Just finished looking a ALL the pictures and enjoyed each and every one!!!! I did the slide show, but probably should have put more seconds in between. I so enjoyed the one picture of the rocks. The suttle shades of color were amazing. I can see that you are very much newly weds! LOL Makes me wonder where the spark went from my 46 + years of marriage. I think there is a tiny flame still flickering somewhere. LOL Connie

Well heres the latest report from this side of Colorado! Spring has definitely un-sprung around here! Its 5 in my backyard right now, and still going DOWN! And INSIDE of my house the furnace has been running for almost three hours nowand its all the way up to 63! All last weekwhen it was WARMmy furnace was running just fine! I had to get up at 0400 on Sunday morningand discovered that my furnace QUIT sometime over nite! So at 4:00 in the morning, when Im supposed to be getting ready to leave for the airport, Im running around a cold house trying to figure out whats wrong with the furnace. The pilot lite was on, and the fan and the thermostat worked just fine. If the thermocouple goes out, the pilot lite goes out! Everything worked exceptthe burner wouldnt come on! So Im stumped! I left at 0600 with a little lamp under the kitchen sink, where the pipes are on the outside wall, and an oil filled radiator on near the computer! I left the thermostat turned up while I was goneI guess hoping for magic!!! Spent the nite last nite in a WARM hotel in Newark, and got back home early this afternoon. The temp in the house was 49 when I got back! Asked the neighbor to come look at it, but he agreed with meall the obvious things were working. He recommended somebody to calland the guy came right over! I found that kind of amazing! The neighbor said he thought it was a gas valve, and he was right! An hourand $300later I heard the burner come on again! And its been running ever since then! Heats a GOOD thing when its cold outside! But I didnt think of the Blackie sweet potato vines I have in the front windowtouching the glassbefore I left and theyre not happy AT ALL right now! Im overwintering a couple again this year to keep from having to buy more in springand I hope they make it! Wish I had thought to at least move them away from the cold window before I left! For tonite at least, theyre FAR away from the glass! No Rocky Mountain Gardening in Winter going on around here right now outside OR inside, Skybird

Kathie, I spent 3 years, I guess it was, trying to get the people in the Puget Sound and lower Willamette areas to understand what I was talking about on the Pacific Northwest forum. This was pre-Idaho Gardening forum - for whatever that is worth. I asked a few things of the gardeners on the Northern Gardening forum but everyone there seemed to be either on Michigan's Upper Peninsula or in Ontario. (Do you know that you probably live further north than about 90% of the Ontario population?) Finally, I decided to set my sights on the mountains. My gardening is at just over 2,000 feet elevation. The Colorado gardeners allow me to hang around on this forum because I tell stories about the Marmots and Mountain Cottontails eating my plants. Some of the gardeners to the south of us, garden at elevations that would be above the treeline up here. Still, not all of them are so fortunate as to have marmots . . . I'm considering a relocation program for those folks who have an interest. Kathie, if you live down in the Columbia Basin at 500 feet elevation - I think the Southwest Gardening forum might be best for you (notwithstanding what I said about you living north of the gardeners in Ontario). If you live in the Palouse or anywhere north of the Palouse, I think this is the forum for you! Steve And personally, I think Sunset zones 1 and 2 are a better guide to the kind of gardening that folks here are experiencing than what the USDA hardiness zones indicate. Here is a link that might be useful: Sunset Zones

Maggie Sue, thanks so much for the encouragement. I feel a lot better after looking at the pictures in the photo shop. I didn't take anymore today but must get click happy tomorrow. I finished sewing my Bento Box quilt top. Sharon F. posted a picture of a block and I went from there. I really like it so will flick a pic tomorrow. I don't have a computer or printer... it will be getting the pictures from the camera over to Photobucket. Then I will be okay. I have to do this on my DD's computer at her house. I didn't get a user's manual but I found some info at Kodak web that is usefull so I need DD to print some of it out for me to use as reference. I had to call my Sasktel support people because of some E-mail problems. The nice fellow I talked to asked me if there was anything else he could help me with today. I said I have this new digital camera...do you know anything about them. He chuckled...no, not today. I thought it was worth trying!