Hi there, no that's a photo of my office - here's another one to make you houseplant fans jealous. I work for a interior landscaping company - this was when we had a massive hire event coming up, not usually quite that full. Still got some of those ex-hire Boston Ferns kicking about from January! As for what was behind the red Philos in the pic before, they are Stromanthe Amabilis if you're looking at the black striped leaves.

Thank you for the kind words. I am happy you had a nice day Velleen. I just wrote a long post but erased it because my brother just showed up with the food. Little too late. I ate the fish and it was really good. I don't normally eat fried fish but enjoyed the perch my friend made. My friend Donna called me after and asked me how my Easter dinner was and if I still had company. I told her I didn't get the ham and didn't invite Paul over and she was more shocked than I was. We had a good laugh. I told her I didn't care about the ham now darn it, I wanted the chocolate. Dontcha know chocolate heals all wounds? LOL So I sat here and wrote another long post about how my SIL should have called me when they realized they needed the ham, etc. but I wasn't going to say anything to her so that she would feel bad. I just thought it was strange anyways that she called me at 1:30 in the morning to offer the ham. I joked with Donna that maybe I dreamt it but she said no, she talked to me after Shelley called me. LOLOL So the phone rings a few minutes ago just as I was going to submit my post and I saw it was my SIL so I didn't answer it. I listened to the message and she said that Ray had all the food packed up and was going to bring it over but she wasn't sure if I was home. I shut off my lights and went to hide out in my bedroom. LOL I should have realized she knew I was home because when I am on the internet the phone rings funny. My brother just lives 2 streets over so by the time I got into the bedroom he was here. I told him he shouldn't have bothered as I already ate and they could use the ham for sandwiches. He asked me if Paul came over for dinner and I said no, I didn't have anything to make for him. I can't really talk to Ray without him jumping on me so I wasn't going to say anything but I thought what the heck. LOL I told him Shelley should have called me yesterday so I could have gone out and bought my own ham so I could have Paul and Laura over. Surprisingly he didn't attack me like he usually does when I speak. He said he wasn't sure how much ham they needed because when it was out of the package it didn't look like it would be enough to feed Shelley's family. I offered him the cupcakes to take home but he said for me to keep them they had enough desserts and stuff. I told him I made the cupcakes specially for them but he said "you and Paul eat them". I was more upset over that because I did spend some time on the cupcakes dying the icing and decorating them. I can't eat 24 cupcakes. I haven't looked in the bag of food he brought. I think I will call Paul and tell him to come over and eat it. Ray said he only ending up taking a few slices off the ham. I am glad the next major holiday isn't until Thanksgiving in October and I am going to treat that like any other Monday and nobody better mention me making a holiday dinner. Marjorie bailed on Christmas and now this happened on Easter. I'm giving up holidays for Lent - oh darn it's Easter - Lent is over. Okay, where is that chocolate? LOL I hope you all had a Happy Easter. Anne

1. Philodendron 2. snake plant / mother in laws tongue plant. 3. Pothos FataMorgana

I thought the prime suspect likely was voles, having experienced the large amount of damage they can do when I lived in more rural areas (in the woods of western MA once, during a winter with deep snow, they completely took out -- eating roots and girdling trunks up to the level of the top of the snow -- about 20' of flower border, including several shrubs, one of which was Gruss an Aachen). I am guessing you might be experiencing the apex of a vole population cycle this year, Sheila. Vole populations generally run in cycles of 3 to 4 years. During population-peak years here in the San Francisco Bay Area, you will actually see (and hear -- they squeak as they run) large numbers of voles running around even in the middle of the day and their "runs" through the grasses will be everywhere. They become so numerous that raptors and other predators will often only partially eat their catch, leaving half-eaten vole bodies lying around. The populations of white-tailed kites, whose diet is 99% vole, also go up during those years (in one of those years, my husband and I would every evening count 75+ kites flying over our house to their communal late-summer roost just north of us). The good news for you is that your vole population may well crash to next-to-nothing next year and give you a few years' break. In the meantime, traps and snakes are good. Prime vole habitat is tall thick grass, so keeping grasses short in the vicinity to the extent possible also helps.