OK! Here we are, the mystery has bloomed. It's quite small actually and I like it. There are 4 blooms on the one scape and they are red-red, not the coral one that I thought it was. That must be the lone amaryllis sulking on the other end of the patio that produced no scapes or blooms this year. This one is a perfect shape and has a darker throat. I wil try selfing and also pollinating with some saved "Lemon and Lime" pollen I have saved with flash after dusk Any Ideas? It could be anything I suppose.

Plantknitter, with more wind, if it is an E, N or NE wind as we usually have in these events, that causes the humidity dew point to drop way off. This is why you don't see actual white frost on anything even if the temperature is well below freezing. Usually though, this is actually more destructive to plants than frost that occurs under calm conditions and high humidity (i.e. a usual white "frost"), because the very dry air causes plant leaves to become dessicated and frozen at the same time: moisture cannot reach the plant tissues and they die. It really depends on the plant though, and some other factors. Plants with tough fleshy leaves, including many succulents, can handle this better than a frost with high humidity. Plants with delicate leaves, especially those from the Southern Hemisphere, and some bamboos, would do better in a frost with high humidity because their leaves would not be so dessicated. This is a huge generalization but you get the idea. Even if it is below freezing, the very cold winds do keep the temeprature up compared to what it could be, because mixing of the air prevents radiational cooling. So while last night it was blowing all night and the temperature was 28-32F for many of us - if it just stopped at some point, with the arctic air in place, the temperature would drop right off, especially in sheltered valleys where radiational cooling typically brings very cold temperatures. Slopes with good air drainage and places very close to the water usually do not experience such severe lows when radiational cooling occurs. This is what may happen tonight, and certainly tomorrow night, if the wind ever dies off. Surprisingly, I'm not seeing the temperature fall like a rock anywhere just yet. It is still too windy in most places. The South Sound, which is often the coldest, is still experiencing strong winds that are keeping the temperature up around 30. bboy, point taken but #1 it makes more sense to ignore the tops of the mountains since no one lives or gardens there #2 really all you are doing is pointing out the inadequacies of the USDA zone system for our region, which I would agree with. But you could just as well say that Sunset, with only two zones for western Washington's lowlands, is oversimplified as well. #3 if we figured everywhere was in the same zone as the land all around it, we would only have one zone.

SE - I will definitely enjoy the garage and now I can enjoy the basement too, since we will store all our crap in the garage. coldnose - our home is 2025 sqft + about another 800 in walk-out basement. My experience with the panelized package is both good and only OK. Good - lumber was awesome awesome quality. Got the package from farwesthomes, who own their own mill. I have some large beams and posts. Walls went up fast and were square. We had a gable wall (31' peek) with picture windows that went up in a day, my carpenters said it would have taken them over a week to stick build. Lots of left over lumber from packaging (and miscommunication about walkout basement). Price was with-in 10K of other lumber yard quotes (Meeks, 84, Moss Lumber). Able to make custom plans, change their stock plans, use stock plans. The only OK - Still have to stick build floors. not huge deal. Had two miss cuts in posts where beams were to slide in. We fixed it fairly simple, but it took a few hours of head scratching. Had to get engineering separately and then have farwest build plans. Some miss communication between engineer and farwest. It would have been nice if they had an in-house engineer. I was/am not happy with my engineer. Roof rafters suck. Took a month to stick frame the roof. Mislead on difficulty of the whole thing. We were told it would be about 6 weeks to get the whole thing shelled-in. Perhaps with a crew of 10, it took us over double that with a crew of 3-4. No room for play. The walls come square, if your foundation is a little off, you cannot "fudge" the walls. Lay-out (16" on center) gets screwed up do to how the panels fit together. Not a huge deal, but slows you down during siding. All in all, i am happy with it. If I ever do this again, I may or may not use it again. Definitely not pissed or stoked about the whole thing. I am about due for more pictures. We just had a framing pre-inspection today (we were not ready with elect or fire sprinklers). She could not find one thing wrong and was really impressed. We are wrapping up elect on friday and sprinklers go in over the weekend. We will get framing, plumbing, elect inspection on monday. Insulation next week and then sheetrock end of next week and weekend. 12 hour days are getting old. I start summer school on monday. that should be fun.

Thank you all!!!!! At least you played and that's what counts. donna and eastender, those are fabulous choices and, well, really, they're facuet art! I hope you love them. Buffettgirl, I had a thought about you in the middle of the freakin night awhile back....too, funny. I DON'T sleep and random, thoughts just come into my mind. I had always thought you were "buffetgirl." Ya know, like the all you can eat Chinese buffet? Guess I thought that cause it was somewhat kitchen related. In the middle of the night it came to me that it is "BUFFETTgirl." I'm not kiddin. So now I assume you are a Jimmy Buffett fan and not an "all you can eat" fan. HA!!! My name is as it seems, I have six dogs and they whoop my butt on a daily basis. Thanks to you all for playing my game.