I agree with you, Diane. I know when the neighbors' gardeners will be there and make sure all of my north facing windows are closed when they are expected. I have nearly given up washing my truck. I have to park on the street because the street is collapsing and needs re engineering. Instead, the City keeps adding more pavement to the surface so when it rains, the water overflows the curb and runs down the drive, through the garage, work room and once, into the kitchen. So, to prevent the issue, there is a HUGE mounded "speed bump" of concrete which has to be traversed at a sharp, 45 degree angle to get IN to the drive. My truck won't fit. The car does. I wash the truck, some blower jockey blows the street and my truck is trashed. It's almost just not worth it. Kim

I'm so sorry for all who have lost gardens; it's something I think about from time to time as I consider maybe moving ... and yet keep on gardening! Here's another "flip side" story. When we purchased this home 31 years ago in August, there wasn't much growing except a few clumps of "ditch lilies", a pair of poosly azaleas, one sorry boxwood, some leggy mountain laurel, and enormous plain green hostas ringing everything including the many tall old oak trees. No grass to speak of in this sandy soil, not even weeds! As eager as I was to start planting, I insisted to my dear young husband that we wait at least until spring, preferably a full year, so as not to disturb anything dormant that the previous owner might have planted. Well, we waited and were rewarded with ... nothing ... except the aforementioned undernourished specimens. Not even one daffodil. So ... I set about enriching the soil (I'd had a year to get some compost started, after all, and lots of oak leaves to shred), much to the amusement of one of my neighbors who insisted nothing would grow here. Have been amending and planting, failing and succeeding ever since, and the recent front yard re-do is finally the garden I'd always dreamed of, with roses and perennials shoulder-to-shoulder, jostling, embracing and supporting each other and peeking over-under-through the white picket fence. Today, for the first time in my life, I walked under - UNDER! - roses blooming on my own arbor (ok, there were only three up there, but there are more where those came from). That neighbor would never recognize the ol' place [big smile]. Did I say something about moving? There are some beautiful thoughts expressed in this thread to help any of us cope with that eventuality, particularly catsrose comment, "Put your love into your new garden and let it grow" and hoovb's paragraph that begins "The garden really is the gardener." Thank you all. Diane

I found another article on Truth or Fiction about it. It says: Summary of the eRumor: There are several versions of this eRumor but all of them say that commonly sold cocoa mulch contains theobromine which can be lethal to cats and dogs. One version tells the story of a pet owner who lost a dog because of cocoa mulch. The Truth: It's fairly well known that some animals should not eat chocolate and according to the experts we checked with that warning applies to cocoa mulch as well, although the number of reported animal deaths is very low. The villain is theobromine, a chemical that is similar to caffeine. It can give a boost to humans but dogs and cats cannot always metabolize it successfully and it can be lethal to them. That is especially true of the shells of the cacao beans, which are ground up and used in cocoa mulch, and contain even higher levels of theobromine than the bean. Most packaging of cocoa mulch makes it clear that it's not for human or animal consumption. It also appears that all cocoa mulch is not the same. One manufacturer we checked with, the maker of Mirana cocoa mulch, said that their mulch is the result of a series of processing steps and that the level of theobromine in their mulch is barely detectable. We did find at least one documented case reported in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).. The report says that a dog that had ingested cocoa mulch developed convulsions and died 17-hours later. An analysis of the stomach showed ingested cacao bean shells and lethal levels of theobromine. The AVMA has issued a release because of this new eRumor about cocoa mulch. It says that according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), there have not been any reports in 2006 of animals dying from cocoa mulch ingestion. In the years spanning 2004 and 2005 there were 16 cases of cocoa mulch ingestion reported, none of which resulted in death. The ASPCA says that the account of the death of the dog named Calypso that is in the eRumor is "suspect." The symptoms are not completely consistent with death from cocoa bean ingestion. The ASPCA says that although vomiting is a common result, the dog is described as having had a single seizure the next day during a walk and then dying suddenly, which is not what would be expected. Here is a link that might be useful: Truth or Fiction

My apple told me that their security certificate to encrypt data during transmission expired on 12/22/07 @ 5:59 pm. It was issued to Auth@gardenweb. Organization- General Electric Company. Org Unit- NBC. Issued by Trusted Secure Cert. Authority. Sounds to me like they paid for a service for a while- and their paid subscription is over for that service. I think our computer/cookies are used to seeing that info, and are telling us about the change in service. I am not sure what it means here at GW- but I think that is what is going on. I do hope that our personal information we registered with is still secure...