It's so nice to see old rose buddies! It's such a great time of year...everything looks promising at the moment. Valerie, good rose buddy, hope you're doing well and your new rose garden is working hard for you! Hope Buddy is good too. :-) Patricia! Missed your snappy sense of humor. Last I remember were images of your garden. It must be full of roses at this moment, right? Shelley, so the DH did the right thing, it sounds like! Yes, I don't do much to my Teas. I may trim a wayward branch or cane if there are enough of them so it doesn't sacrifice too much. But, yes, from what I know, the twiggy stuff is all good, to put it simply. I've heard controversy on pruning or not pruning back Mrs. B. R. Cant, and I just thought I'd try it, so I did, but I guess I just cut off about 18" from a 6 or 7' high bush, so we'll see about that, if she sulks. The others, I was just conservative and did little. Harry! Anytime. Bring that sense of dry humor, would love to have you! Wishing you a good midgeless year (it was midge that did you in, right?) That was LAST year. Over and done with, hopefully. Florence!! So glad to see you here. I'll bet you can't wait to see your beautiful climbers with their new haircut. We pruned all our roses down but decided to let our New Dawn be a jungle to enjoy this year. MichaelG, oh thank goodness you're back, I'll be needing you, I'm real sure. Wishing you a great rose season. suz - you're a peach. That was enjoyable to do, glad I could be of help. Sure, my blog is thekitchendesigner.org and it owns ME, I think. I enjoy it but it's a whole lot of work since I try to update it every day. I miss here and there. Hi Carla...hope you're good. Bought any roses lately? You're always getting something! Wishing you a pest free season, that would be nice. Thanks for the hello! Ann...miss your interesting titles...besides the great advice, your titles are always so good. I need title lessons from you. I thought I read somewhere about a real unfortunate freeze down your way. I hope your roses were not affected, I'm almost afraid to ask. Hoping for the best. Thank you so much for the hellos. I go out in the garden now with spring springing and just would like to reconnect again.

But Misti...you'll still hang around KT right??? Personally, I could never leave Flarda, but sometimes folks hafta do what they gotta do. I wish you & Chris all the luck in the world! I'll try to hold down the fort here in Sunnyland...LOL I'd be interested in some of your Orchids and Broms for sure! Uncertain how far you are from Anna Maria Island (Bradenton), but I'd like to give it go for the 21st. :)

Hi Jen, It's good to see you online again. After 25 years on the same motorcycle (1980 BMW R100t) I've now had two in about two years. I loved the Honda ST1300, but on Christmas eve someone turned left in front of me at an intersection and totalled it in my first accident in 35 years. I'm now on a silver 2005 Honda Goldwing. So far this year I've been down to the southeast corner of SC twice. I may head down to Texas in May, and more definitely over to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in June. Both trips will be a mix of camping and motels. Over the last year, the main changes in equipment are a Sierra Designs Sirius 3 tent which is lighter and more compact than the Eureka Timberline 4, and a Dell Inspiron 700m laptop. The screen size is not ideal at 12 inches, but it is about half the packing size and weight of the old one, so a lot easier to carry with me on the motorcycle. Brian

My friend's mother had that exact surgery about five or six months ago. She too is very tiny. The surgery went well but it took awhile for the connection from the pancreas to the intestine to heal, with the doctors needing to widen the drain tube at one point as the draining wasn't going well. Just a thought to keep in the back of your mind. After staying almost six weeks in the hospital, she was released and is just fine now. We'll think positive thoughts for you and say a prayer!