It's been many, many years since we have seen more than a few honeybees during the full season. Last year, the count was two. That's right, just two lonely bees for the whole year. Big and small bumblies have moved in, and there are misty clouds of very tiny (1/8") iridescent bees who happily visit the vegs and flowers, but no honeybees. I ensure veg pollination with a tiny artist's brush. It's been quiet news for several years that Virginia is gradually losing the honeybee. Statewide, a normal winter's loss is 15 to 20%; I read last week that a preliminary estimate is over 30% loss this year, probably due to CCD. On another front, local friend who had hives gave them up several years ago, due to not-neighbors who complained. (Not-neighbors did not live within a mile of the apiarist, but managed to get fear-mongering letters printed in the local newspaper as well as saturating the area with posters and flyers. I don't understand people who behave like that.) Daffodils are just about finished for the year. The first ones opened early March, and Doubloon -determined to endure- is finally conceding to the heat. Tulips don't do well in this area, the soil is too clayey. Folks that have them, have been enjoying them for a couple weeks. Lilacs are in bloom, and several people have wisteria which is gracefully grabbing passerby's attention. Most trees are in youthful green, and the oaks are painting everything with their yellow pollen. Smart folks don't open windows during this time -- just a few minutes of 'fresh' air is enough to cover your furniture with the pollen. For these few weeks, everyone drives a pollen-colored car, lol.

A couple years back I went through a rather involved process to try to collect the spore. I gathered some morels and set them on a table between two clean window panes that I had. Then I placed a small light bulb under the panes. Within a day or two, some of the mushrooms had produced spores, evidence by the "clouds" of haze on the glass near the morels. I prepared petri dishes with agar and swapped some of the spores into the center of each dish, put the top on, sealed with tape, and set aside. I can't remember how long it took, but after a while, several of my dishes began to grow the beginnings of mycellium colonies. Got some ryegrass seed, soaked that with water and a little gypsum, and then processed mason jars with half of the soaked seeds in a pressure cooker to sterilize (and kill the seeds). Then cut the successfully grown agar from the petri dishes into pieces and planted 3 pieces each in the ryegrass seed mix jars, covered with a lid with a hole poked in the middle and stuffed with pillow batting to act as a filter, and set that aside in a dark place. After a few weeks, a few of those mason jars were showing the tendrils of mycellium growth. But after that I couldn't figure out how to prepare some beds to throw the colonized ryegrass into, and ended up throwing them all in the compost. Hmmm. I wonder if some of my experiment ended up in the hoophouse....

Naked guy in window, that reminds me of a joke. A lady calls the police and complains about seeing the man next door in his window naked, the police come and say, I'm sorry mam, we can't see him. She replies,"You can if you stand in this chair." The point being, some people seem to look for things that bother them. I know, I used to be that way, I swear. But I am trying to work on it these days. Lots of things bother me in my neighboorhood and I'm sure we do lots of things that bother other people such as wind chimes, mowing, terrible and loud karoke in our sunroom, and a couple of kicka$$ parties a year. We seem to get along with everyone anyway. As a matter of fact, all our neighbors come to us with complaints about each other, such as "Will you tell Ms. M to keep her cats, home" "Will you ask that young couple to mow thier yard" and so on. A lot of our neighbors don't get along with each other, but we somehow manage to get along with all of them. One more story. A single lady that lives down the street from us always has a messy and unkept yard. It really bothered me. She had a tree die in her front yard, finally I made DH stop one day and ask her if we could cut it for her, she seemed a little embarassed but said yes. We cut it and cleaned it up. Turns out she is single, slightly handicapped physically, has 3 foster children she has adopted and works full time. She moved to this house when hers burned and her two children were killed. About a month later she stops one day while we are working in the yard, she has a letter in her hand and is in tears. It was the ugliest, meanest letter going as far as calling her a pig. It had been left in her mail box. It went so far as to threaten to run her out of the neighborhood. She was embarrassed to attend the neighboorhood watch meeting and asked us what she should do. I told her that she should go and take the letter and call out who ever wrote it. She did clean up yard, but it is still littered with toys a lot of time. Like some of you suggested we should try to see both sides before we get all outraged.

No, you are not nuts. You are a good daughter who is frightened for your mom, and frustrated at the situation. Don't get rid of any of her stuff. When she finds out, her trust in you will be broken, and things could get bad. Instead, try talking to her doctor. Maybe even take in pictures to convince the doctor of the severity of the issue. There's growing evidence that hoarding, as opposed to just being a clutter-bug, has some basis in a mental-health issue, and possibly OCD. Do some research on this before talking to the doctor, in case the doctor isn't educated in this. It is possible that there is treatment out there for your mother, that would allow her to start letting go of the things. You could try the rational route, and point out to your mother that if she falls and breaks a hip, there's a good chance she'll end up in assisted living or a nursing home and then she won't have any of her "stuff," but I've tried that and it didn't work. Getting my father on a very small dose of a mild anti-depressant--that worked.