Jan, in what area in Melbourne are you located? We are just north of Melbourne, in an unincorporated area at the Pineda Causeway and Wickham Road. We are fine, but the intersection was flooded this afternoon, so no one could get in our out of the subdivision. My siblings in Malabar and Palm Bay are fine, except the one in Palm Bay has a saturated septic system, can't flush the toilets. One friend in the Eau Gallie area of Melbourne has water in their house. Haven't heard from them since this morning. So far I haven't had too many problems with my 4 pooches and potty breaks. I go outside and check for snakes and other critters. Then I go inside and run them through the length of the house. Well, actually they run and I walk. We make a big game of it and by that time they don't care that it's raining outside. This is a relief (pun intended), because I had problems with them during the 2005 hurricane. If there had been any advance notice that we were going to have such prolonged rain, I would have bought some sod at HD. Then I could have put it on some plastic in the garage & we all wouldn't have gotten sopping wet for 2 days now. Patrick AFB is near here and as of 1am Thurday, it's had 21 inches of rain. A subdivision south of here (Wickham and Post Rds has had around 25 or 28 inches. They expect that we may get up to another 8 inches on Thursday. It's ironic about not knowing about the lingering rain. Next door neighbor on one side of me is a meteorologist; on the other side is one of the heads of the Cape, and they didn't know. The meteorologist is fascinated on how the storm is not fitting the computer models. I'm not interested, just hope it goes away so people get relief from all of the flooding. Good luck to all who are in Fay's path, or have been.

Aw, Ima thanks for the pictures, they are both so cute! My mom has a peach faced lovebird that someone gave her after they got "tired" of it. Her name is Sugar and she is a regular little clown. I have to say, she kind of has an attitude sometimes! How great that Popeye just chose you to come and live with, poor thing. So many birds that get lost do not make it, they get eaten by predators or die from exposure or starvation. I have an Amazon - and they have major attitude, and he LOVES to chomp on my plants. Actually, he loves to chomp on everything. He was a reject, a bird someone else didn't want. He's sort of mean, but loves me, so I tolerate his meanness. I have a little dog too, a chihuahua whose name is Oobi and he hates storms as well. I think little dogs are frightened easily, maybe more overwhelmed by anything big and scary. Thanks for sharing your pictures! I know someone from here who lives in Stuart, Florida and she said they had major rain and some flooding, but that is seems the storm wasn't that bad in her area, I believe she is a little north of the Fort Lauderdale area. As of later this afternoon she had not lost her power yet.

We took early possession (because we had to be out of our house) and we moved in on Thursday (the 11th of August). We were living in a 1925 Colonial Revival with more than 2,500 square feet and that did not include the full basement (which was a nice space) and a full attic (with its permanent staircase off the upstairs hallway). In other words, it was a massive house, and we had it stuffed to the gills. Moving into our 2,100 square foot brick ranch required some downsizing - which made me happy, happy, happy. We gave away several pieces of furniture, which also made me happy, happy, happy. And I made at least 10 trips to Goodwill with my car stuffed with boxes and bags of donations. My husband owns 90% of the stuff and furniture in our house, and it's just way too much. When I met him, I was a starving writer and I owned two bookcases, one bed (no dresser), one couch and a computer. (I lived a simple life.) So this was an opportunity to shed some of this stuff. I'm so tired of stuff. I really hate stuff. Our new house is on a crawl space (no basement) and the only storage is a small attic area over the garage (only accessible via a rickety pull-down staircase), and a shed in the back. Here are some more photos! :) The new fence went in today! Teddy is a free dog again! She cried like a baby when she was tethered in the back yard. Such a wuss. I told her repeatedly that some dogs live their LIFE on a tether, but she only cried all the more. The yard was fenced on both sides, but we needed to add a piece of connecting fence from the house to the sides. This is the privacy fence, and it was the small piece of fence. We needed about 60' of fence on the other side. More views of the back yard: Here is a link that might be useful: More pictures

If you'd like another kirkii v. pulchra Mentha, I can send a small one of mine or get a larger one from my brother given some time, he lives 250 miles south of me. Yes, those small plants in the foreground are the scourge aroid, Gonatopus boivinii. I can get it from him for you if you want to try it. I had it here at one time but lost it, perhaps that was a stroke of luck considering Roger's problems with it. If a leaf falls to the ground, a tuber will form at the petiole end and produce a plant. Pull it up and remaining underground tubers will produce more plants. I've forgotten it's habit but I think it wants to be a low shrub, obviously very hardy but would obviously need to be indoors in your winters. Some of the many scourges here in Florida are several varieties of Kalanchoe. Thousands of K. tubiflora plants grow across the street from my parent's home in Cocoa Beach, at the beach access ramp. There's also thousands of Sansevieria hyacinthoides there, another scourge but less so. My parents ended up with tubiflora plants growing around their pond, how they got there I don't know but it's been impossible to get rid of them. Russ