I've heard snow thunder many times and it is eerie. With the winds blowing right now the snow is really drifting and is blowing between my front doors. Snow seems to be tapering off a bit. Can't believe it is going to be 40F on Tuesday and then my backyard will be one giant swimming pool. LOL Great pictures! Jaggs looks so cute in his coat out in the snow. I'm glad Loki is a lab because I don't have to deal with snow clumps in his fur. My friend Dave sent me an email saying I got what I wished for. I've been sending Dave emails for 2 weeks saying things like "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" and "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" LOL He hates the snow. Anne

I'm with SG - if I had a dirty (well, not 'dirty'-but something with my smell on it) t-shirt, I'd be using it right now. Capone doesn't have a crate, so he's in the tiny closet of one of our spare bedrooms. He does a lot better in there than curled up in a corner somewhere - almost no panting. My s/o and I have been debating this issue for a while. His pov is that it would be better for the dog to get used to it now, there will be a lot of storms between now and when he is old. I agree to an extent, but feel it is more important that he feels that we will keep him safe. We don't coddle him, so to speak, when it is storming.... but I will sit with him for a few minutes at a time if he just gets too excited (after an especially loud, vibrating-the-house bolt of lightning, he'll start shaking and panting incessantly).

raven - I'm sorry you lost your cats to kidney disease. My outside group are all getting old and are starting to have some of the elder cat problems. Also, I am currently taking care of a cat with hyperthroidism, an ulcerated eye and a skin allergy. He is in the beginning stages of renal failure. I am shocked by the litter box and the amount of urine he is putting out and the amount of water he is drinking. I'm also trying to get him to eat more canned food, but he really only wants the gravy out of it. He is eating dry food just fine. If anyone has any tips or things to keep an eye out for, I would appreciate it! Snidely - don't be too sure of your training abilities or those of your dog. My dog was 4 years old when that first incident occurred. I think that unknowingly we may have fed into the fear because we were also knocked right out of our chairs on several occasions. My poor 92 y/o neighbor was in tears the next day when we talked about it. The people responsible are setting off large firecrackers and also professional fireworks both from land and on the river. They will do only enough to not get caught or to pinpoint where exactly it is coming from. Now we have been several weeks and not heard anything. Either they got caught or the supplies are gone. If it happens again I will make it my mission to find them. The inconsiderate jerks even turn the lights off on the boat. Dangerous business considering all the stumps and cypress knees. adellabedella - people like the guy with the aquadam should get a tax credit. That's pretty cool but there are many people that could never afford that. So glad that guy was able to save his home.

Kim, Hooray for the miraculous recovery. I had a lemon garden for a couple of years and it was one of the most fun things I've ever done. It was so fun to hunt down all the plants that had lemon scents, lemon colors and lemony names. I still have my potted lemon tree. Don't forget Lemon Boy tomato for your lemon garden! Hazel, There are people who take theme gardens to extremes that I never would, but that is partly because I grow so many edibles. Many (though not all) theme gardens are built around a backbone of small trees, shrubs and perennials that fit the theme, with annuals as needed. Within the confines of growing an edible garden with only a few perennials on the edges, I have grown rainbow gardens many times---where each raised bed featured one color of the rainbow, in the same order that the colors appear in the rainbow. I did that for 4 or 5 years and it really broadened my exposure to veggies, herbs and flowers of every color. Of course, the colors green and blue were the most challenging as this was well before we had actual blue tomatoes, but I still grew an old heirloom variety of tomato called "Blue" though it certainly did not have blue fruit. It had fruit that was blackish-pinkish-purplish and wasn't worth eating either. I'd like to do it again sometimes, but it does take an enormous amount of planning, plus an enormous amount of seed-starting to have plants from every color of the rainbow. Still, I'm glad I did it. I'd never grown many green flowers before that (only Envy zinnia) and found it fun to grow Bells of Ireland, Green Wizard rudbeckia and green-flowering gladiolus. I was younger then and had a lot more energy and spent a lot more time in the garden in the heat of the summer. I've also grown a Chocolate Garden at times, featuring plants that produced dark flowers, dark foliage or dark produce (Chocolate popcorn, chocolate tomatoes like Cherokee Chocolate and Chocolate Stripes, Chocolate Habanero peppers, etc), dark colored flowers (basically dark red or maroonish flowers that could sort of pass for chocolate), and chocolate-scented flowers. Just thinking about all the work I did with those theme gardens in those years makes me tired now. I wonder where I found the energy back then? Dawn