We've had quite a few honey bees buzzing around my caerulea passion flowers this spring--last year I had a few bumblebees, but that was all. While their numbers were heartening, I saw two things in recent days that gave me concern, and both happened around dusk. The first, early last week, was a bee crawling around on one of the passion flowers. I'd been covered with pollen, so I knew it'd been there for a while. But it was just moving around, not really feeding, and unwilling to fly off. I watched it for a while, expecting it to leave any moment since the sun was down, but it never did even as it was getting dark. I checked the next morning, but of course the bee was gone. Then on Monday I took my daughter to church for a function. At about the same time of day as the previous incident, I noticed a bee *walking* along the sidewalk. Not flying, walking. It went one direction for a while, then turned and went over the edge into the parking lot. Then it meandered a while, not going any particular direction. I eventually had to go inside. I don't know if these two bees were sick, injured, disoriented or what, but something was amiss with them. No idea if it's related to the disappearing hives, tho.

Well, at least some of what I heard appears to be a couple of Night Herons as I finally saw one while making the call. It looked like a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron as I thought I saw a strong black and white pattern on it's face, but it was low light so I could have been mistaken. It and it's partner both took off almost as soon as I saw them too, so I only got a fleeting glimpse of them. Strange though, the call was much more repetitious than what I read or heard online. It also was lower than most of the calls I listened to online. I also don't know what they're doing up in tall trees most of the night instead of down by some body of water hunting. Maybe it's something about the environment around here in my part of eastern Kansas? LOL We do have a lot of Seagulls but they're almost always flying up high at between about 200' to 500' zig-zagging around non-stop all day it seems. The only time I see them down on the ground is in or near 1 of the large reservoirs here in Kansas, but those are some 75 to 100 miles from my place.

It's taken me a while to get around to reading this thread as we bought a new fridge last year and are very happy with it. It's an Amana bottom freezer, which replaced....an Amana bottom freezer. The new one does seem to run more often, and is VERY slightly noisier - I can hear a very soft low-pitched hum if I'm within one foot of it, when it turns on. If I am any further away I don't notice it. The previous one was so quiet I sometimes wondered if it was running! I love the Amana. Here's my take on the pros/cons: PROS: - VERY quiet. It's a sealed compressor unit, apparently. This has a definite "con" to it, mentioned below. - Holds a ton of food. I have never quite figured out how Amana does this. The shelves are adjustable, but they don't look any different than any other fridge model. Yet all I need do is rearrange a few bowls and jars, and I can slide in another 4-qt Tupperware, a dozen more eggs, and a dinner plate of leftovers. My original fridge was a Kenmore 22 cu. ft. Due to Energy Star/more insulation, I've had to drop down to the 18 cu. ft. Amanas. I was very surprised to find the Amanas seem to hold just as much as the old Kenmore did. CONS: - That sealed compressor is very sensitive to electricity fluctuations. We seldom actually lose power, but it turns out our power is very "dirty"; e.g., we do have a lot of power fluctuations. This is what killed the first Amana bottom freezer after only 10 yrs. I SHOULD have bought an appliance surge suppressor, especially since they're not that expensive! You need to keep an eye on it, however. Once it's been tripped, it's off and useless. Most of us don't have the fridge plugged into an outlet that's easily viewed, so this is something to keep in mind. You want to be able to see if that green light has changed to red, on the suppressor. - I have the 18 cu.ft. SS model, no icemaker. The SS shows every watermark and fingerprint. Definitely needs that new "no fingerprint SS" finish, instead. ==== Overall: only two negatives, one very small. HTH some folks.

I had a wonderful timer...it had a clip on the back and I could attach it to my shirt.....and it rang until I shut it off. Alas though it wore out!. Since then I have gone through 3 or 4 others....one that was very good, Peppi gave me.....and my son who has "rock band ears"...played in a rock band as a kid and wouldn't pay attention to me about using ear plugs... anyhow he "stole" my timer because he said it was the only timer he could hear. I need one that clips to my shirt ...or hangs around my neck. I remember walking over to a neighbor's who was in his yard....and he saying "Linda, I don't know what you are timing but you only have 2 minutes left!" I need that polder one....and I need to get rid of the 3 in the drawer that you have to punch 45 times to set for 45 minutes!!