You sure have an eye for pieces that work well together! I love all your totems and would be hard put to come up with a favorite. Something like this one would look great in the garden ... even next to dead plants! lol Keep those pictures comin'! (I never tire of seeing totems myself.)

Ok, we have possible snow in the forecast for tomorrow!!!! I started to harden off because the days have been warm and sunny but I'm afraid with all of the rain and/or snow in the forecast for this week they will get very very leggy. Should I put everything back under the lights when they can't get into the sun?

For my major assets, I want solid, strong, dividend-paying companies (except for Berkshire Hathaway), as they usually drop much less than the more volatile ones in tough times. Those are my long-term, dependable things - the ones that I want to be around when reirement comes knocking at my door ... especially if my health is such, or stress in the workplace such, that I welcome retirement. I play the risky games with a small percentage of my total asset - I have held telecoms, but very little of the ones involved with the high-tech bubble that burst, splattering bubble gum over many folks' faces, a few years ago. Not wise to put major money into such volatile things, especially when they've been growing like crazy for a while. With my core things, I just buy 'em and leave them sit. Perhaps I could be making slightly more return on the 8% or so of investable money that I'm carrying in bank accounts, money market, etc. But I'm not too worried, as I don't expect to have it there very long .. and the difference in after-tax return would be more or less peanuts. And, especially in the Canadian context, I don't like earning interest. Interest is taxed, here, at top rate - much higher than that on dividends on Canadian stocks. Interest earned means that, while the principal can't shrink, it can't grow, either. That requires that I take a good portion of the remaining after-tax interest, to add to principal in order to keep purchasing power intact. I prefer to buy a good stock, let it grow, over time, and see the dividend payout increase as the price of the stock does. That looks like double-barrelled gain, to me. Being taxed at low rate on much of the dividend income is gravy, to me. And not needing to be taxed on the growth in value of the stocks until I liquidate, a tax deferral, suits me just fine. It is more or less equivalent to, or similar to, a tax-deferred retirement account ... but when I liquidate (my choice) I get some freebies, which don't happen with the retirement account. Then, when I sell them, getting half of the gain free of any income tax suits me just fine, as well. Do I worry much about fluctuations in the market? No. Sir John Templeton, and various other money managers, planned to stay fully invested, all of the time. Actually, I think that is wiser. Then, as markets drop substantially, borrow some and buy more, cheap. As the price rises, use some of the savings that you'd been collecting to buy more, later, to pay down the loan. And I've been following (but, so far, only partially investing in), a system that takes a couple of hours a year to manage and whose Canadian component has grown at about 14% over 20 years, something over 20% better than its underlying average. I don't know the rate of return that the comparable U.S. system has produced, and it might need some tweaking, for it's based on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is a very small component of the total U.S. market system. Good wishes for wise maney managment and increasingly skillful investing. And don't forget ... some losses here and there are the tuition fees in the University of Leaning How to Manage Money (and pay less income tax, or later) - or so the investment group that I've attended monthly for about 7 years says. They meet all summer - say that money works 24/7/12. ole joyful

You'll be heading through Alabama during the worst conditions if you leave tomorrow. We've got two to three more days of heavy rains, winds, and flood conditions predicted. Travel advisories for our state are to "stay put" unless for emergencies. There's a Panama City 24 hr. weather station on the t.v. Have you checked it out?