Not as bad as it sounds terpguy. This has been overall the easiest winter with a very warm December. First time no added heat for December. I have a small green house with roll down isinglass panels. During the winter A flap on each end stays open until colder weather rolls in. Then the remaining 2 flaps go down. I keep blooming plants on display in the patio area. Many of those are moved either in the house or green house. If there are additional fronts on the map my orchids could on rare occasion stay flap down as long as a week. But usually it is for a day or 2. And typically after a 1 or 2 day flap down there could be 1 to 3 weeks of flaps up. My most work with the orchids is Dec through February. Usually December is more work than the rest of the winter. So I'll probably over 3 winter months while winterized I'll have about 6 events like that. March most winters is no extra work. So now I think I'm home free. Flaps go up and stay up. Until next December. I guess and hope. Then there are orchids in the landscape on the trees. They fend for themselves. Also I have 2 very big pots of a terete vanda. They have amazed me. They are very tolerant of cold weather. Thought they would die.

I started mine at the beginning of March last year. Plants were 3 to 4 feet tall when I planted at beginning of June. This worked out extremely well for me. Plants flowered fairly quickly, fruit set was very good in the first few weeks. After that time, we had a lot of cold evenings, high humidity, and several period of heatwaves. Fruit set was terrible for 4 to 6 weeks. Everyone who planted 1 to 2 food seedlings at the beginning of June in my area had awful production, because their plants began flowering during the poor weather period. I had masses of tomatoes at the 1.5 foot to 2.5 foot level on my plants, then an almost complete lack of tomatoes for the next 2 feet or so (the sections that flowered during that poor 4 to 6 week period). My wife does not like the jungle of plants in all of our south facing windows, but the tomatoes we get are sure worth it. I would not want plants to be so big that they started setting fruit inside my house (not enough sun inside to support that, I think), but I really believe that having 3 to 4 foot 'seedlings' enhances my production. Unfortunately, I will be on vacation for 8 days in the second weed of March, so will be starting plants on March 17...will need to use bigger pots to ensure that I get them to the size I want by beginning of June.

Very nice pictures, Hostanista - I hope you reported all of these birds to the GBBC! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An interim report as the GBBC winds up, with lots of information on what birds were seen where: GBBC eNewsletter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And as of 5:40 PM Feb. 20, 2014 Checklists Submitted from 131 countries: 133571 Total Species Observed: 4005 Total Individual Birds Counted: 16471475 and there's still checklists coming in! Claire

roselvr, I wonder if your DD has patellar subluxation? My kneecap "popped" to the outside and the knee would give out to the inside. Mine's a combination of repeated twisting injuries, general abuse :-) and a mild congenital defect (the "notch" the kneecap sits in is too shallow) and it, too, looked fine on imaging but it did not function properly under strain. I had arthroscopic surgery in 1990 on the right knee to deepen that notch a tad, adjust some ligaments and build what would eventually become a "collar" of scar tissue to keep my kneecap in place - I can feel that but can't see it. (Just the three eensy little scars from the arthroscopy, which after all this time are just little puckers in the skin. Instead of general anesthesia I had a spinal block and sedation and was happily stoned to the gills for two days afterward! LOL) I'm sure the technology has improved drastically since then, but that knee has never gone kerflooey on me again. Has your daughter had any physical therapy to stabilize the muscles that work the knee? It really can help a great deal, and it's totally non-invasive so it's an excellent place to start. Women are particularly prone to unstable knees simply because of our skeletal anatomy. I was able to avoid surgery on the left knee with physical therapy (the right knee was far worse off, which is why it got the knife and I chose to be much more conservative with the left) at the same time I was having extensive therapy on the right knee (long story). Even after 15 years I find myself doing some of the isometric exercises when waiting at stoplights, out of sheer habit!