest convenience.