Ahhhh, the lazy part - been there, do that too! Dance With Me - I've heard it is hard so I never got it. Earth Angel - grows like a weed, love it. Ice Age Trail - I had it, got it as a young TC and grew it in a pot but it didn't survive this spring. I've seen pics of IAT purchased from Jim's Hosta that were big and gorgeous. It also is a streaker plant and will produce other streaked plants from seed. If you get it, save me some seeds. Touch of Class - gorgeous, don't have it but have one of the look alikes named Dream Weaver. It does very well here and intro'd by Kevin Walleck, our current AHS prez. Jewel of the Nile - another KW intro and it grows like a weed here. Paradigm - a classic, yes to it. Liberty - a new one for me last fall. It almost didn't come back and when it did was puny. I dug it up and potted it - the leaf is 1" and probably won't make it back next year. I replaced it, it has only produced one new leaf - I hope it comes back next spring. Liberty is a sport, probably tetraploid of Sagae. I highly recommend Sagae for the look, the margin just isn't as wide. I don't have any of the others and have heard nothing about them. For a balanced hosta garden, make sure you bring in solid colors to offset the patterned cultivars. I didn't because I love all the same type. I then had to go back and bring in some solids and to move things around to please the eye. It is the same as the daylily addiction - we bring in our favorite colors, look around and it becomes blah, so we then bring in other colors to liven things up. Some good blues in different sizes I recommend - Abiqua Drinking Gouard or Love Pat - great color, upright growing. Small blues that hold their color late into the season - Blue Jay and Fragrant Blue. Dark greens - Fried Green Tomatoes, a couple of Lakeside plants that I can't remember right now. If you want big, try some of the sports from Sum and Substance - Sum It Up, Bottom Line and Sum of All. Big, fast growing, all with edges but not "clashy" edges. They are all dark green. Other must haves - June, Paul's Glory or St. Paul. I know you don't like the skinny leaves but consider Ginsu Knife, has a slight light margin but lots of rippling on the edge, Marilyn Monroe, lighter green with ripples and Queen of the Seas, big blue with ripples. These offset the big round leaves that I love. For golds, Choo Choo Train, Sweet Sunshine, I think, hybridized by Solberg and a couple more Lakesides I can't remember, really make the shady areas pop. Have fun as another addiction starts. Could I also interest you in orchids?????????? Brooke

Mia, Thank you so much for the kind words. Dr. Smith had practiced medicine here in this county for 50 years. There are just no words to explain how important he was to everyone here. He was not only a fine physician, but a well-respected much-beloved leader in our community. Today I believe we will have the largest and most well-attended funeral ever held in this county as everyone comes together to celebrate the life of this remarkable person. Bon, I want to be mad, but instead I find myself trying to look at the situation that occurred as a tragic accident and I truly have compassion for the gentleman who hit him. A couple of years ago, a young girl suffered fatal injuries in an accident involving a miniature train here. It would have been understandable if her parents had shown anger and bitterness toward the gentleman who was driving that miniature train, but they didn't. They showered him with compassion, forgiveness and love instead of anger and bitterness. Their example of such grace and wisdom in the midst of such a terrible tragedy reminded me that we can choose how we react to tragedy, and they chose to react in the most incredibly loving way possible. I believe their actions set an example the rest of us here in this community will try to emulate for the rest of our lives, and even now at this time of such heart-wrenching grief, I hope we all remember that the person driving the vehicle that hit Dr. Smith surely deserves compassion and forgiveness as well. Was I angry when I thought of the senselessness of the accident? Sure, but you cannot dwell on that anger and you have to let it go. For this community to heal from this tragedy, we have to focus, I think, on how Dr. Smith lived, not how he died, and we need to celebrate everything he meant to everybody here for so many decades. It is hard when a community sees one of its true heroes pass away, but this community will get through this. People here in Love County take seriously the fact that 'love' is a part of our name, and I know this will sound silly, but it is true. Every single person I've ever met here will do anything and everything in their power to help someone else, whether it is someone they know or just a stranger passing through town. It is what makes living here so special. People here in this county do not have an "us" or "them" mentality. As a community, we have a family mentality, that everyone here is our family and we all have to love and take care of each other. It is simply the most amazing place to live. We live in and with love for everyone here every day. I think of our community, no pun intended, as love in action every day. I do feel better about y'all burning cedar knowing it is inside a cast iron stove. I assume such a stove would contain the sap and not allow it to escape. It is good to know the fire department is nearby and that they have a good, sturdy building. I know from experience that it takes years of planning and fund-raising to get a fire station like that funded and built, whether the department is a professional one or a volunteer one. It took us three years to get our fire station built, and a few more years to get the entire interior of it finished to our satisfaction. Unfortunately, until you have an official fire station building, your department cannot apply for government grants (which are hard to get anyway because so many departments need them and competition to earn one is fierce) and you surely cannot easily get a loan either. You really aren't a fire department without a station, as far as governmental grant-funding organizations are concerned. Looking back, I am amazed we ever were able to scrape up enough funding to build our station (which is huge and beautiful to us but not fancy). We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Sam Noble Foundation, based in Ardmore, which gave us a significant grant that paid for a good-sized portion of our fire station. We wouldn't have this station that allows us to serve our community within their generosity. Tim said to tell you that the ash from cedar is sort of sticky like creosote and builds up in the stovepipe, so y'all need to keep an eye on it and clean it out as needed during the winter season! We just don't want a terrible tragedy to happen to y'all. Dawn

We got our ele. last night as I posted and have had it all day....our town and Eufaula is under a state of emergency kids will probably be out all week.....the roads are just solid....a few little spots showed thru on the highway (266) in front of our house and that is it...we went sledding on a hill at the end of our road today and you can see I-40 and the trucks were barely making it up the hill were we live....one almost didn't make it crazy.....Brian drove Sydney into work again tonight...and we will pick her up....all around us people who have REC ele or EC are out....OG&E that we have are good to go...think all our new lines and power poles are holding tight from 2 years ago when we had the really bad ice storm.. Figuring Mingo is out of ele..........Stacy

The threat of blister beetle poisoning to horses is a very real threat, and if a horse ingests enough blister beetles while eating hay, it can be lethal to the horse within a few hours. As far as I know, this is no cure. At lower levels it can make horses sick with symptoms like colic, but at that lower level the horse usually survives. I know horse people who avoid using alfalfa hay (unless they grow it themselves or buy it from the first cutting) for that reason, but in really horrific drought years, sometimes you have to buy whatever kind of hay you can find that is being trucked in because the hay shortage is so severe that you can't be choosy. Here in OK if you grow alfalfa for hay, you usually can get your first cutting cut, baled and stored well before the blister beetles show up. I don't think I ever see any of the blister beetles before July and most first hay cuttings down here are in May. I don't use neem often enough for it to affect the plants, Amy, but I've read the same thing about neem being systemic. Genearlly I never would use a systemic pesticide (not even an organic one) because I don't want to eat a plant that has taken up the pesticide within itself, so I probably don't use neem more than 3 times a year, and I just spray it on whatever specific plant has a problem. I don't like the smell of it either, but if you need to call in the big guns for a big pest, neem's a great choice. If it is any comfort, George, blister beetles seem to arrive in mass, do their thing, and they go away. OSU says they have only one generation here in OK, so I guess that is something for which to be grateful.