It's voles that I hate, the other animals mentioned on this thread (Exception: raccoons) haven't messed with my 'stuff'. I realize I'm very fortunate in that respect; I am not bragging. Now, if they ever do, I'll be ready for WAR! But they never have, so it's dirty VOLES that draw my ire! My trusty enforcer has been a true friend of the garden; If I have no/minimum plants with eaten-away roots or crowns, this is the guy who does the legwork, ambush and dispatching of voles. Last year and the year before that, Cujo has been a GREAT cat-buddy...Seems to love killing, eating, killing these Dirty nasty little voles!! I help him out a bit by making the vole distracted, demanding his attention one way, while Cujo nabs the varmint in it's confusion. Then, Cujo's happy (Loves a good crunchy-yet-meaty treat) I'm happy (Some nice plants will probably make it until they can see the sun again) So yes, call it weird, but my cat and I do sweeps in the yards at night, with the mindset to get voles. I think it helps the plants a lot more than if we never started doing these 'Vole Sweeps' in the first place. And, I get to spend some time with my semi-feral buddy! Everybody wins! Heh heh except the hosta mutilators. No B.S. We're gonna go see what we can harrass out there right now. It's warm and dark. Will call in at Dawn. Cheers, All Don B. recon w/CUJO

I hope he does. They're fun birds to watch. A couple of years ago I thought the first Spotted Towhee of the season wad a Robin then I noticed it doing the Towhee shuffle and knew I'd better take a closer look.

I was on our deck and the rufous appeared for the frist time today near Snohomish. Time to get another feeder out to help the ana females.

My pink one bloomed. It has never been first before. We put Miracle Grow on all three of them in the spring. Not sure if that was a good or bad thing. There aren't tons of blooms on them and only one did better on greenery than normal. The other two did not. In fact one was worse.