I was in Florida for about a week and family back here said it was in the 70's and 80's here. I came back and the trees (some )had leaves and the grass wasa foot and a half tall and thick, I had a hard time in the lower yard it was so thick and green. Well, the other night ( Monday?) ruined the leaves on a bunch of Quercus Rubra and one Q Shumardii The Q Nuttallii came close but are holding back their leaves enough to avoid this crap. The white oak family oaks were conservative and weren't fooled. The 2 chestnut oaks are getting restless and are close to leafing out, though. The Willow oaks I have look really bad. The 2 ft tall one has blackened leaves. It looked good before the cold snap. After seeing them in Florida and how the leaves ( not form) look like live oak, I want at least 2 in my yard. My Quercus fusiformis looks totally great after this winter. My Q Virginiana are bare now, but I think they are okay, this winter was no test for them anyway. Long story short I hope my oaks that had their first set of leaves ruined bounce back, the same for others trees.

"I don't drink coffee any more (boo hoo), but when I did, I used cream, milk, or half/half. Can't even stand the smell of the flavored stuff, or flavored coffee, for that matter. "I did occasionally use a tad of cocoa powder, and that was tasty with cream and sugar!" You "can't stand flavored coffee," but you put cocoa powder in your coffee to flavor it.... Interesting.

DG, that is hilarious! I have done stuff exactly that dumb and more that's even dumber. Isn't that feeling weird, though, when it washes over you and you realize what you just did? It's almost like you want to dart your eyes and look around real quick to see if anyone else saw you. I hope your plant - or it's little brother - comes back. Carol

Let me tell you my tale of woe which is still increasing my blood pressure even tonight. For the past 5 days, my house has been inundated with some type of small flies; maybe drain flies, but I have a coffee angle as well. This morning, I used the foot peddle on a plastic Rubbermaid trash receptacle in the kitchen........there must have been at least 25 in the garbage and many flew out all over my kitchen and dining room. I had noticed most seeming to come from the kitchen sink/drains, so I used the foaming disposal/drain cleaner at least twice, but that had no impact. I made coffee as usual this morning, using my Cuisinart 12-cup coffee maker, although I just make one cup and use paper filters and some organic ground coffee. I didn't really look "into" the coffee maker this morning, but I had just run vinegar and water through it the other day for the auto-clean cycle, which it really needed. Like some others in this thread have mentioned, I don't think that the standard cleaning touches every opening within the coffee maker where moisture may be allowed to linger. Later in the day, it appeared that many of these flies were around my coffee maker........to my horror, when I opened the lid on top, there must have been 15 or 20 inside the coffee maker. Even after I rinsed it out and attempted to dry it off, more flies were landing on it. It was like a horror film. I tried putting into two plastic grocery bags, since I didn't have a single bag big enough, and I shortly realized that there were flies getting into the bags like the coffee maker was a magnet. I then cleaned the coffee maker in the sink, and cleaned the canister as well and hand dried each and put the coffee maker into two other plastic bags and put it in my home office at the other end of my house. I put the canister in a separate bag and tied the top and did the same with the basket. (as I type this, there are flies landing on my hands and arms......Alfred Hitchcock can't be far away) I would guess that I have killed about 100 of these flies in the past 4 days and still am not entirely sure where they came from, but I have read that drain flies breed and hatch every 48 hours and I seem to just keep coming. If these things were in my coffee maker this morning, I must have ingested a lifetime's worth. I seem to have two sizes of these flies and the only way to kill any of them is when the land on the counter. When they are flying, it is extremely hard to kill them. I believe they are attracted to carbon dioxide, because they have flown into my eyes, nose and mouth. They sound like mosquitos when they fly near my ears. I may try the apple cider vinegar and dish soap idea before going to bed shortly, but I'm afraid that I wake up with even more tomorrow. I have read that you can add some sugar to this mixture as well. The dish soap is important. Since I could not eat lunch or dinner today because so many were landing on my food and plates, and I had to throw food away, this is really taking its toll. They are going into my kitchen cabinets and have tried to get into the microwave. I am putting many scraps that might have gone into the garbage into separate bags and tying them off. There is no open food or waste in my kitchen. I even sprayed flying bug spray into the garbage when I discovered the infestation there and it made no difference.....nothing kills these things........help !!! UPDATE: I used two suggestions found online that seem to help. One is to build a simple fly trap using apple cider vinegar and dish soap in a cup/container and put plastic wrap on top, secure with a rubber band and poke some small holes in the top with a toothpick. Flies get in; can't get out. Other thing is the suggestion to use a spray bottle and fill with water and dish soap. You can zap flies when they land somewhere and it makes it easier to kill them. Run water and disposal more frequently to make sure there is no "organic matter" that can attract more flies.