I hope that your community is recovering. In the southern NH/northern Mass icestorm that kicked us off the electric grid on Dec 11, I was one of the lucky ones - out on Thursday, back on in wee hours of Sunday. Some didn't have it until after Christmas. I live alone, so have to be responsibile for taking care of myself and my animals. The critical piece is to be prepared for the worse with supplies of food, water, and fuel, and a plan. While I have an oil furnace, my basic heat is wood. My woodstove kept the firt floor of the house in mid 60's, second floor even warmer. I have a gas cooktop that I can light with a match. I do have a well, and no power means no pump, so I draw several gallons of drinking water when bad weather is forecast. I also have six of those 100 oz detergent jugs (from those days with teenagers, and their laundry) that I always keep filled with water, tucked under the laundry sink in the basement. They are for toilet flushing. By Saturday am, with no idea of when power would be back, I loaded all frozen food into a cooler and put it outside - it was near zero all day, so I didn't lose anything. Just lucky - if Sat had been as warm as Sunday turned out, it allwould have thawed. Lots and lots of berries would have become jam. As for communication - I have batteries for a radio/cd player. I have a cell phone. And I have an "old school" landline that is not one of those walkaround handsets dependent on power. I am going to look into those rechargeable camp lanterns, for reading. By the end of the second night, sitting in the dark listening to the radio, I was getting a little stircrazy. But I could have gone on for quite a bit longer. The only concern was that the basement was getting colder and colder (it connects to my garage) and so if it had gone on for long, and the weather had stayed as bitter as it was on that Friday and Saturday, I would have been worried about pipes from the well into house and below the first floor. And while I had enough water for minimal washing up, I had no way to indulge in a shower. Fortunately, the power was on across the river in VT, so I went to the gym - where I waited in line with a bunch of other folks from my town who had had the same idea. Spending my whole life in New England, most of it here in NH, I'm not surprised by the ugly turn our weather can take. I do get very frightened about what it can do, and so I tend to be obsessive about taking precautions. I was lucky - except for the hemlock branch that joined forces with a white pine crown to take out my mailbox, I didn't have any damage. But walking the dog the day after the storm, ice was still knocking down branches all up and down the road. As soon as she was done, we turned and ran home. And a branch too big for me to pull out of the way came down on the path into the woods that is the backway to my neighbor's. There were many big and old trees in the village that suffered terrible damage. As I tell my brother-in-law when he calls from Florida to gloat over 70 degrees, "up here, we EARN spring!"

In a cold zone where the days can be warm and the evenings still often below freezing, the climate is largely going to dictate what the roses will do breaking dormancy and growth wise and not the pruning. I wouldn't be too worried about pruning now as the advice and caution's related to early pruning is based on more temperate climates where the roses can break dormancy really fast and put on substantial growth. Our roses break dormancy a lot slower because of the colder evening temps... However, if you are concerned, Mad Gallica's advice is solid. Start with OGR's, dead and broken cane and then go prune based on most hardy to least hardy. I've already done about 60% of my pruning here and traditionally am finished by no later than mid-April. There will always be a little more pruning to be done later due to weather changes or some cane not actually being viable.

Maryann, There's nothing wrong with being obsessed about something that's so nice as Baltimore Checkerspots! :) I hope they would like the habitat that we have here. It's rural but not real rural. We live along a road that gets pretty much traffic and our neighbors are just on the other side of our driveway, so even though it's considered rural it doesn't always feel that way, especially when the neighbor's dog barks almost all the time. :( I'm really sorry that you don't think you can transplant the BCs there at your place. So you bring the cats home to raise and then release the butterflies there at your place, right? Do you mean that they don't stick around after you release them? I don't know how big your backyard is, so it's hard to tell if you could keep them there or not. Well, besides, it's not like I'm an expert. I sure wish it would work out for you though. I think you might have said before, but could you describe what the area is like where you go to collect the BC cats? You say they like a marshy area. Isn't that where a lot of water stands? Now I'm wondering what the different is between a marsh and a swamp? Is there standing water where you go for the cats? Is the vegetation real soggy that you sink into mud? Is it an area that gets mowed or is it let natural? I'm just trying to decide if our little 1/8 acre field would suit the BCs. It borders a creek and is wet in the spring that you can't walk in it without sinking into the mud and losing your shoes. lol When summer comes along, though, the field dries up. So I don't know if the butterflies would like it there or not. I plan on planting the plants there that I mentioned above, and I also want to plant some Swamp Milkweed there for the Monarchs. I can't wait to see pictures of your cats and butterflies again this year! :) Cathy

I took this photo today. There's a story there... Sea Thunder has been planted in this location for several years. Last spring, my air conditioning unit had to be replaced - well before the pips for Sea Thunder started showing. The a/c guys placed the new pad for the a/c up to the edge of where Sea Thunder was planted - I wasn't at home at the time so they had no idea what they'd done. I thought for sure it would die... Guess I was wrong. I recently transplanted one of the eyes to another location in hopes that if this one ever does give up the ghost, I'll still have a Sea Thunder around. Minus the a/c unit, I love it's looks. In this location (very bright though no direct sunlight), it does seem to fade much quicker than the others in the late summer. I guess that could also be heat-related instead of sun-related.