I think I have most of them in central Illinois. Two apple trees and not one eatable apple. I sprayed like my father taught me, most of what I had was apple scab. I tossed at least 100! I also pruned off some leaves from the cherry tree, all kinds of bugs creating holey leaves and webs. Cucumbers had to be pulled do to beetle damage and now the squash bugs are working on the butternut plants. But, I have spotted only 2 Japanese Beetles, up from none last year. What I also have, smile here, are monarchs. Lots of them. Caterpillars all over the place and I have found several of the chrysalis (what is the plural of that?). And then, my mystery animal. Something is chewing my paste tomatoes. And I mean chewing, half a tomato at a time. I have a 6-foot cedar fence and I finally got rid of the rabbits in the back yard in late May. No squirrels within 2 blocks (10 year old subdivision and trees aren't bit enough for them). I discovered one tomato yesterday and I could see the teeth marks. Evidently the tomato wasn't ripe enough because that was all. However, there was another one on the ground and more than half was gone.

I agree with the above. Plus the fact that too much personal information gets divulged or can be mined by joining facebook. I'd rather limit my online participation to forums like GW and other, less inclusive, less wide open sites. I've been a member here for a long time....going on a couple of decades......and I have seen the same ebb and flow of visitor traffic through the seasons as we are now witnessing. January, February, March are always as slow as molasses but it will pick up when the gardening season comes into to full force in the next 6-8 weeks. And I have to say that the comments about excessive ads and pop-ups surprises me. I don't experience hardly any at all and just use Explorer with the standard firewalls. Didn't realize this was much of a problem anymore regardless of the Internet server one used...... I have to be honest when I say I read more than post. Most of the topics don't hold a great deal of interest for me and I tend only to respond to questions that get neglected or overlooked or when erroneous info is provided. Since conifers are not my area of concentrated expertise, I let others respond first - there is an amazing knowledge base here :-) But I still remain pretty active in some other forums. I also live in an area where the Internet is not widely available so I am not online at home. And since my work life is pretty seasonal and therefore computer access the same, I tend not to post much in winter anyway.

Since I was a grandma at age 38, time is not at all, at all, at all, relevant. (I was 19 when son was born, he was 19 when his son was born, I was still "young".) I didn't feel old then and now that that grandson is 25,I think I look great for "a woman of my age". The big secret is that inside I am still 33!!! But, don't tell anybody - there are definite advantages to being a "cranky old lady". My grandma was 104 and still played cards twice a week (in her own apartment, serving oodles of appetizers and nibbles she made), other grandma was 99 and made bread and doughnuts every Saturday for the retirement home she lived in - for 25 years straight, because someone told her that she could not live alone at 74 - pshaw. That is my goal - to still be a fruit farmer and be making homemade jam well into 40 years past retirement -- that's started 10 years ago as I retired at 55 so I could get out of the stifling corporate workplace to sell my jams and baked treats at my local farmers market every week, making people happy with "old-fashioned" so I still have 30 years left. I'll be 66 come June and have wrinkles galore - every single one I've earned. I went to my 25th reunion in 1988 and saw such despair that I vowed never to go again. They all, like, stopped living past high school or college. Could not relate. They had no "present tense". I greatly object to obituaries that cite from whence and where someone finished high school or college as if that made them who they were and then -- they stopped. I much prefer the obits that say he/she loved their family and what they did to show that, or took in strays, or painted murals, or knitted hats for preemies, or grew gorgeous roses, or volunteered at soup kitchens, made great casseroles, or knew how to prune bushes and trees, or drove cross country with 3 kids, or helped out at a preschool, or whatever REAL THING they did AFTER they graduated umpteen years before. Those people I can relate to, not the ones whose ONLY accomplishment in life was that they graduated. Nancy

Luvs and Anj, thanks so much for the warm welcome! :) We are creeping closer to purchasing a new home (across town, higher ground! LOL) but wow, do those wheels turn slowly! Luvs, believe me, the whole question of "why do you stay" has been asked of us many times, sometimes in a very caring way and other times in a very grumpty, how-dare-you kind of way. Most times, people don't even really want to know the answer - they just don't know what else to say, or they want you to know they DON'T feel sorry for you. We believe that we have ALWAYS made the right decision, even after going through two floods. This time, we chose to move - the house was damaged beyond reasonable cost of repair, AND we knew that emotionally we would not be able to go through it if it happened a third time. But we do not regret having lived there as long as we did. And yes, we were VERY glad to have the camper as an option - it has allowed us to still be on the property, keeping an eye on the neighborhood, as many of our neighbors are not in their homes and it is attractive to vandals. My painting is all based on One Stroke and basic tole painting so far. For my roses, they are definitely One Stroke (though there are a few other artists more "impressionistic" in style that I would like to emulate as well - Priscilla Hauser for one... oh my goodness, I LOVE her florals!) ... on the blue ones, at least for the ornaments in the picture, I used a light blue and white, over an ivory background. The white was not pure white by the time I was done blending, though ;) Your red-and-black solution to the "pink" problem sounds like it was right on the money... I knowI have used red and a very dark red before when trying to paint poinsettias, but probably black would have given the result I was really looking for. The cherries are on a flatware caddy I painted for my MIL - I thought they looked very good for not being very complicated, they are just a couple of face-to-face "C" strokes, with some floated shading and a little light reflected. Anj, my heart certainly goes out to your hubby's grandmother, I hope things got back to normal for her - I can't imagine the level of devastation down there... it is so depressing to live in a ravaged environment like that. I'm crossing my fingers that we will get into the new house VERY soon!! Thanks again - I will definitely be sharing more stuff as I get going again!! Best, Janet