From this window, April 9th, 2015

First let's update Sassy and Sadie.  Sassy hasn't had an accident since we let her stay out of the laundry room all night - that was three nights ago.  Although she doesn't always use the same box, she has been using the box.  We aren't holding our breath but three days with no clean up is refreshing.  Sadie has learned to climb to the top of the cat tree.  First time.  Sassy lays on the first level once in a while but hasn't liked the top yet.  Sadie watched the young men clean our pond yesterday from the top of the tree which is positioned in front of the sliding door going to the deck.  You can see the pond from her perch and she watched intently.  Today was rainy so we had to open and shut the windows which drives Sadie crazy.  Get in the window, get out of the window...

Now for the garden...  With the pond up and running the birds have been drinking from the pond so we put up the heated birdbath.  Anson and Eric brought softball size stones and pebbles to build up an area on a shelf in the pond so the birds could bathe.  They like to duck out of the cedar, fly to the pond, drink, bathe and fly back to the cedar so we established a bathing area close to the cedar.  Hopefully this will make them comfortable.  The pond water is clear, all the fish survived but we had one frog casualty, our leopard frog didn't make it.  It will be May before the tropical plants get into the pond, they are currently in the greenhouse.

We purchased seeds today for planting and Carl is finishing the trays I will use to put my plants in.  I bought Cosmos, Zinnia, Tithonia, Red Milkweed and Orange Milkweed, Cleome, Sweet William, Mammoth Sunflower, Moonflower, Flax-Linum, Cardinal Climber, and Giant Nicotiana.  I always grow enough Cardinal Climber and Moonflower to sell at the neighborhood garage sale.

We saw our first American Toad this afternoon, a little male.  It won't be long before they are singing and laying eggs.  The tree frogs will be singing soon also.  I saw the first male Chipping sparrows yesterday also but the hummingbirds and wrens are not here yet.