Well, both look absolutely lovely. Shady - Is that a real dog?? If so, he looks very, very content. Well, it looks like the electric fence may be working. No damage last night. Hope it lasts. Count yourself lucky if you've never had to deal with racoons. The first time this season I realized I had a problem was the evening I left the pump running all night. I should have know better because these critters love moving water. The pump is just a small recirculating pump with an intake valve on the side and an outflow valve on the top where the water shoots out. I attached a small piece of tubing to the outflow valve so the water would bubble up closer to the surface and cause that nice sound of moving water. Well, one morning when I woke up, I opened my bedroom blinds to take a look at the garden as I always do. The pond was empty of water. The 'coons had managed to move the pump so the outflow valve shot the water out of the pond and drained it. Luckily, there was still about 6 inches of water in the bottom so the fish survived at least. After refilling it, the next night the critters ate all the water hyacinth. These were the water hyacinths I'd over wintered inside the house for the last 6 months. It's funny, but they don't bother anything else in the yard or garden. Just the pond. Once the water lily starts blooming, they eat the flowers and buds. For now, at least this summer, I'll keep the pond, but I have a feeling it's going to go at some point. Kevin

When and where are you going to have the first Louisiana State Master Gardener Conference? I would like to see your program when you get it completed. I attended my first State Master Gardener Conference at Texas A&M in the spring of 1999. And just this past May 2004, we had the State Master Gardener Conference in Corpus Christi and our Aransas/San Patricio Master Gardener Association assisted the Nueces County Master Gardeners with it. We requested pre-registration so we would have an idea on how many people were going to attend. On Thursday, we had actual registration and attendees were given a program along with a "goodie bag". Also there were some pre-tour tours available on Thursday, and in the evening there was a welcome reception at the Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens. Then on Friday there were various options to choose from, i.e. state executive board meetings, junior master gardener meetings, workshops and premium tours. One of the tours was Rockport. We arranged for a short slide presentation at the library and then toured 5 gardens. At noon a wonderful box luncheon, prepared by a local restaurant, was served on the grounds of the Fulton Mansion. Friday night we had a silent auction and our award banquet dinner where the state awards were presented and we had a featured speaker. Saturday there were educational programs all day along with a buffet luncheon of Mexican Food. Very good. And we had vendors there with garden related items. All in all, it turned out very well with approximately 600 in attendance.

You can keep the garden from year to year, but I dunno, if space is limited, maybe not the raspberries. I have a friend who has a friend who just bought a hobby farm and he might let me plant raspberries out there, and maybe even try my hand at bush cherries. I decided against potatoes. I love fingerlings but no sense just growing one or two plants. I guess I'm not ready to fuss with potatoes, I can get them pretty cheap around here, its a big potato growing region, or at least it used to be. I made my order today--three kinds of med. hot peppers, two kinds of roma tomatoes, three kinds of what they called "slicer" toms (I can supplement with some of the more common beefsteak types which I can get at a nursery), tomatillos, green beans (I went with "Blue Lake," it was a sentimental choice), flat italian style green beans, red beets ("Detroit") and yellow beets just to experiment, and two kinds of eggplant (a shorter season and longer season one). Those are the things I ordered seeds for because you can't get interesting varieties around here. I still need to find gherkin cukes, and decide if I want to grow hard squash. I think I'm going to wait on the squash decision until I see the plot. If I grow salad greens, I think I am going to grow them in pots around the house. Moving my tomatoes and peppers "off site" frees me up some pot space. I will have to keep them close to the house if I don't want the devil bunnies on them. I didn't think of leeks, those would be fun, as would fennel, which I have heard needs a space all its own. Can you grow leeks from seed? Here is a link that might be useful: Seeds of Change organic seed company

blsdgal, that's the kind of speech problem my kids had, too. My DD would simply drop the "th" in some words, so, for example, "there" became "air." Consequently, people (especially the other kids in nursery school) would misunderstand her; I felt that this had the potential to be socially damaging, and that was the impetus for getting therapy instead of waiting for it to get better on its own--by age 5, that had not happened. She also couldn't pronounce certain combinations of consonants ("magnet" became "mag-a-net," "middle" became "mit-tel"), although that wasn't as hard to understand. Those problems were easily corrected; for the "th" sound, she just had to learn to put her tongue behind her teeth a certain way and make the vibration in her tongue (not sure I'm describing this correctly; it has been a long time). Anyway, it just took some practice (games) and reinforcement (small rewards), and the problem was GONE. My DS's problems were similar. I suspect it has something to do with the shape of the mouth and teeth (they both needed orthodontics as teenagers), rather than the clarity of the speech modeled by their parents. I wouldn't worry much about the "labeling" for a speech problem. Once it has been resolved, there's no more problem; it's ancient history. It doesn't reflect on the child's intelligence or personality or upbringing, so there's no stigma. On the other hand, NOT getting it corrected can lead to frustration at being misunderstood and perhaps ridiculed by his peers. I don't think you "screwed up" at all, but I'd have the child's speech evaluated as soon as possible and then listen to the professional's recommendations on whether he'll grow out of it or need correction. BTW, I was allowed to be present in the room when my son was tested (we HAD a rotary phone and a phonograph, so recognition of those items wasn't a problem)! :-) Sue