I've never seen bedbugs except for the pictures on the web. Kath, I hope you had no hitchhikers. You certainly took plenty of precautions, I bet you'll be fine. One of the conference rooms at work had been infested with them. The managers wisely selected a different room for meetings for about a month. The exterminators were in on the day they were first seen. Speaking of bugs, today, I am finishing up debugging the tropicals that spend summer outside in prep for bringing them in for winter. We are supposed to get into the thirties Friday and Saturday evening. I used to always use a systemic, but this year I am trying something that I saw on Facebook. I am submerging the pots and as much foliage as possible in soapy water for half an hour. I am wiping all parts that cannot be submerged with the same soapy water, then rinsing when I pull them out. In theory, this is a great idea, but I have been using more and more lightweight foam pots to save my back. Foam pots float :-) I've been settling for allowing them to float sort of sideways and rotating the pot so all areas are submerged at some point for 30 minutes. We'll see if this helps with fungus gnats. I only have the 4 biggest left to do today, I got 8 smaller pots yesterday.

It's great to see your good news about your checkup posted. It seems there are a lot of nice young men out there still. I have run into quite a few recently. Warms the heart.

What a spectacular house and setting! No, I wouldn’t paint the cedar shakes. The natural look is perfect with this color scheme.

I mowed - again - today, I had just mowed last Thursday but the grass was so high already. Normally I don't like a "sheared" lawn, but I set the deck too low on my mower and didn't realize it. Since it would look weird to do the rest on a higher setting I continued. Golf course like lawns make me uncomfortable! lol Besides all the little wild flowers got their heads chopped off. Maybe I won't have to mow for awhile now though it being so short. There are so many violets and other wild flowers in the orchard that I have a hard time mowing them, so I leave small patches here and there. The ground itself is still very damp. Sometimes when I sit on a chair at my small table down there, a chair leg or two will sink right into the soil sending me backwards. I've learned to be quick to jump off! I think I will plant ever bearing strawberries in my mailbox cover this year just for something different. They will have a white bloom and hopefully have berries most of the summer. At least that's what I envision, will see if it works out.