This is an extremely interesting discussion, which I came upon after reading California Melissa's comments about Hybrid Perpetuals in a thread I started and got started thinking about this topic. I want to add my comments about Mediterranean climate as I know it. Our garden is in the northern foothills of the Apennines in northern Italy. Our climate is probably pretty typical of that of a good deal of the country, a little warmer and dryer than in the Po Plain below us, chillier than on the coast. We grow temperate climate fruits, bulbs, and roses without difficulty; but Italian cypresses and pines, for example, thrive here, and olives do well in warmer areas once established. The Mediterranean climate as I know it, without achieving what most Americans would consider serious cold, offers chill hours in abundance. Most years in January and February we have week after week of temperatures in the thirties and low forties, with cold periods in the upper twenties. There have been warm winters in the twelve years I've lived in Italy, when it was possibly to go out in the garden and work comfortably for most of the winter, but I've never known the tulips to fail to bloom, or the plums, pears, and cherries to flower and fruit. A fact I like to quote to U.S. friends is that we live just south of the 45th Parallel, about the same latitude as Bangor, Maine. Many Americans don't realize how far north Europe is, including much of Italy. The climate is different here. We have a hot dry summer, but we also have a long winter and a pronounced spring and autumn, and although temperatures rarely fall much below 20F, winter is plenty chilly, in part because the days are so short and it's humid a good deal of that time. I agree with comments in this thread that the flowering of the once-blooming roses of European probably depends on a complex group of factors, and varies from variety to variety. But I do want to explain what cold is where I live, in an Italian environment of a common type. Melissa

Well then, that must have been my problem because I did double the recipe!! I didn't realize you couldn't! I know you're not supposed to fool around with amounts in recipes so you keep the acid ratio correct, but where this was just strawberries and sugar and nothing else in the recipe I figured it was ok! I guess not! And I measured out 4 quarts of whole strawberries. The recipe was 2 quarts of strawberries and 6 cups of sugar. It didn't say to cut them or mash them before measuring - in fact (I'm remembering off the top of my head here as I don't have the book with me) it said to crush the strawberries one layer at a time and then to mix with the sugar, so it sounded to me like you measured the whole strawberries, then crushed them and that's what I did. I'm not going to fuss with what I already made - as I said, it won't go to waste as hubby will use it as pancake topping - we've even been known to plop a spoonful of jam in a bowl of oatmeal, so this stuff will work for that as well. But I'm glad I spoke up because for future adventures in jam, I wouldn't have known any of this and would probably have given up on it if I kept failing! And I thought it was weird that the jam recipe that used the pectin used an extra cup of sugar from the one without pectin. I've learned so much from just this thread - thanks so much guys! I want to take my next adventure into the realm of peaches! Peach jam sounds yummy and if I fail again, hubby does like peaches, so he'll have more pancake topping than he knows what to do with lol!! Lisa

I fell asleep on the keyboard again. You should be OK with just about anything. I was at the logitech site taking a look at the G3. It looks like its Logitech's answer to the Razer Copperhead. I guess with the G3 you have the option of just plugging it in or downloading the drivers. You do have the option of switching back and forth or between 800 and 1600 DPI before you download the drivers...and I'm not quite sure what that means. I don't know if that means you can choose which of the two DPI's you want or if it means you can switch back and forth between them at your leisure if you don't download the drivers. Amazon is selling it at 47.00...we are getting higher in price. There are only three user reviews ... but it looks comfortable to use, and if it is plug in and go...with the option of downloading Setpoint (what you use to program your mouse ... if you want) nothing could be easier. Its a thought.

Assuming you did your tests as described, it does appear reasonable to suspect that this could be related to the installation of the smart meter. Without getting into all the debate about smart meters, and only looking at the possible way the meter could affect something connected to your wiring, there are really just two possibilities. One, could be noise on the wiring caused by something like a poor connection in the meter base from oxidation on the socket contacts, which may just require it to be reseated. Do you have any flickering in your home lighting? Two, would be if, as weedmeister suggested, the power company is using PLC - power line carrier/communication - for the link. The are a number of communication options available that are being deployed often depending on geography, the number of meters, and the utility wiring infrastructure. The most common are RF wireless access point, RF relay network, RF mesh network. They all typically transmit in the 900-925MHz range and would not be a source of your problem. There is however PLC which is used in some areas. The data is modulated on an analog carrier between 10-500kHz over the power lines and could, although highly unusual, possibly be the cause of your problem. You said the problem does not occur on your UPS power but if is not an "always-on" UPS, the most it could be doing is using it's EMI filter to remove any interference. Your next step would probably be to call the utility company, but first you may wish to find out the type of communication method used by the smart meter to the utility in case it could be PLC related.