Outsmarting the tree rats (squirrels) around my house is a full time job. This past spring I hit on a new idea. When I plant a container I invert an empty wire hanging basket over the container and the plant gets sun and can be watered but the squirrels can't dig in it. Another idea: I bring in a lot of plants to "over winter" under lights in my garage. I have so many that it is hard to reach my hand under the lights (4 shop lights) to the middle for watering. So I bought a pump sprayer with a long wand and it works great! In late winter I add a little liquid Dawn detergent, few drops, to each gallon of water and not only does the soil get wet easier but the worms that are waiting to hatch into distructive pets just don't hatch. Don't know what it costs me to run those four shop lights all winter but I don't care. It is a small price to pay to be able to "garden" every weekend in the garage. Many people have mentioned that they mark their outdoor plants with a "permanent Sharpie". In my experience there isn't a "permanent Sharpie", they all fade and quickly too. A grease pencil/china marker or expensive "no fade" garden center marker are the only markers I have found that won't disappoint you by fading. Eight years ago I decided to learn about gardening so I tapped into my local library. I checked out nearly every book they had on gardening and learned so much. The Gardenweb forums are also a wealth of information and entertainment. There is always something new to learn and I appreciate all of you who take the time to write in your ideas. One last idea from me...I keep a small notebook on my computer table and jot down any idea I find that's new and I will want to try. Little pieces of paper get lost but I always know where my notebook is and also use it when I order "on line" so I will remember the name of the company and the order date. Tina or Trowelgal

Susan, I love your light stand and always will love it. I realize it was the best solution for you, but if I told Tim I wanted to buy one of those, he'd hand me a hammer and tell me to build my own....which is why I have the one that I have. : ) Mine is hidden away out of sight in a room where guests rarely venture, although anyone who knows me and who knows I raise my own seedlings always asks to go upstairs and see it in the spring. So much for putting it out of sight....I just should have set it up in the dining room or breakfast room or something.... I am sure you'll be deliriously happy with it and will have many wonder seed-starting adventures and I look forward to hearing all about them. I think you got a great deal considering it was Gardener's Supply. I never buy anything of theirs for full price. They have sales often enough (and especially in November when, I think, some of us gardeners are shopping for ourselves) that a person can be patient and get a good price during their periodic sales. I've noticed that prices often are not as good in December when gardeners' spouses or family members are doing what I call "panic Christmas buying" and cannot afford, time-wise, to wait for a sale. I don't think you were repetitive at all. The more we all share about what we do, how we do it and why we do it (as well as pointing out what didn't work for us!), the better for all of us to learn from one another's experiences! Carol, Our weather is just like yours. Our high was 70 degrees yesterday and it was so gorgeous outside I could hardly stand it. I wanted to jump up and down and scream "Spring Is Here!". That was exacerbated by the smell of the orange blossoms on my little orange tree. However, I controlled myself because I knew it was a false spring and that winter was returning today. It was 56 degrees around 7 a.m. here at our house and now it is 36 degrees and we have had very, very light rain but lots of thunder. Phooey on winter! I think you showed those folks at the co-op that one benefit of being a gardener is that it keeps your muscles and joints strong, healthy and fit. I'd rather "work out" in the garden any day, than walk on the treadmill or work out on the weight machine. Who wouldn't? Trees, Nope, sorry, I just haven't gotten to it. I am trying. Watch for it in a couple of hours or in the morning. I'm about to start typing mow after I close up the chicken coops, put out the deer corn for my favorite deer, refill the bird feeders (those little birdies are eating nonstop today trying to stay warm), etc. I'm kind of dreading going out into the cold wind but I need to do it now before it gets dark. I have to warn you that I don't use the same planting schemes every year because I don't want to get stuck in a rut, but I'll try to mention some of the planting schemes in my usual rotation. Dawn

Christmas of 2005 I volunteered to do The Dinner for 10 extended adult family members; I planned a relatively simple meal & it should have been a breeze. Christmas morning, DH's nephew decides that his vegan girlfriend can join us after all - terrific, I'm serving tenderloin & the stores are closed so where do I get vegan food for someone I've never met. SIL saved the day by bringing trophy sized shrimp for appetizers & we saved some for her entree. First crisis averted. Then everyone (except me & SIL who are scurrying like rats to get food ready) are in the greatroom/kitchen drinking, eating shrimp & opening presents & DH cuts his finger on a new pocket knife. Blood is flying & about the same time, a bowl of vinagrette gets knocked out of the frig sending an oily mess everywhere. Finally, dinner is ready & everyone is seated. I plated & served the 1st course of oyster stew with the last 2 bowls given to an elderly lady & myself. I guess most of the pepper had settled to the bottom of the pot & we got the dregs; she choked on the pepper & had a huge coughing spell. Next, the entree was put on the table & it wasn't until later that I realized that I placed a huge platter of very rare tenderloin directly in front of the vegan! In the meantime, I went to pour red wine only to find that DH & his BIL had drunk all except 1 bottle of the good stuff, leaving the rest of us with an amount equal to communion. We decided to take a break before dessert & DH went to the basement to feed the dogs while everyone was settling in the living area. We waited, & waited, & he didn't come back. Finally, I went downstairs & found out that he had passed out on the couch & was dead to the world. That was the last time I've done Christmas Dinner for a crowd. I have no plans for future Yule festivities for this bunch, either. I just remembered: on his way out, BIL missed the step down to the public sidewalk & broke a bottle of port.

I survived, but not unscathed. Some didn't. The saddest funeral I ever attended was for a little boy I babysat; his mother didn't secure him in a car seat. He was thrown from her car and killed when a drunk driver hit them. When we had children I knew that I could not protect them against every bad thing, but I could take reasonable precautions. My mother didn't want to be inconvenienced by having to use car seats for my children, so I solved that problem by not letting them ride with her. Once I was 10, my parents rarely knew where I was during the summer or on weekends, since they played golf frequently. Sometimes Mom would forget to leave the spare key in its hiding place and I'd be locked out. If I had money I could ride my bike 3 miles to the DairyQueen to buy a Coke, but if not I'd get a drink from a neighbor's garden hose. There were worse consequences of their inattention, but I won't go into that here. None of us worried about sunblock, although we did use baby oil to keep from drying out while we baked. Everyone in my family has (or had) skin cancer, as do many of my friends. The ones who continued baking as adults now have skin that looks like tanned leather, dotted with light spots from the removal of melanomas. There was a lot of underage drinking, as well as a lot of partying by some of the parents, but I was too afraid of mom's beatings if she caught me drinking so that was postponed until college. Back then, the legal age was 18 in many places. There was also a lot of pot, in the schools as well as at the beach. Some people experimented with hard drugs; a few had very bad results. One dear friend, who was in my honors classes in high school, was artistically and musically talented while his siblings were focused on science and math; that didn't go over well at home. He self-medicated the emotional pain, then spent the next several decades in various psych hospitals. My mom nagged me about befriending a certain crowd at the country club, not knowing that the most "popular" kids were also the biggest dealers at the beach. In college (a good Jesuit school), the drug of choice for most students was quaaludes and I'd guess that at least half the students indulged in both pills and pot. Keggers in the Quad were common Friday afternoon events, with various student organizations hosting a party almost every week. Despite the lack of restrictions on drinking, there were other strictly enforced rules, and several girls from my dorm were sent packing for having guys spend the night. The guys' dorm was much looser, and RAs looked the other way when girls were there after visiting hours. I never saw a pregnant student on campus, but I did know/know of several girls who suddenly transferred to the state school back home. This was before folks knew about HIV, so physical barrier precautions were scorned and the Pill was popular. My last roommate graduated a semester early, filled with deep hatred toward all men and a nasty case of genital herpes (which freaked me out, naive as I still was.) It seems like people were less informed about drug interactions or concerns about mixing certain Rx drugs with alcohol. A friend died because she didn't realize that she should not mix alcohol and her Rx. The authorities guessed that the combination made it difficult for her to recall if she'd taken her proper dose and she accidentally over medicated. I know that some warning labels seems like too much CYA litigation prevention, but I wish the health care industry had shared more information with patients sooner. My husband grew up in the midwest, and his experiences or recollections are worse/scarier than mine. His family lived in an affluent bedroom community of a large city, and all of the kids attended various private schools. He had a devoted and loving mother but she was so busy with a very large number of children that she couldn't have supervised all of them adequately even if she thought it necessary. It just wasn't common for parents to be so involved in the '60s - '70s, for better or for worse. The kids did enjoy a lot more freedom and seemed to become independent sooner, but there was a downside as well. Underage drinking was one problem, but drugs were much worse. When I look at my children's generation, I wonder how many of their medical and behavioral issues are related to their parents' drug use. When I got to college, I was stunned to learn about the extent of drug experimentation (cocaine & LSD, among other things.) So I am one of the lucky ones, just because I'm still alive. But I have scars, both emotional and physical, that will never completely fade. I tried to find a balance between being too lax and hovering with my own children, but what I thought was being prudent was seen as overly protective by my parents and in-laws. Yet my kids still climbed trees, rode zip lines, shot pellet guns, went white water rafting & kayaking, flew in ultralights, tried snow skiing & snowboarding, etc., and I have plenty of grey hairs to attest to their exploits. ;-)