Look, I started this thread because I wanted some advice about a particular structure that I seen in a Farmtek catalog. AT THE TIME, I wasnt thinking about actually purchasing equipment labeled as "cold frame equipment", or any other thing else that can be used permanantly and for several years. I had my eye on a particular structure that can be disassembled annually. I wanted to use this in an area of my property that I have used for hardening off. However, after talking with several people here, who have enlightened me here, I have seen where I can spend just a few more bucks and get a more permanant structure, and POSSIBLY learn how to do it myself. Okay---INSTANTLY, my brain went into overdrive. I HAD NOT PLANNED ON DOING THIS SO EARLY. When the time came for me to build any permanant structure, it was going to require tearing down a rather large dilapetated shed, building a large greenhouse, and rebuilding another shed. A very daunting task that we are not ready for yet. I never planned on having any kind of gh/coldframe this soon. Now, I am planning on building this on a separate part of my property. And since I have made this decision, I am all excited with nervous energy about every detail. When I started this, I wasnt thinking "cold frame",and I can guarantee that because,in my neck of the woods, no one refers to as it as a cold frame. It is simply "an unheated greenhouse". Mentioning the word cold frame around here is referring to those flat boxes with windows on top, barely 3 foot above ground. Once I understood what you all were explaining to me, I then realized that we all were talking about the same thing, and yes there are other posts about cold frames, but I did not START this one with the same thing in mind. Cactusfrak, first off, I swear I had no idea that you were a woman, none of what I said about "average women" is directed at you. Okay, maybe where you are from, a large number of women are skilled at carpentry, but around here there are NOT. I swear I did not mean to offend, I was simply trying to explain myself, and make it clear that I am the average woman. Cactusfreak, second of all, I am VERY sorry that I made you feel like people are attacking you via email. I SWEAR TO YOU THAT IS NOT HAPPENEING. Though, I can see why you would feel that way by my stupid "thank you for the private emails". I swear, I wrote that as a sincere thank you for those who took the time to let me get to know them better (rather than typing out all personal information on the thread). Cactusfreak, no one is attacking you, I was defending myself against what you said ON MY THREAD about how you feel about a few things. How could you not expect me to get my own feelings hurt? I have read your name on dozens and dozens of posts with basic questions, and never once did you feel the need to say that you dont feel you should give out information anymore because you have invested years into your research. You even shared a story about a woman who will not tell anyone anything, they must "pay her" for her hard work and years of research. You never shared such a thing before, yet you did it one MY POST. And I was supposed to just take that with a grain of salt? PLEASE REREAD what you wrote, and try to veiw it differently. Have you ever said such things to anyone else before? Will have to finish in 30 minutes..........

Ezzirah, You're welcome. I've found I have a lot better gardening success when I focus on giving each plant what it needs and that's especially true of vegetables. They just won't perform if they are too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry. Susan, I remember "spit baths" too. lol The cold doesn't scare me. I have an order of 5,000 square feet of floating row cover scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, so I can do as I please (within reason) and just cover it all up. Now I won't have to decide which plants get covered and which ones don't. I still will have to decide which plants get the premium 8-degree frost blanket (I only have 120 s.f. of it), the midweight 4-degree row cover, or which ones get a more lightweight covering that gives about 2 degrees of protection. However, at the present time it is a moot point because there's nothing in the ground now that can't survive freezing temperatures although it is always in the back of my mind that the minute I put tender vegetation in the ground, frost will come swooping in unexpectedly to try to kill the plants. My problem is that I have nine thousand things going on at once and I can't even seem to find the time to get anything planted. Between the fires and company coming to visit, animals needing attention and care, a lawn that needs mowed and weed-eated and watered and a house that needs cleaned, and so on and so forth, I've barely stepped foot in the garden the last 4 or 5 days. Tomorrow, I'm going to get up, go straight outside and get busy planting and I'm not going to let anything distract me. Next week's cold spell bothers me a little and would bother me more if I were further north. I'm so far south and the soil temps are averaging above 70 at planting depth, so a brief dip at night won't bother my plants because I can cover them. I sure wouldn't even contemplate putting tender plants into the ground if my soil temps were still low or if I didn't have a way to cover up and protect them. We need for the cooler weather to return and hopefully it will give some of us some rain. The humidity here is so low today (right now it is 16%) that my skin feels like it is cracking, and we need moisture in the worst way. Part of my "to do" list today is to water the soil around the foundation of our home and outbuildings. That's usually more of a summer type task. Dawn

Khalid: I didn't see your message until I came back to this thread. Thank you for what you wrote: " I regularly use black tea with ginger and cinnamon. Honey (with black pepper if I have a source throat), cardamom (small and large), garlic (as part of all our curries), onions (an integral part of our curry), as well as a few more herbs, spices etc." All those have anti-viral and anti-bacterial .. I agree with using food as preventive medicine, rather than dangerous flu-shot (combining virus). Carol: Glad to hear that you are back on schedule .. I am delighted to hear of your progress & success. It feels SO GOOD to have looser pants, and I wish everyone have that experience with daily exercise. Sam: does your Achilles tendon hurt to wear shoes with heels? I don't like shoes with heels: one of my foot is shorter than the other. I actually do more exercise on the treadmill than outside ... I can wear my husband Walmart open-heel plastic clog, I insert a memory foam inside ... and wear that on the treadmill. I wear size 7 woman, but I need a BIG shoe to insert the thick $5 memory foam. The plastic clog has bigger toe-box than running shoe, plus no need for lacing.

I came down with the flu the night of Xmas. 11:00 PM Dec. 25th. It took me about 10 days to feel at least partly human. The first five were pretty scary. I was pretty much out of it and survived on water for the first 3 and a little bit of orange juice for the next 2 before I could eat a bite of anything. It took another 2 weeks of the coughing after I was able to live a normal eating /sleeping pattern. My cough was so bad the cartilage between my ribs and sternum became inflamed. That problem came and went until the end of last week. Today was the first day I rode horseback without pain. Hopefully I have paid all my sick dues for the year.