oh, no!!!! How horrid!!! Hugs to you, Jeff. This is awful! And one of your beautiful tree roses smashed, how I hope and hope it wasn't your Julia Child!!! Such a dream tree rose ... I cannot believe the devastation... Hugs, hugs, hugs... Guys, hush with the rain! brings very bad luck/karma, don't mention a peep... that is what global warming is all -- sudden terrible storms and drenchers, from polar meltdowns for up-coasters like Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, etc, and horrible increase of droughts for those landlocked... To terrifying to mention... I too am worried when tornados hit... My tree roses are now too heavy for me to carry in the house, so they will be left to fend for themselves if my BF is not there to help me bring them inside... I can just imagine myself having a complete nervous breakdown when Kansas gets its tornado winds... Jeff, your roses are soooo spectacular and stunning and I cannot even begin to fathom the huge shock and upset this must be...Tons of hugs and condolences... The only comfort is that you are such a good gardener, and they are lucky to have you... They will make their best recovery just for you I am sure of this!

I hope everyone, who has been dealing with flooding issues this past week, is recovering and drying out. This is a long post, but maybe the construction parts will be useful to some. I have been on the road since Sunday and really wondered what I would return to yesterday. First, some background. Even though I live on a 50+ foot deep sand hill in the Connecticut River valley as Ive described in other postings, the pitch of the main house roof onto the rear Âbarn or extension roof has meant that, for the last 236 years, water has poured down into the corner made by the main house and the extension, pooled up, and run down through the stone foundation and into the dirt floor basement. So, the basement is always damp, making it unsuitable for storage and also a source of dampness and odor that can affect the whole house. Last fall, when those poor people died in Alstead (about 15 miles south of me) after the dam on the Cold River broke, my basement flooded deep enough to cover the furnace motor (nancylouise, I feel your pain). Fortunately, the motor fired up, once I got the sump pump working and drained the basement, but then and there I decided to tackle the centuries-old problem. The solution was two-fold: 1) build a 50-foot long, seven-foot wide (eight-foot roof) farmerÂs porch on the north side of the extension (which houses the kitchen, mud room and garage/carriage house) to deflect the water that comes off of that side of the roof out into the lawn, and 2) build a 24 x 16 foot great room addition into the other corner where the larger quantity of water has always pooled and leaked into the basement. The frost walls from the addition have perforated piping along their outside base and there is even a pipe along the old foundation of the main house that goes through the frost wall and links up with the other pipes, all of which empty into a drain pipe that goes under the drive and dumps into the stream. The new room is framed out and, as of Sunday the roof had been felted, but the metal roof was not on, yet. My rainfall totals for the past eight days have not been nearly as impressive as those of the folks in the Merrimack Valley, but still added up to way more than normal: Friday: 0.40 Saturday: 0.93 Sunday: 1.03 Monday: 0.12 Tuesday: 0.53 Wednesday: 0.01 Thursday: 0.03 Friday (So far): 1.10 Total: 4.15 Odd how, for me, today has been the wettest day, so far. So, how did things fare? The farmerÂs porch was completed earlier this spring and has completely solved the problem on that side of the house (so far). The ground on that side of the basement is slowly drying out (was soupy for most of the winter). On the other side with the room, which now has the metal roof in place, but where the ground has still not been finish graded, the water came off of the roof so hard last Sunday that it created a 2-foot deep sinkhole next to the new frost wall up against the main house. If you can imagine all that rain coming off of the main house onto the new roof and then pouring off in one spot, it kind of looks like Niagara Falls. As a result the water had nowhere to go, backed up under the frost wall and came through the foundation and into the basement. The water was pouring over the rocks of the foundation like one of those indoor waterfalls. I saw this just before I left for my trip, and it freaked me out just a tad, since the whole point of the new room was to carry the water away from that piece of foundation. . But, my contractor put some wood up temporarily to deflect the water over the sink hole, and no water has come through the foundation since, so it is a specific problem with a solution. The site guy is coming up this weekend to dig it out and run additional piping along the wall and a second drain pipe out to the stream (After the grass seed I spread two weeks ago finally sprouted in all this rain, of course). Once everything is graded, we will be adding a couple layers of 6 mil plastic sheet on the ground along that entire wall, which will be under a permanent eight-foot wide, full room length deck. This should move the water away from the foundation and finally provide a permanent solution to the wet basement problem. As a side benefit, the new room is going to be wicked cool  lots of windows and skylights in a south-facing room. Out in the gardens, all the plants seemed to have taken this deluge well. The daffodils, tulips and hyacinths didnÂt lose any petals, and the constant watering has certainly helped all the new plantings. All-in-all, except for that one glitch with the sink hole, which is really a function of the ground settling, things seem to be moving along. Again, my best thoughts and wishes to everyone, who has not been so lucky. If there is a take away from the ramble it is that for anyone considering running exterior ÂFrench drains to remediate a water problem, my advice is to not underestimate the power of water and to overbuild the solution. Better to add larger or extra pipes that will Ânever be needed than to wake up one morning to a cold house, a flooded basement and a submerged furnace. My contractor, the site prep guy, and the foundation guy all thought I was overreacting in my comments about how much water came off of the roof and into the house. In one sense, IÂm actually glad the water came into the basement this week, because it showed everyone what I was talking about. Also, if you have the option, just moving the water away from the foundation might be all you need. The farmerÂs porch didnÂt cost much more than the trenching and piping solution would have cost. But, with the pipes I would have been left with nothing to show on the outside of the house. Now, I have a functional covered porch that actually adds beauty and breaks up some boring lines on that side of the house (before it was just an 80-foot straight piece of wall). So, sometimes you have to think Âoutside of the box. narcnh

Susan_on, would you be able to share the recipe for the homemade concoction you spray with? We have problems with mice at our camp every fall/winter. Currently, I put moth balls in the campers and cabins when we close camp in the fall, but then we are left with the smell of the moth balls to air out in the spring. Would love to hear a good alternative! Jemdandy, the heck with thoroughly cleansing! I hate the filthy little buggers so much, that if I catch one in a trap (which happens a few times a year at the camp), I handle it the same way that I do dog droppings! I put my hand in a plastic bag, pick up the trap, pull the bag down around it, tie it shut, and straight to the garbage! Yep, I know I spend more on mouse traps that way, but I just don't want to rehandle them after they've caught a dirty disease spreading mouse! I know, I'm extreme, but I sure don't like 'em! Never have! I found a dead mouse in the spare bedroom the other day, right out in the middle of the floor. That was sure a puzzle. We live in an old, turn of the century (1900) house with an unfinished basement. We've been here five years. We do get mice in the basement, and other 'livestock' (a chipmonk once or twice) too, but have never seen a sign of one on the main floor or upstairs! All I can figure out is that maybe he came into the house in a box of something??? But even so, how did he end up dead on the floor? We once lived in a house for a number of years without any real mouse problems. Then, one winter they got really bad. Some came into the house, but the worst part was the ones that were in the walls. We could hear them there all the time. They actually chewed a few small holes in the ceiling panels! Poison, and lots of it, was the only way we made a dent on the populations. I wonder if someone burned down a barn in that neighborhood!

I had lots I didn't get to plant yet too. It actually didn't rain here yesterday it was a nice day but got cold last nite. It is 58 rite now. This is almost July. Potatoes look the best. Cabbage and broccoli are making okay heads I guess, but I feel they are growing so slow but that is due to late frosts and not enough sunshine. I can only get a handful of carrots to come up I'm sure the seed got washed away. Beans grow ing slow. Tomatoes growing slow. Peppers I only have one kind doing anything, that is Hungarian black they have beautiful purple flowers. Other peppers are same size as when I transplanted them. Eggplants too. I planted lots of dwarf tomatoes in strategies and they look okay. Okra are tiny not gonna do nothing. Strawberry are good but now I'm discovering I have some Asian spotted fly and I think it is in my raspberries too. My blueberries look good have unripe berries. Everything is late. Usually by now id have a ton of squash and zukes and cukes. These plants are tiny. Fingers crossed for good warm weather with normal rain fall, destructive winds, hail, and storms to stop. Anyone know a good recipe for grass cuz that's mostly all that's growing. I guess I'll cook it on my compost pile.