Good growing! Congratulations. The blooming season of catts varies so much, some of the brassavola hybrids bloom on every new growth. Others have a seasonal bloom: winter, spring, or fall, a few in summer. Some, like aurantiaca and hybrids set a sheath that develops over the winter, blooming in spring. I think most catts bloom in late winter-early spring, between about March and May-June. Some, like BC Maikai, start showing spikes in Oct-Nov, some of the spikes appearing without any previous sheaths Etc etc Look closely at the newest growths, see if you have a little sheath. If so, keep an eye on it, see if it starts to get fat. But actually, when I was growing catts I often just found spikes (in season) where I hadn't noticed anything before. Same is true of other varieties. It seems like suddenly, they're there and yesterday they weren't. So don't give up hope for blooms on your catts. If you have any fall or winter bloomers they are getting ready to surprise you.

Yes, I would agree that my kids are very tough on CDs and DVD's, one scratch will render a $20 movie useles. For this reason, I copy most of my CD's onto my hard drive, where I can either watch them on my computer, transfer them to my Ipod or burn to a DVDRW disk for a backup (for personal use within my own home, of course.) I found two programs that enable me to do this seemlessly. One is Slysoft, Any DVD, available at at www.slysoft.com. When installed, this pgm runs in the background, and it will "decode" any decription written into most store bought CDs to prevent copyright infringement. The other program is Vault 360, available at www.bambootech.com, which will format all your movies into the correct format to download and play on your ipod, PSP, or PDA device. Of course, be aware that copyright law prohibits the use of such software for any other use but backing up a dvd or cd to protect from wear or accidental damage, etc. --John

I am in my late sixties and having seen my parents living on borrowed money I decided early on that I would not do that. Recently my husband who has dementia lost the use of his legs. Not having things in place I had to obtain a guardianship. In doing this my attorney asked if I could live only on what I owned. I set up a separate bank account for this and found that I could barely get by. I am lucky I could cash in my E bonds to cover the rest of my expenses, car payment, house and car taxes, and insurance on them. Every time I changed jobs I put the retirement funds in CD's. Most things do not pay more than a couple of dollars of current interest. Having invested in the E bonds I could cash one a month for years. The reason I suggest the Roth is that when I finally start withdrawing from my 401 we will be in a higher tax bracket unless I decide to file separate. Roth's were not available during most of my working years or I would probably have them. The downside of spreading things is that when I die some things might be missed since most of my things are handled electronically.

i wish you would get rid of them also ... but.. that said ... on any shrub transplant ... every leaf is a machine to transform sunlight into energy .. when you have one with few leaves.. just leave it alone.. and allow those leaf to grow the roots to get the plant established ... and after it is established.. then you can prune it for shape and form ... pretty sure you can cut it to near the ground.. and let it regenerate into a more natural shape .. next year ... but think hard about just getting rid of them.. there are just so many better options.. i dont know why you would waste precious space with them ... bigbox is the problem with these being sold nationwide ... wish we could stop them ken