Helen, I hope you're right. Today I sort of lost it and bought four tomato plants plus three coleus and a bunch more cannas. Imagine! The 15th of March! The planet must really be screwed up -- ??? Loving, like us all, the spring sounds and leaf-outs and bird-nest-buildings. Yesterday I heard a woodpecker-like sound in a redbud tree and when I looked up, there was a perfect hole in an elbow in a branch and there was a bird in it looking at me. I can't think the hole has caused the tree any distress and the bird obviously worked very hard. It didn't look like a woodpecker. Any ideas what it may have been?

I'm overwhelmed with work out there now -- as we all probably are -- to have it all done really early is GOOD.

Bought a frog wind chime today, Helen, and thought of you. Wal-Mart, Webb City. Makes a sweet summer sound.
Sunny

The daffodils are at their peak right now in my yard, and a lot of the other spring flowers are also. If you live anywhere near me, you should drive by my house on 40th St in Joplin and just take a look. It is truly spectacular this year! That's 40th and Indiana but the show is on 40th, in the woods. If theres a truck or car in the driveway, top and say hello and get the tour! There's a lot you can't see from the road.

Sandy

Bet your yard is beautiful Sandy! I hardly ever get to Joplin. Be sure to get some photos if you can.

Sunny - Can you get a picture of the bird? That's unusual. I don't know much about woodpeckers but perhaps some females don't have red on them like the males do.

Helen - It's a wonder my hands aren't purple I've been pulling so many purple flowering weeds and I feel like I've barely made a dent. We've mowed the yard twice, hoping to cut it before it goes to seed. I really need to put down newspapers and mulch in several areas but we've quit getting the paper. I miss it for gardening more than I do for the articles. We just weren't reading it. We both look at the news online. The golden currant you sent me is leafing out by the way. I'm happy to see it return.

I just noticed leaf buds today on my Pink Champagne Currant. That was on my least likely to return list for this spring. It sure looked leafless and dead at the end of the season last year. They don't like heat and we got way too much of that last summer. It's made it through two winters now so maybe I'll actually get some fruit from that thing eventually.

I've seen a few hostas poking up and a few that aren't. I'm afraid I may have lost some. Got to check a couple perennial geraniums that disappeared last year. I'm hoping those will surprise me.

I had quite a squabble happen in my yard a couple of years ago over a woodpecker hole in my old hackberry tree, between the woodpeckers who made it and a pair of bluebirds who wanted it. Not sure who won that battle as the bluebirds went away and so did the downy woodpeckers, who returned later in the month to build their nest. The last face I saw in that woodpecker hole was the female downy, who really doesn't look much like her mate, having much softer colors.

Sandy