As my mother went deaf, what she missed most in this order was music, and the sounds of birds. Music, and she always had some on in the background, became muddled noise. She could, however, hear my Irish whistle and my daughter's violin and so often asked us to play for her. She could hear her little terrier's bark and that became her link to telephones and knocks on the door. She was a very pliable woman for a nonagenarian and adapted as best she could. With cataract surgery and a very good optomistrist, she became adept at subtitles and thankfully the entertainment medium opened up for her again. But, she sorely missed hearing the world around her and I mourned for her loss of it.

fantastic pictures again. love TAO OF PHYSICS . now that's a beauty,Looks like UP ON THE ROOF IS A tall one. I just don't like the too tall ones, they end up with the bloom laying on the ground, like my BEAUTIFUL EDGINGS, was laying on the graound yesterday morning, and today, too.Done know what heppend to my bamboo stake I had for it.I have had to put a stake by a couple blooms on it each year, to hold it up, the scapes are just bnot stount enough to hold a bunch of blooms and buds.GOLDEN SCROLL is a very pretty one, also. jean

Lee, You're welcome. When you used the word 'panic', I wondered if I should be panicking too. I'm glad to hear the answer is no. : ) It is a great relief that the Euro is backing off a bit on the freezing temperatures. Let's hope that the chances of frost start dropping too. I hope you have a great visit with your parents, and I hope the weather behaves itself so y'all can have a good time together without having to run for shelter. I can handle frost. Freezes worry me, even with row cover, but mostly because all the trees, shrubs, perennials, etc. are emerged and leafed out and I cannot cover the whole yard. My hollies (old and well-established) suffered massive damage when we went to 28 degrees, and normally that wouldn't happen. However, we'd been having a lot of days in the mid-80s or warmer, and nights in the 50s-60s, and the hollies had lots of new growth that wasn't conditioned to sub-freezing temperatures. On the other hand, Johnson Grass growing outside my garden fence and attempting to creep into the garden froze back to the ground. Of course it isn't dead, but at least it has been set back for a while. For future reference, to find row cover and frost blanket fabric in large enough sizes to cover anything you can envision, you can visit the website of Agricultural Solutions. That's where I find my frost blanket. I bought it in 12' widths, but they have it available in many widths---some of which are so huge that they clearly are aimed at commercial farms. Most places have it in only more narrow widths. I like the 12' width because you can cover a row of fairly tall (well, fairly tall for early in the season) plants with it. If you buy a roll they have it folded in half on the roll, which helps keep the shipping charges lower since it is a box a little over 6' long instead of 12' long. The very first row cover fabric I bought around a decade ago was 6' wide which sounds good, but really isn't. I was using it on 4' wide beds, so I couldn't cover a whole bed with it once the plants were any taller than 11-12". I've discovered that with row cover, wider is better, particularly since I grow in raised beds that are mostly 4' wide and often I have some plants that are knee-high to waist-high by the time the last threat of frost has passed in the first week of May. If the strong storms the next few days don't pound our plants into the ground or carry them away with the wind, we all might get to begin the month of May with gardens that are in pretty good shape. I like the idea of cooler temperatures. The longer we stay cool in Spring, the better the cool-season crops will produce, and the better the fruit set on the tomato plants. I did look at my Accuweather forecast the last couple of days since it goes out farther than the NWS forecast on the Norman webpage and farther than our local TV forecast, and it showed my lowest low next week of 43. Today that's been raised to 45. I'm starting to feel a lot better about next week's weather, but that doesn't mean I will become complacent and stop watching the forecast. I'll be watching it like a hawk. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: One Source for Large Sizes of Row Cover This post was edited by okiedawn on Wed, Apr 23, 14 at 12:09

Pumpkin Patch showing the aging of the color. Crescendo, new to me this year. First bud. Crescendo, in the evening with the flash. I'm still waiting for first buds on Drop Dead Red, Tuscan Sun, Memorial Day, New Day, Peace, Night Owl, and Top of the World.