awm : thank you for the sweet and supportive wishes. I sure hope your ride goes well. Two of the folks I am with have done that ride and loved it. We are indeed fortunate in the support we get from our families. tina thank you too. I will keep up the updates as it helps to clarify things in my head too :). I am glad you are enjoying it. golddust. we had flashing lights but it was just a miserable set of circumstances....hopefully not to be repeated. Glad you like my TALL tales. Sue yes it never has stormed today but we have had a fine time. We walked several miles to go to a Dollar Store and to stretch our legs. Time for a nap I think. Your trip sounds wonderful. I bet you will always cherish that time as will I this trip. Most likely won't do another as I don't want to leave DH this long again but this one time it is good. More later. c

I will echo the others against leaving the cats alone for five days. Talk to your vet and get the name of a reputable cat sitter. My cat sitter came to the house to meet my cats (years ago) and they grew to love her. Before leaving on a long trip, the sitter always reminded me to change the batteries in the thermostat (if it was winter) and she kept a folder with information about my preference for a plumber, electrician, etc. After all her years of pet sitting, she'd seen/experienced it all. Really, it's good to have somebody set eyes on them once a day. It's worth having that peace of mind while you're away and it's kinder for the kitties.

Congratulations! I would first carefully pinch off the flower bud. It very likely won't be very attractive and it will definitely sap strength from the plant. You are spot on about gradually removing the bag so the plant hardens off. If you're having rains right now and the temps are not extremely hot or cold, you can easily harden it off under the rains. If not, keep it where you have it, but lift the bag gradually, to expose it to less moist, less controlled conditions until you can completely remove the bag. The plant is going to show you whether you're doing it properly or not by how it looks. Plants will "talk to you", if you watch how they respond to what you do to/for them. Learning to listen with your eyes is the key. Good luck! Ya done good!

This reply goes way beyond your question, but hopefully there is an answer in here somewhere. Words have changed meaning over the decades so I'll try to define my terms. If you read the old Farmer's Almanac from prior to the 1940s they refer to manure as a fertility enhancement. Back then anything you put on the ground, ranging from raw animal dung up to purified chemical fertilizers, was considered to be manure. Everything. Nowadays the word manure usually refers to animal dung in the fresh state. It stinks. Once animal dung leaves the animal it begins the composting process, but the bagged manure you can buy at the store still stinks to high heaven. After you use it still sinks for several weeks. There is another product class called composted manure. You never know what you're going to get with this. True compost is finished when it smells fresh as a forest floor after a summer rain. I used it get "aged" manure at my daughter's horse stables. I looked every bit like fresh dung, but it had been sitting for a year. You could scoop up a double handful and plunge your nose in it and get the fresh aroma of excellent soil. That's what you should smell when you buy compost or composted manure. Sadly that is not always what you get. If you are using an organic fertilizer for the first time in years (and years) it could be your soil does not have the full population of beneficial microbes to decompose the organic fertilizer. If you are new to organics, you might apply at half the rate (10 pounds per 1,000 square feet) and follow up 4 weeks later with a full dose of 15 to 20 pounds per 1,000. The 'aroma' you get from the modern grain type organics is a mild sour milk. You will notice it, but your neighbors will not.