Pat thank you so much for the Holiday wishes. Going right back for you also and the gorgeous pictures. I LOVE IT!!! Hope you have a wonderful 2010 and that we can share many great moments with our love to brugs, together. Lucy

As Dishesdone used to say "Happy Everything to Everyone, and a Merry Always!" Merry Christmas to everyone here, and I'm wishing you a healthy and happy New Year. Annie

Carol, I already thought of the smuggling. I could add a lot of cuttings of roses like Evelyn for you to play with, along with the Tones, of course. Yeah, a bargain on the fertilizer. I just don't understand the pricing---if the roses from Canada that we buy here are reasonably priced, why is all the US stuff so high priced in Canada? I know, I'm sure you've asked yourself this question many times..... How is your weather? Ours is just awful for it being nearly April, and I haven't started pruning yet. We have icy breezes that make it so much worse. Meanwhile, I'm still forced to look at a dead, big, toppled over Olivia, still slightly attached to the ground. No, she isn't alive, and she looks awful. But everything else still looks awful, too. The roses are all green but that's as far as they have gone with our weather being so unpredictable. Has the horrid vertigo gone away yet? I am hoping so. I'm also tired of posting old pics and want some new stuff to look at. Have you looked at the spring thread and read what Ben posted about the rose hybridizer and head of roses at the Huntington, Tom Curruth? So interesting, and sometimes Carruth posts incognito on the forum. I hope David Austin, jr doesn't come on this forum in disguise. He might not like what we say about his company. Sleep well, Diane Bernstein-Rose My only not very good photo of the calendula I grew for many years (the neighbors old fence is long gone). I was trying to find this to show Deborah. Now the quail won't let me grow calendula. Frederic Mistral, a rose of complicated centers

Merry Christmas to all. Julia, too have spent my fall vigorously working to recover from the time off. It is still not finished, but I will try to post a couple of photos to show the mess that the back was in. and here is a more recent photo: still not finished but much of it is done...spring will be another work and I am getting very much along in years too. I have cut down and hauled over over a hundred little saplings. mostly oak or Mimosa but a maple or two and one magnolia tree. (courtesy of the birds.) The stumps are all painted with Remedy so they will not return. In Alabama, and I am sure it happens in other southern states as well, weeds, grass, trees, etc will grow very thickly if not managed constantly. My husband can no longer do any yard work other than grass cutting where the land is clear, so I had better stay well this year. Anyway, this is what I have been doing in November and early December. kay