Hello all, Thanks for a fabulous swap. I owe Matt a special dinner or three for loading the truck and staking out the spot! I am so excited about all my swaps, and the great scores from the Gambler's Circle. I am such a plant-a-holic! Even after the swap, a great visit with Sean & Bev - who gave me a bounty of plants, (I'm her backup / insurance garden) I was still sorely tempted to stop on the way home from Vienna at a roadside plant sale of fabulous blooming sweet williams... Matt saved me from that danger, but only just. I think I may need to get a fourth arbour to hold all the climbing vines from last year and this year :-) This is the first time I've smelled my vining honeysuckle from a trade a couple years ago, it's is the middle of the Friendship garden out front, and is usually tough to get to for all the tall plants. There aren't as many self seeded sunflowers this year, so I was able to tiptoe over there. My garden is so much richer and fuller for all the trades and happy memories of friends who have given them to me. Thanks again, like Ross I am already looking forward to next year's swap. But I am rather daunted at the task ahead of planting all my bounty! Thank goodness a large number of boring iris and black eyed susans are getting torn out this year, that'll make some easy room for newbies. Cheers, Heather / BlueIris3 Hope to see you all at Signet's picnic in daylily season.

Autum it can be staggering on the cost of lots in some areas. We are really low end here from about 12K for a city lot which are 50 by 150 ish. They vary. We bought half an acre for 19K. Wish it was smaller but to get what we wanted on the lot we needed this much because it is a triangle. So we ended up with more dreaded lawn than I wanted. My friend has two houses one huge at 6 bedrooms two story.Daylight basement being one of the stories. Barns out buildings and a second smaller two bedroom house all on almost 10 acres for 160K. So on the other end of the scale there are places going pretty darn cheep. Certainly more than we want to deal with no matter how inexpensive. As far as DIY it is so much harder as you say the older you get. Some thing that I could easily do in an hour and not even batting an eye takes me so much longer now and I some times have to think if it is even worth it. And with my DH 10 years older then I am I can not always ask for his help now as I need to consider if it will cause him as much pain if not more than me. I was just thinking today to get it all done as fast as I can now or seriously consider hiring some one to help me. I just hired a guy the other day to lay some pavers in the dogs yard to lower the mud level in the house this winter. There was just one little corner needing to be finished filled in.He lifted and carried four pavers at a time when I would struggle with carrying ONE. And my knee does not work=bend like it should any more. Needs surgery I have to wait on. My ankle is still healing from a fall a year ago.I struggled to carry an end table this morning to move it from one room to another. A few years ago it was not hard to move.And I still have not finished painting the inside of our house and usually I have a house painted inside and out in the first year. This was a new house but builders paint is crappy. NOW the outside needs painting too. Next year and we all will get to decide what colors. So glad this is a small house. The cost of paint is staggering now and where I buy it in Oregon they added two dollars a gallon fee for?? some thing about the environment.GGGRRRRRRRR

On Mon. I talked to landlord's son, about rent cheque, he said Dad had gone to their newly-purchased cottaqge 80 mi. or so north of Toronto for the weekend, so he was a long way from here ... and how was my driveway? We got only a small amount of snow, being 20+ miles s w of London, so I said that I could see dirt. He came and blew it out on Tues, and I thought that I should have told him not to bother, as I wasn't going anywhere, anyway. On Tues. afternoon I visited neighbour's, we thought that it would be a good idea for me to go home. But, being addicted to internet ... ... when I left their place, I turned north, about a ten mile trip to the main village where I use computer ... the road was good all the way, to I spent time at KT.En route home, I'd wondered about taking a bit longer route home, but found only a short distance of rather heavy going near a farmer's field where the road isn't higher ... but there was space so I drove partly in the other lane, there being minimal traffic on that road. No schools busses running, schools had been closed, in London and north of there. On Wed. my friend whom I'd helped move said that I could get a chest that he was giving me, so I went to town and got it, plus got new tires to replace the one that I had, which were almost as bald as I ... or is it that I was almost as bald as they? Library closed, I went to another, several miles out of my way - sign on door saying due to weather conditions, all libraries closed. But I went to the village where I was Tues. ... that library was open. Landlord arrived early Wed. evening - there'd been a 17-car pile-up about 20 mi. e. of London on the freeway, they had to detour. He was on his way home then, came to see that I was O.K. (my furnace wouldn't start, a week or so ago): he's a really nice guy. Got home safely, last night. I have a shovel in the car, and some extra clothing (but not much food, no candle). Was scheduled for visit this morning with laser clinic where they'd shot foamy irritant into my leg in early fall, and after a couple of weeks I had the embolism, as the lady wanted to check how I am. I've had no discomfort since the day of the embolism, and have been able to do pretty well what I did before. It seems that the hematology doc figures that my leg is clear, so he doesn't figure that the embolism came from there ... and it seems that I had two of them, so one must have been silent for a while. I may be on rat poison for a half year or a year ... or maybe for longer (if I'm still around) ... ... but I hear that if it's under five years, I don't start looking like a rat. So ole joyful hasn't got stuck and is getting along fine. Haven't heard from Iva Mae. ole joyful

I said cat thinking I had a bag in my hand, but it was a mesh for bigger animals, so the cat could easily slips through the holes; pity, next time I will pay more attention to what I hold. (I've got a hope for late spring) grelobe