Karl was the one who told me about using black plastic mulch film sold at Menards for $5 to kill grass over the winter to make rose beds. That was back in 2011. Before Karl told me about it, I spent 4+ hours digging out deep-rooted grass by hands until my hands hurt. Karl saved me lots of time in growing roses. He's in zone 5a, same as mine and he advised me on how to winterize roses in pots in my unheated & dark garage, even tiny rootings survive winter thanks to his advice. Another tip that Karl told which I treasure forever is NEVER dumping fertilizer directly on the crown of roses in spring, that hurts the tender feeder roots. So always mix Rose Tone with bagged soil & alfafa meal before topping roses in the spring. Every year I think about Karl and how much he helped me. He had his rose-blog site which folks can ask any questions about roses. He also shared his long list of roses that can survive zone 5a winter.

Guess not.

Here I am. Thank-you Nancy for giving me a pointer in this direction. I'm fine and I'm not. Off work at the moment with health issues. Hopefully nothing but I'm having problems. Doc found my thyroid out of whack a few months back and that was a major stride forward. Mostly healthy enough to make it to work and have a drink after work. Work is half the problem. Mostly stress issues that I suspect are not helping my personal health. Telling myself that I'm strong enough to beat the stress. Expected blow-back from my getting control of the chemicals situation. I think I have control... or more so then in the past. Some new issues but all I've had to do is e-mail and things get taken care of. That is all I ask as a safety person is that things get looked at and a rational decision made. Some recent personal attacks that I have weathered fairly well so far. Ahh... work place drama! Some serious consideration to going off on disability. Almost enough to live on... almost. Kitties are all fine. Favorite moved to the garage and has pet door access to the great outdoors. She turned into a world-class mouser... pity the small rodents in her sights. Leelee moved in and her former owner was a young girl. Leelee has this whole surrogate baby syndrome going on so she sleeps with her head on my pillow and lays on her back in the crook of my arm. Impossible not to love her. Yoko is getting old and spends more time sleeping in warm spots then I care for. Annie and Jessy remain litter mate close and are seldom apart from each other. Three watermelons on the vine in my garden this week! : ) lyra

he is so much better... here is a bit taken from the care pages that his mom and dad blog on... "m so glad that we are in a better place. Now picking up the pieces w/ therapy and hopefully that surgery to correct his paralysis of the left side of his face. I still remember the doctors from the beginning asking exactly how far we were willing to go to save our son...i just want to go and pretty much say look! he's alive and cancer free! take that! they told us that he would not make it 6 months. Everyday they pretty much drilled that into us. Lol...maybe it's better we never see those docs again! doesn't matter at the end of the day as we are in a better place:)Anyways off to do house work and figure out some dinner:)" he has to have some surgery on his face and in his throat... it has been a miracle it seems that he is still here...