veilchen: yes in general it is milder here, because of the costal location (We have the sea all around us ...so it takes longer time to get cold here (water takes longer time to cool down than land surfaces) than places with inland climate) and as long the the west wind blows and we have a constant stream of low pressures coming in from west it is mild here 34-45 degrees most of the winter. But every year a high pressure builds up and the bitter cold from east and north comes our way and temps drops below -16F- -10F or more for weeks sometimes months. And then it is certainly a zone 5 here and I choose roses accordingly. Only push the zones in sheltered locations and south facing walls. (Last winter was more like a zone 8 winter ...never seen that before here!!!).I always hope the winter is going to be mild ... At the end of winter in February and march we see very low temps since the ocean has become so much colder ... but yes a zone 5 with inland climate is much colder for longer time than here since the cold are more constant and comes earlier than here where we see great fluctuations. I love Papa Meilland. For me it is the quintessential red rose. Dark red, with a sheen like velvet! And a very, very strong perfume. Perfume Exceptional as Meilland says... It may not be an easy rose to grow (very mildew-prone here) and the plants are very small and barely hardy here. I have a few groups with 3-5 plants in my garden and a row of 12 in my cutting garden so I can cut one of these wonderful red roses many times during the season. There are many better HTs out there that are more disease resistant and hardier than this and looks better as garden plants...but that exceptional strong rose perfume and the velvety petals make forgive the flaws this rose have. And sometimes I am lucky enough to capture the beauty of almost perfect flower like this one... I really do like all classes of roses ... but I prefer roses with a very strong scent. Yes I also like the glowing colors on the Autumn picture. It may not be very sharp and a bit out of focus, but it did not make the impression worse since it captured the essence of Autumn some of the places I go fishing (Another one my hobbies). I sometimes make large prints of some of my pictures and frame them. I have really bought better cameras and lenses and hope you will enjoy some of the results next season. And no I do not Hibernate ... These days I really try to get in better shape so I can handle working harder ... making gardens for my clients (which takes good strength, especially a strong back and stronger shoulders)... I swim, do Pilates and work out with weights and work on better and healthier eating habits. I have lost 45 pounds during the last 15 weeks. I also need to take some courses so I can make some good homepages. One for my garden design business and one about the joy of gardening and roses. And another one about flyfishing and flytying (I am one of the best fly tiers in Northen Europe and have won many awards for my innovative designs). So I certainly do not have time to hibernate. Soon the holidays are coming and I am visiting friends in Chicago and Iowa. Hope to get to meet Foghorn Leghorn and maybe Aliska? Take Care all of my rose friends on this forum. Niels

Hi all - Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes! My Aaron " 8 mos.> has started to crawl and pull up on things. He is a real handful weighing 22 lbs. He was 8.5 at birth. He is a big boy and doesn't realize his strength. When he grabs , he can almost pull us down. Wow, the boy is strong.... Thank you. tina_2 Here is a link that might be useful:

Cool Bri!!! First time I've met other hams here on the forum. Yes we both have our extra class licences, but haven't touched the equipment for a long while. I spent over a year working with my EC8 novice licence when we were restricted to using morse code only....no voice and on very small portions of the radio bands.....40 and 80 meters, and a small corner of 15 meters. I used to use an inverted vee antenna strung across our back garden and go though the night transmitting with an old straight key to Russians and Yugoslavians until the sun was coming up, using my Sommerkamp FT One rig, often QRP with very low power. The filtering on that equipment was awesome . It was such a challenge though as those Russians and Yugoslavs were working in very fast morse. The Italian hams also were fast and powerful. We also had a big three element beam with rotor that was great for contacting west coast North America and rest of the world but it blew down in one of our windstorms. And now we just have a small vertical antenna. I graduated to an electronic keyer for morse and had a wonderful time as many people were calling and wanting QSL cards from our EA8 area, which is classed as an African contact. After further exams and more morse tests I obtained my extra license and could them work all over the spectrum, including 20 meters which was always so busy it was intimidating. All exams were of course in Spanish so it was challenging to be studying electronics in that language. Do take morse if you can....it really is great to be able to communicate worldwide and is so exciting to think how far you can go with less power than a small lightbulb. Our station is quiet at the moment and we have to clean up the equipment and do some checking over of cables and contacts as there was so much humidity that there is some corrosion. Our German friend who comes regularly to stay with us keeps his equipment in another room here and works a lot in our station using his German DF3UT callsign in Pactor mode. Wolf is EA8AJS and I am EA8BUO. Small world eh? Sorry to highjack your birthday thread! Congrats to your husband and good luck when you do your upgrade. (And do the CW exam anyway, even if it's not mandatory. You can have great fun on the bands with it!) SharonCb

Thanks girls (and sisters! lol)! Yes, I have turned the big 5-0. I spent Friday night and part of Saturday in the historic district of St. Charles (Missouri). I rented a room in a bed and breakfast and had a girl's night with 2 of my girlfriends. Friday night we went bar-hopping. There are about 15 bars/clubs on this street and we went to over half of them, did a little dancing. Posed for some pictures with a biker and an old classic car. Caught a ride back to the inn on a rickshaw thing that was hooked to a bicycle. I was wide awake most of the night... I learned later that one of the free birthday shots I received could have had a good amount of caffeine in it. So after about 3 hours of sleep, I woke up feeling very much "fifty". We ate a carb-filled breakfast at the inn, then headed up the street for some shopping. Had to stop for a burger and more free birthday cake. Got home after lunch and had a couple hours before we (DH, DD and me) were leaving to go to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate my birthday with a couple friends. DD and I split a chicken pasta dish which was delicious and then I ordered a slice of the cheesecake/carrot cake combo. I ate way too much and left feeling worse than I had that morning. As soon as we walked in the house, I got a nice phone call from Charlee wishing me a happy birthday. Anyhow it was a nice memorable couple days. I'd share some photos (ones took earlier in the evening lol), but I took pictures on my DD's camera and that slot isn't working on my computer. I'll see if I can get them put on a disc at Walmart and share them later this week.