Good morning! :-) Thank you for all your well wishes. I seem to be on the mend, just not quite there and trying to be careful not to try to get back to normal activities too fast. I ended up getting over the worst of it with one night of muscle relaxers and one pain pill, but just like you Kathy, I am very sensitive to these types of meds too. The muscle relaxers really didn't help much at all, just made me feel spacey and the one pain pill had my stomach reacting. So that was the end of the meds. Makes me wonder how anyone gets hooked on pain meds. [g] Gardenbug....so sorry to hear you have had yet more bad news in your family. I can't imagine how any of you could handle more stress. It does seem like when it rains it pours sometimes. We have had that happen more times than I can count and I usually end up feeling like what choice do I have, but to do the best I can with it and not expect too much from myself. From the little you have posted, you seem to be doing just that. Eden....it is great to see you posting. I always enjoy hearing about what is going on at your house. Yes, long car rides are really hard on my muscles now. I used to really love a good long car ride so I find that really annoying. [g] A 'Julie Job'....I like the latest Idyll-ism. :-) I like the way you organize yourself Julie. My mother liked to have everything spic and span, especially the kitchen and baths, but clutter, was always something she struggled with. Company coming would always spur us on to get everything just so. She used to tell me stories of how her Mom used to be a very fussy house cleaner. They would do Spring and Fall cleaning every year and everyone helped. They had feather mattresses, that would be taken apart, the fabric washed, dried on the line and then sewn back up, all the curtains and throw rugs would get washed and everything was ironed. The kitchen would get pulled apart and put back together again. It was another world, wasn't it? Our son made cookies this week. Just what I need while I am lying around doing nothing. :-) Oatmeal, coconut, walnut, chocolate chip. Very hard to resist with the fragrance floating through the whole house. I think I have done well to have had two out of the whole batch. Still, I was already putting on weight before my back. Really need to start moving again. DH has helped out and made a pot of Minestrone Soup, which was delicious and nutritious. We have started adding chopped up leafy greens...Kale...for the added calcium. Makes a wonderful lunch with a Tablespoon of Grated cheese. Very fall like too. Soon we will have to make a Pot Roast. I can't catch up, I'm too far behind, but I have done some reading and enjoy very much, hearing about everything going on with all of you. Friday again...amazing how fast the time is going by. October! Three more months left of 2008, anyone have any 2008 goals they are trying to finish before the end of the year? Hope to be up and out early tomorrow to 'watch' DH and son play musical plants for me. It is supposed to be gorgeous weather. Enjoy the day! pm2

I had a couple of pink flamingos in my yard for awhile. I named them 'Tongue' and 'Cheek'. They finally died. I think of,embarrassment.

I don't have Sum & Substance either.. It is on my list, for some reason I cannot find that sucker around here anywhere, very frustrating, that one and Big Daddy are the ones I have been trying to find. I love to water, that is when I just stand outside for a hour zoning, well here lately I have been also sticking my head under the water stream every 15 minutes or so, if my neighbors think I am weird that is all the better:) My thing here lately has been to take myself to Tangled Roots Nursery and pick out "ONE" hosta a week, they are 30% off right now, I have managed to pick up 'Stained Glass' 'Spilt Milk' and 'Olive Branch' for under 12 bucks a piece, I am going tommorrow, they have about 4 left I am wanting, I know logically (gaswise and others) I should just go and get the 4 I want, but I really like spending the hour or so picking out the perfect one. The workers have (finally) stopped hovering over me, they have me figured out and they just wave me over to where the hostas are, this one poor kid had sweat dripping down his face before he finally edged away mumbling something about helping the other customers and for me to just take my time, funny.... I didn't see any other customers there, lol!! Thats what they get for sitting in the air conditioning!!! I love just walking around looking and touching my plants, I think that is why I love hostas so much, I will get down and fuss with them, looking at the way the veins and colors are, touching the leaves on them. I am a big toucher when it comes to my plants and flowers. My mother swears that is why my houseplants look so good, that they enjoy being touched and fussed with, if I can't touch it (Cactus, Pineapple, screw pine, ugh! force of habit to touch, not wise!) I don't have it:) I hate weeding though, just not my cup of tea, I would rather chew glass. And the main reason is I am scared to death of snakes, I just know one is going to be hiding behind that blade of grass, sounds silly I know, but the thought of touching one or heaven forbid being bit by one just does me in. that is what I so totally love about my hostas under the pine tree, no weeds:)

Love to see the turkey poults growing, Claire. Great pictures. I am sort of following two parallel threads showing young turkeys, yours and a facebook thread of the organic farm where we buy our thanksgiving turkey every year. Theirs are a heritage breed, very close to the wild turkeys, and out on grass, as turkeys are meant to be (not scrunched up into tiny pens and fed GM corn). Both sets of photos make me happy! I think your moth may be a promethea moth, Pixie. Also I love your photo of the running fawn. Jane, your beautiful pictures of the rose breasted grosbeaks made me recall the huge flocks of evening grosbeaks we had long ago during an era where we fed the birds. Since I haven't seen any photos of these beautiful yellow birds on any of the threads, I looked them up and am very sad to see that their populations are in decline now. Since we had the house painted last fall, we have had no swallows build a nest on our porch as in past years. Perhaps next year... However a pair of tree swallows have raised a large brood in the birdhouse out in my orange garden. You can hear the chorus of loud chirping as you walk by! Here's one of the parent birds ready to deliver a meal to the little ones. They spend all day, every day, collecting bugs to feed the babies. I expect the small ones will be taking flight shortly and the parents will finally have a well earned rest! It makes me so delighted to have beneficial birds nesting in the house once again now that I have prevailed in my campaign to rid the area of HOSPs (English sparrows). PankajT, nice photo of the red-bellied woodpecker. Seeing these birds in New England is one of the least objectionable effects of climate change, much more welcome than influx of ticks for instance!