Hi Karen B, My Greenhouse is holding up well and has kept my plants at a safe temperature. I found condensation on the walls of my greenhouse today. I opened 2 of the windows for a few hours and wiped down as much of the wall area as I could safely reach. Tomorrow I need to open the windows for a longer time to get the rest of the moisture to evaporate. We have had several days of snow, rain and hail. Snow doesnÂt usually stick for long, however the red mountains surrounding the town have turned white. January is the coldest month and last year during the infamous California Freeze we had several inches of snow that stayed on the ground for a few days. I like my new home; it required a lot of work (new flooring, new carpeting, thermal blinds, appliances, light fixtures, a new storage shed, paint and whatnot) to make it presentable. Once I recover financially, it will be time to terraform the yard. When you move to a different climate, you have to learn to garden all over again. One example; I have a thing for morning glories and this year mine were all killed by hot dry winds. I found by observing a patch of wild morning glories on a vacant lot that I should have waited till the monsoon started. This is several months later than I was used to planting them in California. A California Poppy volunteered in my yard in July, which is much later than their peak in California. Hi Karen R, I live in Sedona Arizona. I moved here a year ago in November from San Juan Capistrano. IÂve lived most of my life in the subtropics (California and Florida), so the climate change has been a trip. I understand very well how horrified you were by the change in climate. Plants which were common and boring in California are now precious reminders of home and IÂm considering which ones I can manage to grow here. I moved here for family reasons, so picking up and leaving isnÂt really an option. My neighbors tell me last winter was the coldest winter they remember and last summer was the hottest they remember. This year is a La Niña year, which usually means a colder and dryer winter than average. The effects of La Niña seem to be more variable for California, so I donÂt know what it will mean for you. Sedona is beautiful and has a lot to recommend it, so I will learn to deal with the climate issue. Needless to say, IÂm a big fan of global warming! For me it would mean warmer winters and an earlier start to the summer monsoon, which causes the summer days to be more temperate. Philip PS: Bill, hope you have a speedy recovery from your surgery. IÂve been there and know the only good part is the drugs!

I've used a wheelchair consistently in the past (when severe chronic pain was not adequately treated - ok, not at all - and we did not have a car so were reliant on public transit) and from time to time I still rent one when going somewhere where normally one would be doing a lot of standing and walking and there is expected to be a shortage of places to sit (like the home shows they have in local arenas), and I have to say that I found/find it a H*LL of a lot easier to be a "socially acceptable disabled person" when on my own wheels (as opposed to a store-provided scooter or wheelchair) - people can SEE the disability (the wheelchair), therefore it exists to them. I use a cane about 2/3 of the time right now, my PT and paindoc want me to use it only when I really must because it can cause compensation strains/injuries even when properly fitted and used, and I see a very distinct difference in how people behave toward me WRT things like handicapped parking when I have my cane than when I don't, although there are still those twerps (usually elderly) who are clueless enough to insist that I can't possibly need either my parking tag or my kick-@$$ purple paisley cane :-) because I'm "too young". *eyeroll* I suppose I should be glad I don't look how I feel because young children would run away screaming, people would be keeling over with heart attacks, I would leave a swath of destruction behind me everywhere I went! LOL I did get a hand-me-down wheelchair off Freecycle so that I wouldn't have to rent one for the aforementioned uses but the clunker was so heavy I couldn't maneuver it even on a smooth, flat surface so I re-Freecyled it. :-( I have the police parking-enforcement office phone number on my cell phone, and I WILL call in cars parked in the handicapped spaces that don't have plates/tags. I do check the dashboard and seat (if I can, I'm not clambering up on some bloody Hummer) to see if someone just tossed their hang-tag onto the dash or left it on the seat instead of hanging it properly on the mirror. Where I live it's a minimum $250 and in some towns $500 (!) fine to park in a handicapped space without authorization. I goofed once, left my hang-tag in DH's car, parked in my usual space at the drugstore without even realizing my tag wasn't where it belonged and got a ticket, but I took it and my tag and my driver's license (which has a symbol on it showing that I'm an authorized tag owner) to the police station and they cancelled it right then and there. (Mari, typing from bed... went to Yule party half an hour's drive away today and too ouchy to sleep but too tired to sit up, and next weekend I'm going to do it again! Oy!)

Your pickup truck would hold a lot of plants, nicholsworth. A lot more than a sports car! And with a pickup truck, all you would have to do on warm sunny spring days, is just back it out of the garage and uncover. Then on cold nights, back into the garage it goes! I would love to hear what your husband says about using the pickup truck. I'm a bit nervous about asking my husband about his sports car. He already thinks I am "pot crazy!" Just last week he said---"it seems like you have more and more pots . . . Do you know how many pots you have?" Hmmmm . . . "not really," I said. Well actually I don't know. But I don't want to tell him the number of pots I THINK I HAVE!

RE artificial Christmas trees - I see many of those on the curb every year, because they start to shed their "needles" after a few years, long before they look shabby, or because the owners wanted to "upgrade". They can't be recycled - the scrappers won't take the ones with metal parts even. So they go to the landfill, to continue the march toward more farmland being converted to trash disposal. Whereas a live tree has come from a farm, (not overseas), will be replaced with another tree, and while growing is providing all of the benefits of trees in the landscape. In fact a tree farm is creating a "woods" where otherwise would be crops like corn or soybeans. Then the tree can be turned into mulch, composted, or simply broken up with loppers and piled in a corner of the yard to provide shelter for various wildlife. (I realize that many towns/cities still don't yet offer pickup and processing of Christmas trees, or other yard waste, but if citizens keep asking for that, it will come). On my walks around the neighborhood on trash day I often see things like sets of dishes, intact glassware, and other usable good condition household items of all sorts, including bedframes, outgrown clothes & toys, linens - from decluttering and downsizing I assume for the most part - set out for the trash pickup. We have 3 or 4 thrift stores within 2-3 miles, and a store (furniture bank) that takes furniture donations another 2 or so miles further. So the mindset is there, if not to the extreme of trashing rather than dealingwith an entire special occasion kit.