Thanks to both of you, I have been checking ebay for the past month, hoping something was there. My thought in posting here was...that someone who remembers seeing them might be able to describe them better than I can. If I knew what the images or design was, this could help me locate them better. Hopefully, I can get a picture of them at some point. The one I seem to remember is Winter. It did not have the typical snowman or christmas tree motif that most seasonal flags have. I think the colors were white, light purple and maybe a sage green. Not the usual winter flag colors, but very cool in tone and feeling. I think it had a rectangular field of harlequin pattern and some item in the middle like a family crest or something similarly shaped. Could anyone elaborate on one or all of the flags design if you have seen or remember them? I know it was a while ago...but we would love to find a set, new or used! (Correction to first post): Smith & Hawken was the seller as the subject line says. I have just ordered some shades from Smith & Noble...which explains the slip-up in my post.

Tree Oracle...nice to see you posting again. :-) Amazing photos! Clouds can be so fascinating. I have not seen anything like that myself. I didn't know the name of it, thanks. Thought you might enjoy this photo... A rare, mother ship cloud formation hovers over Childress, Texas. Tornado-chasers there covered seven hours and 150 miles (241 kilometers) tracking the supercell thunderstorm that produced this cloud formation. Supercell thunderstorms are known to spawn tornadoes with winds exceeding 200 mph (322 kph). Photograph by Carsten Peter I'm sorry to hear of all the damage from the weather in NH and ME. That's when it stops being any fun at all. Dawiff...I hope you brought your watery garden to the attention of the neighbor. Brother...lol. I just checked the rain gauge again this morning terrene..2 more inches of rain. So 3 inches yesterday emptied out, 3 the day before and another 2 today. 8" altogether. I wonder, when you get this much rain all at once, does it penetrate deep enough so that even if we go a couple of weeks without any more rain, that there will still be a reservoir for the plants to go to? Or do the plants just suck it all up? What I find disturbing is seeing so much water running into the streets and into the storm drains. There has been a lot being said recently about the contribution to water pollution this makes. I keep eyeing my property to see if I could funnel the overrun so that it would not run off the property, but I have such a level lot, I would have to create a depression somewhere not too close to the foundation. I suppose it would be a great place for Hydrangeas and such and I am always complaining about my dry soil. Raingardens are a big thing in the Chicago area to clean up the Lakes. I am thinking about whether this would be a nice idea instead of collecting rainwater. Actually, it is amazing to me that every summer can be so individual. This year is nothing like last year, and although the year before, I barely had to bring out the sprinkler because of the frequent rain days, the storms were nothing like the downpours we've had this year. pm2 Here is a link that might be useful: [Rain Gardens of West Michigan](http://raingardens.org/Index.php)

Hi, Val, just thought I'd show you the botanicals I've framed, just to give you more ideas, but it sounds like you have it almost all figured out. I have enjoyed watching your room come alive! I got all my botanicals off Ebay too & decided to do ready-made frames and had custom mats cut to make the prints fit in my frames. I used 16x20 frames with inserts of 10x13 openings. My botanicals are slightly smaller than the insert, so to fill it out, I used black mats on all of mine & I love how it makes them look more important. That touch of black all around really makes the botanicals stand out, I think. Whether this is proper placement or not, I have no idea, but it worked for my eye. I have framed several sets of these in this same way & will show you all the pics of how I've used the black mat exactly the same way. These were standard black frames from Michaels & came with the ivory mats inside with the glass & these had a black border built in on the inner ivory mat already, I just added another custom black mat to fill in the space that I needed to fill to fit my botanical. I know you can't see all the details on these pics, but hopefully this will help you some: This one is open frames from Hobby Lobby & I bought standard mats & again added the custom black inner mat so the botanicals would fit. HL does a great job with adding mats & glass & very reasonable. These gold frames came from Tuesday AM & they had the ivory mats with gold edge already in them, along with the glass. All I did was again add the black inner custom mat & it was done. I found this to be the most cost effective way to frame these odd-shaped botanicals.

Well, I thought I was done, but the women forced into prostitution got me back. This is from the National Park Service and I will provide the whole link below since it is an interesting read. I do think that one needs to be careful making blanket statements that may leave an impression of something that is widespread when indeed it is not. Happens today in politcis all the time. Anyway, here you are, for better or worse (the bolding is mine): Few southern homes or women escaped the ravages of war but in comparison to slaveholding women, poor and working class white women, like enslaved and free black women, faced challenges from the outset that were more profound and difficult to surmount. Food scarcities and a shortage of materials needed for home manufacture meant that there was little they could do for themselves or their soldier husbands, fathers, and brothers. The riots highlighted the growing desperation of the largest class of white southerners andthe growing clarity of their political reckoning. Poor white women found work making and packing cartridges in arsenals, as laborers in the Confederate Clothing Bureau, and in Confederate hospitals. Some turned to prostitution but the vast majority continued to grub minimal subsistence from the soil. For most, even those who found wage work, the Confederacy increasingly appeared as a failed state. Their efforts to redefine patriotic duty--their men could contribute at home, many advised, as well as at the front--came to naught and efforts by the Confederate government in Richmond and state governments to relieve hunger among white southerners proved vastly insufficient. If the fight was a rich man's fight, it was also a rich woman's fight, many poor whites came to believe. Sometimes, they joined slaves in celebrating the destruction of the big house. I would also note that every war is horrible and maybe someday, men will realize that and decide to refrain from it. NPS