I have several friends that work for Parks and Wildlife and they are always telling me how bad things are. Thanks jolana

greg_h calls me paranoid when I say that a credit-card company might find out that you lost your job. I didn't mean to say that the employer would contact the credit-card company directly. Rather, I have no trouble imagining a situation in which an employer arranges with a credit bureau to do credit checks in bulk on prospective employees, and gets a discount in exchange for telling the credit bureau whenever it hires an employee or an employee leaves. The last time I checked my credit report, it included the names of my past employers. I certainly didn't give them that information; but they got it from somewhere. Is it really paranoid to believe that a credit-card company, which surely checks their customers' credit reports from time to time, would have access to that information?

For years, our volunteer fire department has had a fish fry on Friday nights between Memorial Day & Labor Day. It's open to anybody & is widely attended by both year around locals & our seasonal boating community. There's often so many people they park on our property & walk down to the firehouse for their fish/chips. When we don't want to cook on Friday nights we always know where to get a good dinner! Our VFW has two fund raising steak feasts during the tourist season. Those guys are great with their grills & every year have something new & fun to go along with the steak. Our Congregational church is filled with avid gardeners that volunteer time to maintain a specimin garden across the street from the church. Every spring & fall we have plant sales. The sales has become well known & draw people from both CT & RI. Funds raised go to help our sister church in South America. The Catholic Church holds an annual bake sale on their lawn facing the main drag through town. They draw such a huge crowd you can't get downtown until after the sale is over. DH walks down & brings back a selection of goodies for our brunch. The Church also holds a yard sale mid-summer. The Episcopalian Church holds a very large dinner on Thanksgiving. It's grown so large that they request help from other local congregations. We've participated a couple years by driving to pick-up people who otherwise would not be able to attend, eat dinner with them, & then see them home safely. Anybody is welcome at the dinner & there's a donation box but I don't think this event is really intended as a fund raiser...more a community service. Various organization like the Lions, Chamber of Commerce, etc. hold events & proceeds go back to the community in the form of park benches, repainting fences, planting flower boxes, & organizing/conducting our Friday Night At The Movies at the River Walk Park. It's really a fun event with a large outdoor screen & big sound system. People bring blankets, chairs, picnics, & the kids. Great community fun thing to do after you've filled up on fish/chips at the firehouse. Every week, the Seaport holds some type of event ranging from a Food Fest that takes over the town to an antique boat/car show, lobster bake, a bonfire, toasted marshmallows & singing sea chanties evening, Moby Dick Marathon (community locals take turns reading Moby Dick straight through around the clock...this is an annual & much anticipated event), a ghost ship evening held in October, tug boat regatta that is hugely popular with the kiddos. Many of these events are free to the public but if money is raised part of it goes back into the community so they're not just to support the Seaport although G@d knows our national museums certainly need all the support they can get in this age of electronic entertainment. The Aquarium also holds almost weekly events...some just for fun & others educational. Like the Seaport, a portion of any proceeds goes into the community. With two such large institutions it's sorta hard for small organizations to compete. There's literally something happening every weekend that draw crowds. Many of those people also drop by a bake sale, etc. Oh, on most Friday nights there's a local organization selling popcorn & peanuts at movie night in the park...not the same organization every week though. /tricia

Preen is excellent for weed prevention in shrub borders and flower gardens; the label indicates the (relatively few) plants which don't like Preen nearby. Preen is applied on top of the mulch, bark, pebbles or whatever is covering the soil. If not rain is forecast, the label advises you to water it in. It is widely available in the US in both small bags and a large plastic tub. Here in the Southeast it does not last the whole growing season; I usually put it down 2 to 3 times a year. I have extensive gardens at home and also care for shrub borders and a huge public rose garden. It is very effective against weeds which grow from seed. I spend almost NO time weeding, I couldn't take care of all these gardens without Preen! The only weeds I still have to pull in my gardens are oxalis and wood violets which sprout from tubers, rain lilies which sprout from tiny bulbs, and nutsedge, a weed grass which sprouts from a tiny black nut which is usually 6 inches or more underground. So we still have hand weeding to do, just not NEARLY as much. HOWEVER you will not be able to get any flower seeds to germinate in the areas where you have treated, so you may end up eliminating charming things like foxgloves, columbines and morning glories that you may be used to seeing magically appear every year. Preen even has a formula specifically for the Southern U.S.-- the big box stores often don't stock it just the regular stuff. Preen cannot be used in a vegetable garden, but you try cornmeal there. Get a small bag from the grocery store and if it works under your soil conditions, find a feed store and buy a big bag. Remember that wherever you put the cornmeal you won't be able to grow any new vegetables from seed until it completely breaks down. There is a cornmeal product called Concern; if you can look up the label info online it will give you guidance on how to use. I'm no help there, I get all my veggies from the farmers market! There are other pre emergents packaged for the professional; one of these is called Snapshot. No doubt there are others. Just remember that pre emergents are for prevention, not control of existing weeds. Preen does not kill weeds.