If you can take one more snake story. Last week I had taken my basket out to my pepper patch to pick some green chili. When I came in I was so tired and did not feel like roasting and putting the peppers up, so I set the basket in the frige to deal with it the next day. I tended to the peppers the next day, but that night when I went into my kitchen there was a little black snake about 14 to 15 inches long sticking it's head out from the bottom of the frige. Needles to say I was shocked. Ran to get the broom and a glass jar. I tried to get the snake to come all the way out and then got the bottom of the boom on it and coaxed it into the jar. Ran out my back door and with my elbow opened the garage. I flung it so hard on to the driveway that I'm sure that little snake had one heck of a headache. When my husband called that night I was frantic about how could a snake get into the house. I remembered the next day that while I was picking my peppers I had set the basket down on the ground to reach under a pepper plant. That rascal must have gotten into my basket and was in for a real surprise when he wound up in my fringe. I hope he was all alone. Snakes don't run in packs do they? I still get upset when I open the frige.

Donna, because it is a mutation of the Festalis, a flower in her the same, but the leaves are striped. This variety of like many similar variegata reproduces very slowly. It arose by chance among the hundreds of ordinary in my garden for a long time, but until now I have it so little that I had not even registered.

HAH! I ALSO thought "Citizen's Arrest! Citizen's Arrest!" I think that was the funniest line--and I am often tempted to use it myself! I also had a Verizon outage a week ago. Many of my neighbors did. The day after it hit, there were 7 or so Verizon trucks out on the main road. I believe I was the only person whose Verizon service did not come back on. When I finally called (this was Dec. 22), the rep said someone would be out on Jan. 5. But she also said she'd pro-rate my phone service. I also have Verizon DSL (not Fios); we'll see if they cut my bill a buck or two! Thank goodness--for my Internet addition!-- my service came back yesterday. But now 2 of my neighbors lost theirs agaiN! I think that in a few weeks I'll see what my options are for other service providers. It's the crazy bad-repair situation that bothers me.

It is crazy. We were so wet, and flooding, and with fungal and bacterial diseases breaking out on every shrub, tree, weed and grass. Now the green has gone brown and dry. This happened a few years back. I think it was in the summer of 2008. We'd had all that rain (and flooding, sound familiar?) in 2007 and the 2008 started out pretty decently. We seemed green and wet and it was nice enough, and then it was like we hit a brick wall and suddenly were hot and dry. This month reminds me very much of that year, and from what I remember of 2008, we ended up miserably hot, dry and back in drought with tons of wildfires through April 2009. I really don't want for this year to end up like that year did. I did water the garden today. I left the gate open and the chickens were all over the place. They like the damp mulch, and they weren't really bothering anything. Since I've been letting them into the garden for a few hours a day, the grasshoppers are disappearing. If they start pecking tomatoes (which they haven't done at all yet), then I'll have to keep the gate closed and ban the poultry from the garden.