I had a lot and I do mean a lot of fire blight last year. I first started noticing it in the pear trees around the first of May. By the 9th of May, it was in all the pear trees, Asian as well as European. I was cutting out hugh garbage bag fulls. By the 21st of May, I had done three major cuttings. It was not until May 27th that I cut fire bight out of the apple trees. A lot of the apple trees had been very aggressively pruned the previous winter and numerus water sprouts were present. This is where a lot of the shepard's crooks were found. This is the first year that I readily saw the golden droplets of the fire blight dripping on other parts of the fruit trees. I lost three trees from fire blight and have about three that may not survive this year. It was not until September 3rd. that I finished cutting out fire blight! The last trees that I cut fire blight out of were Cox Orange Pippin, Lodi and Hewes Crabapple.

I have hardly no bees in my area, all the insect population has almost gone hardly any flies, at one point they were all gone. I live in down east maine we are a longways from any pollution or industry. I have had grasshoppers for the last few years lots of them but this year not a one there were bees in the spring right alone with grasshoppers but it was as if they disappeared. what ever is going on it is not good for anyone of us, and what ever it is it is happening every ware at the same time , think about that, what can effect the entire nation at one time. is anyone aware of other countries that are have this happening to them.

Honestly, I hadn't noticed any slowdown. But then again, I have barely been on lately. I'm swamped at work, and have all sorts of things being planned for the family and such. I've been checking in, but had little time to post. I have a hard time believing anyone would leave over a comment made about where pictures should be posted(I made such a comment, but don't know if this is referring to me or just a general thing). For further thoughts on this see Dianas post. I agree with her fully. I am also guilty of posting a pic thread, but rarely commenting in others threads. To be honest, it takes a lot for me to post a comment on pictures. I'm not going to post in everyones thread just for the sake of proper board etiquette(what is that old saying? If you can't say something nice...). I'm not that kind of guy. If you do something extraordinary, trust me, I'll comment. JMO, I am sorry if you feel judged. Trust me, this is not the case. I have been coming here for a couple years now, and it has always been a great place to talk gardening. Sure, there are those that have been here forEVER, and all seem to know each other, and post more than others, but newcomers are always welcome, regardless of posting habits. Lets not look too deep into this folks. We're all busy people who love gardening. This forum is a great way to share our interest. Post how, where, and when you want to, but use common sense when doing it. Simple as that.

Jen after you install FF, do a search for Ricks easy list, download and install it. It will go where it is suppose to go and will stop a lot of ads. You can even block pictures or any ads by right clicking on the ad/picture and then clicking on something in the next menu, ad filter I think. Not the pictures poster post, but the ones on pages like this one. The only ads I see are the green text on the right side of this page, they are no problem.