THANK YOU to you all for taking the time to respond to my post. I am delighted that I was able to still get some nice photos here and there to keep the beauty alive for months to come. Even thought the majority of blooms were lost, there were still some little 'miracles' in the garden, for which I am grateful. roseberri....First of all, thank you for your kind comment. Geshwind's Orden truly wants to be a climber, but I don't have climbing space where 'he' is so I have him pegged down in a circular fountain-shape which seems to agree with him so far. But he isn't a small shrub and grows very lanky and up, up, and away. There is only one bloom in June, but it is prolific. It will get some blackspot later in the season without spraying, but during its bloom time it is quite healthy. (I don't spray my old roses). I like how the inner petals are a deeper pink than the outer ones. Its quite pretty. sherry....Leda IS one cool chick. I love how her white flower emerges from a blood-red bud, showing just a trace of red on the petal edges. I don't know if she would be happy in FL or not since she actually seems to enjoy my cold weather. Anybody else know? aliska....My Madame Plantier has never repeated. She is strictly once-blooming here. I didn't know she could repeat. But then a lot of roses that supposedly repeat, don't always here (too short a growing season perhaps?). Of my roses listed above, the only repeaters are Paul Neyron, Mrs. John Laing and Louise Odier. I have heard it said that John Hopper 'can' repeat, but mine hasn't so far. To All.... Today it was (gasp!)...SUNNY! All day long, nothing but blue above and warm sun shining down. The old roses are mostly done for and the deer returned again last night to munch yet again, and I saw the first japanese beetle today...but it was SUNNY!!!! YAY! It doesn't take much to make me happy. Celeste

We have water today all day finally! All us folks up here on the hill hollered and screamed and stomped our feet enough to rock the boat and made the water company folks get out and do their job. They went house to house and place to place looking at ground and in basements. They found 7 leaks mostly in folks basements and made enough repairs to keep pressure up high enough to reach our end. Of course the rain helped too. They have wells but don't have the equipment to filter it properly so epa or someone told them they were not allowed to use them until proper filtration was installed to removes excess iron and such so spring water is what we have.

No good news to report. One of the three eggs had a tiny hole in it :(. I used a pancake turner and carefully removed the nest. Tossed the damaged egg and checked the inside of the box...no ants or wasps. I replaced the nest. I have seen both of the parent birds at the feeder, but never saw either of them enter the box. Will they return to the remainiing eggs after one of them has been 'killed'? Right now we have purple martins everywhere...eight pair have fledged young. Will they affect the nesting of the blues? Nest box is about 60-70' across from one another.

Here's my latest response from my GC on how the shower was installed and his thoughts on fixing the project. ========================== The Shower pan was installed with a pre-slope. A positive weep hole protector was used during installation. The waterproofing system is a 30 mil pan liner that extends up the walls 18" on all sides. I did ask the tile installer about the typical time for a shower pan to dry out, 24 hours is not unreasonable, but 5 days is not typical. If the discoloration is caused by persistent moisture there is something not functioning properly. That being said, he is very confident in the installation of the pan liner and was personally on site while the work was being completed. He feels the discoloration is likely not related to the Pan holding water. However, we will reserve judgment until we have had a chance to inspect the shower together. "Assuming" we do not have a problem with the pan draining. One Idea our tile installer offered would be to replace the grout in the floor with an epoxy grout. Epoxy grout is going to discolor less with moisture, if we remove all of the existing grout on the floor we should get a more consistent color when we regrout, and epoxy grout will allow less water to penetrate through the finished surface to the pan liner. Of course, first we have to be sure that everything is working as designed. ======================