I so appreciate your thoughts and kindnesses. Suze, I want you to plant that FOTW and see what a beautiful rose it is for yourself. Lisa Lou has already responded that she will root one soon, so unless she gets hit with another Katrina type year, I am sure she will. She is such a sweetie but your kindness is always indeed appreciated and never underestimated as very genuine and special. I feel pretty sure the reason we have had such a small amount of damage secondary to animals through the years was due, at least in part, to our chow and our tuxedo cat. We miss them for more reasons than that but in their declining years we started noticing more evidence of critters/varmints in our garden, loss of all bulbs, corms, rhyzomes, etc., and the small roses and now the brazen buggars are getting braver and taking down the big ones. Perhaps if we had an outdoor cat, that would help and maybe even 'bulk up' our collie's spine. When I had a copperhead snake come in my house about 10 years ago, my neighbor's aging father told me I needed a cat that was hungry to find it, that my cats would not seek it out. Interestingly, it was our Persian who is afraid of doorbells and telephone rings who alerted us to its whereabouts and DH came in for the kill but I think the Persian would have been the loser had a battle ensued, but I am just guessing. He has never been outside save once when he sneaked out unbeknownst to us, and was missing for several days. Subsequently, he has learned to stay away from doors which lead outside. On my way to doing battle with the remains of the day (uh, the garden).

I have five roses that are failing. They are 17 years old and grafted. Charles de Mills hasn't bloomed for two years and is throwing out suckers. Same with the White Rose of York and Felicite Parmentier, though White rose of York bloomed. Madame Hardy and Variogota di Blogna didn't bloom. Last year VDB sported back to red. Except for the White Rose of York, they never have gotten more than 3 feet tall. The bloom count on my own root roses is so much better. Getting those little bands going is tough, but worth it. I killed Ghislaine di Feligonde and Madame Isaac Perriere and Great Maiden's Blush got stomped by my horse. I'll try again.

Like Aptosca and others I'm so used to it I hardly notice it. For the most part I enjoy Gothy kids. I find them to be extremely bright, creative and mostly well mannered. DS was wearing a long black duster as part of his school "uniform" lol long before the first shooting happened. Now he was 6'2",had long hair halfway down his back,wore a big black leather hat and several huge silver rings on each finger. I got several comments from his teachers on what a pleasant kid he was once they actually spoke to him. One teacher even told me he found my son extremely intimidating until he was in his classroom. Today DS is a responsible adult who is still very much a part of the "alternative style" in Santa Cruz. His hair is short, he still wears mostly black and he's quite the legend amongst those who know him. No violence unless necessary, no tats or piercings except for one small ear stud and the first to help those in need. A couple weeks ago I saw a stray kitten scared and shivering outside a Walgreens at 2:00 am. I couldn't take it and waited for a bit to see if anyone would. No one would get involved until a little Goth girrrl and her BF came along. That kitten had a nice warm meal and a new home the night. :-) That kid in the store wasn't Goth. He was an ass.

All eyes turned to Dorothy, she who had prepared this feast. Could this sensible, not quite middle-aged and possible heiress be responsible for . . .all this mayhem? "Oh don't be ridiculous," snapped Dorothy as she patted Aunt Agatha, who sat crooning to poor Hercule's corpse. "You all know why I invited you-and it wasn't to kill you off one by one. That would be terribly inefficient." She left Aunt Agatha and gathered up the abandoned books. "I invited you to a murder mystery evening, and that's what we are going to do." Dorothy redistributed the books and then finished her assignments. "You'll have to fill in for the aunts," she directed, thrusting books into the reluctant hands of Sargeant Arbuckle and Alphonse. "Here, I can't read this stuff!" said the Sargeant, waving his copy of...