Because we have taken them out of their natural habitat and changed the natural selection process by creating hybrids, we are already "playing God" to a certain extent. The trick now becomes "playing God" with responsibility and care. The first thoughts should be... what growing environment do I have to offer these bulbs, and how much time and effort do I want to devote to them? Protecting them from extreme stresses is a very good piece of advice. The growing environment you offer may have extremes that will require protecting from, or adapting to... such as harsh outdoor conditions, or indoor conditions that require supplement. Hippeastrum bulbs are extremely forgiving, and as long as a few very basic rules are followed, their culture is relatively easy... do not allow the bulbs to freeze, do not over water them, give them plenty of light, and allow them an annual rest period, whether of their choosing or forced. It has recently come to my attention that Hippeastrum bulbs not only shed their leaves before resting, they may also shed some of their roots. A portion of the root system may die off annually as the bulb rests, and may be replaced by new roots as active growth ensues. Due to the lack of a balanced micro-organism system within a container, it may be important to re-pot the bulbs annually in order to rid the medium of the excess dead root matter which will otherwise rest under the bulb, possibly causing fungal and rotting issues. One piece of information I haven't seen yet is what zones these are hardy in... I believe them to be hardy to zone 8, with protection. Hippeastrums are considered tender amaryllids.

This was difficult--I only have a fraction of the photos many of you have, and I just struggled to narrow it down to three. You see, my 15 year old granddaughter, Clare takes wonderful photos. All credit to her. Nana Here's Angel Face.

Ha! Well I don't have a youngest kid to ask---or an oldest kid---or a middle kid....... Just three folks here! Me, myself, and I! I do have some more questions about that virtual stuff, but I don't have time right now, but I'll be back later to hijack your thread, Digit! I didn't mention this earlier, 'cause I didn't want to confuse the issue, but when you install Picasa, it goes ALL thru your computer and "finds" all the pictures you already have anywhere! That's how they got there! I suspect you already knew where your pics were, but I was delighted when I found out it was gonna do that, 'cause whenever I had saved pictures from email and stuff before I got the digital camera, I never knew WHERE they were saved to--I just clicked "save," and they went off into the ether somewhere, so if I wanted to look at them again, I didn't have a clue how to find them! Picasa found them all for me! I thought that was WAY cool! If it found something you don't want in there for some reason, you can just delete it out of Picasa. (Hope you didn't have any nakedidity pictures in there!!!) I love having everything in the same place. Something else I didn't mention, when you change/edit your pics in picasa (don't know about Picnik), you never loose your original photo! I make changes to everything, but never "save" them that way--just because I don't seen any reason why I would need to save them, but even if you do make changes and then save them, they are still somehow preserved in their original form in Picasa. I can't tell you just where you find them since I've never done it, but they're there somewhere! And the way I do it, without saving them, I can go back in anytime and undo any or all of the changes! When you start changing things, stop and look after you change something, and there will always be a way to "undo" it---even if you x out of Picasa and come back a month later---you can still, easily, undo the changes. But a heads up on one thing! If you download something into WebAlbums, and then go back to Picasa and change it, it'll change in WebAlbums too--if you haven't "saved" it! .....I've had photobucket for about 4 years and didn't know I could adjust colors!! That's why I mentioned above about putting text on the pictures! I just discovered that about a year ago! And it really helps when you send somebody a picture and you want them to see whatever you're trying to tell them about! And it helps me too, sometimes, when there's a pic that just looks "like scenery" but you know you took it to show something---but you can't remember what! Without the text on that trail pic above, I'd NEVER remember where that trail actually was! It just looks like the side of a rocky mountain! Oh, and have you looked around enough to figure out that you can make your WebAlbums public or private--they call it "unlisted?" Yours is public now, and when I click on your picture, I can also look at the rest of your pics in that album when I'm at the WebAlbums site. If you have an album where you only want people to be able to see one or specific pics, make it unlisted and then click on "hide album link" before you copy the link. All my albums are unlisted/private! I'm a control freak, and I like being able to say who gets to see what and who doesn't! And this may not ever be anything you'd be interested in, but I've discovered that I can copy the text off of signs in my pics by cropping them small enough to be able to read it---and then I put it in the caption so others can read it! Check out this! You need to click on the pics to read the captions--which don't carry over when you post a pic somewhere. Your issue with the words and definitions! Back when I was trying to figure photo hosting out, everybody who was TRYING to help me was talking about the folder and the tray and the file and the desktop and the............ And I didn't have a clue what anybody was talking about! Of course, once I figured out what they were talking about, I already knew what it was---but I just didn't know what it was CALLED! The kids! Hey! They learn it as they're growing up! But, just give one of them that manual typewriter-----and see what they can do with it!!! Or hand them a 1940's style phone and watch their face when an operator says: Number Please! Just today I learned something new! (I'm sure there's not enough time left in this lifetime to learn it ALL!) I've had this Apple Mobile Device Service process running on my computer all the time, and I've NEVER had an Apple Mobile Device---so I don't need service for it! My olde computer is slow enough without extra junk running, so I started searching! I found a GREAT site that told me how to disable it, complete with pictures, so I didn't have to guess at the terminology! And I learned how to get to the Windows Services window---with LOTS of things I could turn off---or not! I found out that the Apple Mobile Device Service was installed when I installed itunes---which I have subsequently uninstalled---but there's still lots of leftovers from it! And I've restarted my computer since I deactivated it, and it didn't come back, so I must have done it right! Chalk one up for the good guys! I took about an hour and checked out all the other "services" that load automatically, but I don't know enough about them to decide if I can safely disable them or not! I did turn off one called "themes"---I don't do any fancy stuff---but when I stopped the process, I mean the "service," my screen got all weirded out looking, so I turned it back on! Guess maybe I do use THEMES afterall! I'll probably think of some other Picasa things to tell you about yet, but in the meantime, if you're wondering about something, let me know. If it's something I haven't noticed yet, we can figure it out together! And, I'm with you, I don't worry too much about clicking here, there, and everywhere on things anymore either! I've come to the grand conclusion that the only way to figure something out on a computer is to just start clicking and see what happens! Of course, I slow down and get a little more careful when it says: Are You SURE You Want to DELETE This? or, Are You Sure You Want to BUY This!!! Skybird

Owbist - you articulated the decision factors beautifully. And that is what makes it difficult. Presently, all I do is load it on the camera and crop. I know I would like to be able to do some color/contrast/tone/brightening adjustments, be able to edit out troublesome aspects. Eventually, I would like to be able to clean older photos and change colors (I know I would have loved to have been able to change the colors of the walls in my house to assist with paint color choices). Whether I'd ever get to something like swapping heads or filters, I don't know (I don't even know what filters are). Another aspect that is important to me is good photo organizing tool. I've been reading reviews of software editing programs (many free), and the reviews don't even mention organizing photos. I'm not sure if that's bc. they all do it, so it's not the feature worth reviewing, or bc. they don't do it. By the way, this review site is very useful - for all kinds of digital photograph questions. I'll post the link here in case others are interested: http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/4488.aspx. Now if I knew how to make a tiny url of this, I would have done that. I think I even have that firefox addon, but don't know how to use it yet. I think I'm going to try Photofiltre first. Paintnet also looked good, as did photoscape. All are free. Does anyone here know photoscape? A couple of more questions, if that's okay. 1) why would someone want to resize a picture? 2) what's the advantage to having a card reader get the photos on the computer, rather than just connecting the camera to the computer via USB? Thanks everyone. Lynn.