Peter: At this time I have no ideas to share but I will take the time to welcome you to the Garden Web forums and hope that you can gather some valuable gardening info. to make your gardening experience that much more successful. Take Care. Ross.

Smivies: what an unfortuate meeting with a python!! Just the thought of it gives me the creeps. I have not seen the snake so far this year, and I have been in all areas of the garden. Perhaps they have not awakened yet. In the fall, I unwrapped a gourd and a baby snake came out of the paper wrapping. Really scared me. So I expected to see some more this year, but there are more dogs next door, and they are really vocal and sometimes come in my yard at night. So maybe they have left. Yugoslava, I am wondering what kind of snails you have in your area. A friend in Montreal has a invasion of rather large snails. I have seen the odd one, but they are very small and easily crushed between the fingers. The slugs have not yet come out, but something has been about while I was away for a few days - my bush beans are all eaten off. I hope it's not a rabbit. They destroyed my husbands neat rows of lettuce a few years ago. He has not grown any since. Happy summer, everyone!!!

Hi Everyone, I have been 'offline' after a major computer crash...but like a weed, I'm back! The weather is 'iffy' for Sunday. Looks like rain but Sat looks good....I am hoping the weather does what it has been doing to date - not following the forecasts!!! Calagary has sun all week and quite often we get their weather by the weekend - so I am not giving up hope. What do folk want to do? We need to make a firm decision on FRIDAY EVENING - I WILL POST ON FRIDAY for the weekend. All of those attending - please email me through my members page - I would like to make a distribution email to everyone for Friday evening so people know exactly what is going on. I will also supply my phone number via email only to registered members so you can call me if you are not sure what is going on. RAIN OPTION WOULD BE TO HAVE THIS ON SATURDAY IF THERE ARE ENOUGH PEOPLE INTERESTED. (You would have to go on without me! Sniff....) Please email me this week so I can ensure everyone knows the details. Cheers, McPeg

To NAF: I just highlighted Klondkike_Kate's response, right clicked on it, chose "copy", right clicked on the "Post a follow-up" box and chose "paste". Now I will replace her responses with mine. To Klondike_Kate: I have a couple of friends who are planning to move up to Whitehorse this fall. One of them just got a job as a biologist, although I don't remember for who. I might have to send them your way, because it's nice to have a friendly neighbor when you're new. GW Name - Hykue What does your GW name stand for? It started as a typo. When you type my name with your right hand shifted to the left one key, you get Hykue. I kind of like the play on haiku, and it's always available on any forum. Real Name - Julie Age - 30 Companion - Common-law husband of 10 years (or so) Children? not yet, but planned for soonish Pets? Echo, an 18-year old Husky-Collie cross; Aria, a 9-year old Great Pyrenees-Border Collie cross; Kitty-doo (yeah, I know, very original . . . and I don't know why "doo"), a 13? year old toothless tabby cat. Where do you live or used to live? I live in Meadow Lake, SK. I grew up in northern Alberta, and lived in Texas for two years and Washington state for 1 year. Zone? 1b, but don't tell all my zone 4 plants that. Please. Do you work? I'm a biologist. Sometimes I work from home doing data verification for a biodiversity program in Alberta. In other words, I check things over for pay. Very boring, but I can do it from home. Companion Occupation? Treeplanter . . . although he has a biology degree, treeplanting pays much better. Other hobbies besides gardening? Reading, cross-country skiing, knitting and crochet, walking, drawing (not as much as I should), guitar (ok, almost never, but again, I should). Sometimes computer games, in spates. How long have you been gardening? Right around one year now. I did help a little bit in my parents' garden as a kid, but that mostly consisted of shaking poppy seed-heads and transplanting petunias. Oh yeah, and picking berries. Where is your garden located and what is its size? We live on 40 acres, mostly in pasture. The house and yard are on a hilltop (yes, in SK . . . it's glacial till, which is fun, because it means that the soil can be clay in one spot and sand 10 feet away). The veggie garden is about 50'x100'. When we moved in it was 75% quackgrass, 15% raspberries, with the rest being rhubarb and horseradish. In fact, I have to show it From 27may2009 That's after we round-upped one part. In frustration with that project, I bought some flowers, dug out some sod, and planted a flower bed in mostly native soil. That's how I discovered my flower addiction, and now I have a lasagna bed underway for more flowers next year. Courses in Horticulture? No. What are your specialities in gardening? I have a friend who says I'm very good at seed starting, so maybe that. I'm planning to focus on plants that have low water needs, as our well is a little on the slow side. And I guess I'm good at the planning stage. I love making a plan, on paper, on the computer, or in my head. Best of all is all three. Favorite Flower? My parents inform me that it must be irises, and I think they might be right, but no kind of flower stands on its own in my opinion. Favorite Tree/Shrub? For the garden, weeping birch. Wild, either larch (tamarack) or paperbark birch. All of which like moist conditions unlike our hilltop, sunbaked yard. What has been the best-performing plant/plants in your gardens? Some sort of purple iris that is growing in about 4 different spots around the property, including the orchard and the middle of the lawn. It was here when we arrived, and couldn't have had much care before that. Or maybe caragana, but it's much more of a thug than a success. Most Challenging Plant? I can't say yet. Favorite Gardening Quote? I think that would have to be Marcia's quote, which I will repeat here. "When gardening, irreverence is essential. Were playing in the dirt, for heavens sake!" Favorite Garden Magazines? I'm not much into paying for magazines, but I should check out our library's supply. Favorite Garden Books or resources? Within arm's reach right now, I have: a couple of Lois Hole books, Flowers from seed to bloom and Organic food (both Gardener's A-Z Guides to Growing). A few feet further on the bookshelf, I have Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, and another Lois Hole. Those have proven most useful to me. What is your favorite tool? Probably a treeplanter's shovel. Can be used to weed, plant out new plants, divide perennials, edge a bed, dig a trench. But I also really like my dutch hoe, and my bare hands. What are you most comfortable in when gardening? Whatever I happen to be wearing. I have to make a special effort to change if it's totally inappropriate - yesterday I just barely stopped myself from weeding in a cashmere sweater. I wish I could garden barefoot, but I think about 2% of our soil volume in the veggie garden is either broken glass or rusty nails and metal bits. What has been your best garden purchase or project? So far, round-upping the quack grass. Any projects in the works or planned? Right now I'm layering organic stuff to make a lasagna bed that curves around between our house and the pond (natural, huge, and full of swimmer's itch). I plan to make it into a rainbow bed, with purple at one end and red at the other. We're trying to finish edging the garden with aluminum flashing in the hopes that it will keep out the quack grass. We need to build a more dog-proof chicken coop, because my MIL's dog is an instigator and we now only have 3 chickens left. Raised beds in the veggie garden, more fruit trees, okay I have to stop. Oh, one more thing, a greenhouse. And a new deck, before someone falls through and breaks a leg. Ack! If you had an unlimited budget, what would you do with your gardens? Firstly, see above list of projects. Secondly, hire a weeder, who would leave me only the occasional easy-to-pull annual weed. Thirdly, terrace our hillside and make it into a potager-type garden. Most importantly, spend more time with my hubby outside in the garden (and elsewhere), since he won't have to work anymore. If you could invent a plant, what would it look like? Oh, it would be a climbing vine with flowers like a large brown iris with cobalt-blue circular spots running in a line down each petal (I dreamed this iris once), and a scent like a wild rose. It would, of course, bloom all season. And be very hardy. And LOVE drought. Describe an experience with a garden pest that had you ready to throw in the trowel? None yet, although if you count caragana as a garden pest, you could say that it makes me want to cry. It's absolutely everywhere, hundreds of feet from the original hedge, and it's the spiky kind. Waah! What advice do you have for the novice gardener? Nothing except to ask people lots of questions. Also, know whether you need a reality check or a cheerleader, and choose who you ask accordingly. I have my "realistic" friends and my "cheerleader" friends, and I greatly appreciate both kinds. What is your motivation for gardening? I can't seem to help it. The veggie garden is because we want to be as self-sustaining as possible, and the flowers simply make me feel happy and satisfied. Although I didn't help my parents garden very much when I was growing up, maybe their lovely gardens had a big effect on me. It makes my house feel like a home to have live things that I've nurtured around it. Lastly, when we do have kids (or kid) I want them to learn about life and nature and gardening, and I'm hoping the gardens will help achieve that. Kind of funny that my name is a play on such a concise poem form, and I'm so long-winded. It is funny, right? And not just annoying?