Thank you everyone. All things considered I feel pretty good for a week post op and I'm behaving quite well. doing only what I'm supposed to do. Drippy, those chipmunks are not funny and they sure aren't "chip and dale" either. Never mind the garden bed destruction that they create, the holes that they dig can be dangerous if you get your shoe or foot caught in one of them and go down. A year ago I did just that and tore ligaments in my ankle. The little boy that used to live next door got his foot in one when he was 4 and broke his leg. Now if that isn't enough insult here's more to add insult to injury. An article in the newspaper a few weeks ago said that chipmunks are a major carrier of deer tick now, more so than even deer and that could be the cause of a massive increase in the number of Lyme Disease cases being reported. Not that i needed an incentive to do everything I can to get rid of them, but that sure added a whole new layer to doing it. Then a friend called me last week the day before I went to the hospital to warn me that she was working in the gardens a month ago and she unknowingly disturbed a chipmunk that jumped on her arm and ran off. She didn't notice that she had a tick on her arm till the next day because it had attached right on top of a birthmark. 2 weeks later, bingo she has the classic bulls eye rash on her arm and has lyme disease. Chipmunks are not very smart. They can't swim, but will be more than happy to dive into water to get sunflower seeds and drown in the process and that's fine with me, right along with eating my datura as well. e-mail me if you want some info on chipmunks that like to dive for sunflower seeds. Bonny, the livingston daisy was WS by a friend of mine. There are 3 of us that share the WS for 3 gardens. We cane up with the idea to share it all after a couple of years of all of us sowing the same seeds then coming to my spring plant swap and all having the same extra seedlings. Didn't make sense so we split it up now. We end up with the same number of containers, more of each kind sowed, but the total variety is split between the homes and we end up with an even bigger variety of plants for the beds. Vera the color of that viola is beautiful. If you have any seeds for trade in the fall, I'd love some and will send you some of mine. PV, sow those seeds for next year. No matter how many of them you have, sow all of them cause they are a funny seed to germinate. My experience with them has been strange to say the least. My first seeds where from valueseeds.com. got 3 packets, 30 seeds in each packet and sowed them in early March. just sprinkled on the top of the soil cause they are small and tannish in color. Out of those 70 seeds we got 6 seedlings. Not a very happy camper that there, but I collected every single one of the seeds I could get my hands on from the plants and it was a ton of seeds, more than 1/4 tsp. Next year we sowed every one of those seeds, and I kept thinking OMG, what will I do if thousands of these seeds germinate. Well, no such luck, we got 20 seedlings last year. Figured ok, better than the year before and we will always have to sow every single seed we get. So this past year I had more than 1/2 teaspoon of seeds. We sowed 4 mushroom containers of seeds, the 10 ounce size container, put each one in a ziplock baggie and put them out in mid April this year. just an experiment to see if a later sowing would make any difference in the germination rate. They began to germinate on 4/29 the exact same day as the prior to years, and they where slow. But this year we saw how the seeds germinate. they swell to at least twice their original size and all but germinate 1 seed at a time. honest. But there was a huge difference in this years germination. We had mushroom containers totally covered in seedlings. so many that we couldn't separate seedlings and planted hunks of them every where. My neighbor across the street still hasn't planted hers out yet and the entire container is covered in flowers and seedlings covering the container. We have to have thousands of seedlings this year. On top of that, we have seedlings of the viola popping up all over the place in the lawn and my neighbor has several popping up in her yard as well. Doesn't make any sense to me why on the third year with the seeds, second year of collecting seeds we have mass germination and the prior 2 years including the first year from commercial purchase the germination was very poor. Fran

Very pretty! Seeing the raindrops of the flowers is making me feel nice & cool! I think I like S. Double Classic best, it always has wonderful blooms.

I have the KitchenAid KUDE70 model. I was able to get an employee discount so it was significantly cheaper than Miele for me. The 3rd level cutlery tray does take some time to get used to. I took the regular silverware basket out right away when we got it. My family has never even seen it so they don't even know that is an option :) I love the 3rd level tray for ease of putting silverware in & out. Loading it isn't perfect for me. My dinner knives have chunky handles and they don't fit in any of the slots perfectly. We have come up with ways that work, but I still have to think about it and we've had the DW about 6 weeks now. I trained my family (hubby & 13 yr old son) right away that the silverware would not only go into the 3rd level tray but that it would go in sorted. teaspoons to in the top left, forks bottom left, dinner knives top right etc. Hubby got it right away. I made my 13 year old son resort if he did it wrong. I even called him out of bed to do it a few times. He learned pretty quickly..think it took about a week. Same with improper loading. I always make him redo stuff until I'm satisfied with it. I will give instruction but I make him physically do it. I think now he mostly has it down. The middle rack where the glasses go in the KUDE70, I do not love. None of my glasses fit great in it. The raise & lower ability is nice, but I find the hardware to do it cuts into this rack...I'd especially like to have the flip down 2nd layer all the way down the sides of this rack. Lower rack does not fit my taller dinner plates in the center location..I have to be careful to put them more on the sides. Cookie sheets do not fit unless I raise the middle rack to the upper position...but then my glasses don't fit. So, I now handwash cookie sheets. Empty space where the silverware basket comes out is very useful for pots, casserole dishes etc. Dishwasher loads feel smaller than my previous Maytag. I have to work harder to fit everything in. This dw is so quiet that when it turns on, I can really only tell that it is running from hearing the gurgling in the pipes. It has a delay start but we almost never use it because running it right after dinner while we're still in the room isn't a problem. Love, love, love the integrated custom panel. You can't even tell I have a DW. Make sure you get a panel made for the lower toe-kick area too.

It does seem really late this year. But the first day of Nov is a Friday so it does move that 4th Thursday out about a week. That same long weekend? We have a Christmas party to go to. A large lunch (maybe 65-70 people) on Sunday the 1st ;0( I got the first phone call trying to firm up plans and dates for the Christmas lunch in July! And told our niece - I don't want to talk about Christmas in July. She discussed it anyway. And the invitation came in the mail about a month ago.