Whew, George! Had me worried for a minute there! Yup, it's definitely cold tonight - 18° now, with a wind chill of -1°! The only annuals I have out so far are bachelor buttons and poppies, neither of which has sprouted yet. That 68 degrees the other day didn't fool me - been there, done that. Kinda ticked me off , actually, because the heat was still on full blast in the subway cars. I'll be starting more of my annuals in 2-3 weeks; hopefully, we'll be over these wide temperature swings. But one never knows ... Let us know how your sprouters fare. PV

It'll probably come on again. That's why I love watching TNT, TBS, and others like it; you've got more than one chance to catch their shows. I had read all about it in the paper, but there's so much information that hadn't been included. He waived extradition and he's in the Jackson County jail awaiting trial. He confessed, told them where he buried her and they were able to find her up by Tom Steed. He said it was an accident, but I don't think anyone actually believes that. Before they caught him, he tried to run and they said he was trying to go down a river in a canoe to get away. Isn't that crazy? One of the daughters was on the show because she was with him when they tricked him into coming into the Hill County sheriff's office. She was mad at first, but they had a tape of an interview from when she was 5 that they played for her. On the tape, the interviewer asked her where her mom was and she said her daddy rolled her up in a rug and dumped her in a ditch. She obviously didn't understand what she was saying at 5, but that would be horrible to hear yourself saying that now. It was horrible for me to hear, so I can't even imagine how she felt. They also talked to her mother, before and after the case was solved. She said in the beginning that she didn't think she would've run away, that something must've happened to her. At the end, when they told her they found Tracy's body, she looked so relieved. At least she has some closure now. And if you watch, the town is not really as rundown as they make it look! Leslie

Karen= water is fine and so is superthrive and SNG which are more tonics than fertilizers. Stop watering when the leaves are all gone. Misting is fine on leaves just cut the Bill's fert. out Your plants have enough to keep flowering but a shot of very cold can cut the flowers. Bring in at night will protect and keep the flowers going. I bring in the house because it is 70 degrees whereas under a cover or in a garage is much cooler. This is only for plants I am trying to see the late flowers on. Any regular plant is ok under a cover or in a garage especially (Joe)in Huntington Beach where you can just leave plants out because you almost never really get a hard frost. It is a real pain to move twenty seedlings or plants inside every night and then back out in the morning. And I remember thinking, is this marine layer going to burn off or not at dawn before I went to work. However, the extra growth I got for the effort was eventually worth the work.

dedtired, I checked out Dukestown and found that is part of the old iron working town of Tredegar in Monmouthshire, probably so called after the then local land owner the Dukes of Beaufort. Today the place does not have much going for it after all the closures of the mines and heavy industry. A run-down area of high unemployment with all the problems that brings. However the countryside to the North, known as the Brecon Beacons, is very beautiful in a rugged sort of way, with farms in the lowlands, lots of streams and small rivers, tiny villages and lonely farm houses. You can read about the general area in the fiction of Alexander Cordell; the best known is The Rape of the Fair Country set in the time of the Industrial Revolution. In this area of South Wales there are a series of 'valleys' running generally from N to S. The roads follow the same pattern as do the narrow rows of houses. The people seem to have little contact with their fellows in the next valleys to the E or W. It used to be a place of gaunt-looking chapels for a Sunday, Male Voice Choirs and brass bands. And the women rule the roost! The Tredegar/Dukestown valley is the 'Sirhowy' named after the river which runs through it. Here is a link that might be useful: info on Cordell and the area.