Ok, don't lob a snowball at my head but for some reason this year I am not in the whiney pre-spring stage. This winter has seemed to go by fast and while I am of course looking forward to spring, I am not in the least unhappy with winter. We're going through some of our coldest temperatures right now as usual, with overnights well below zero - but I'm ok. What I am most happy about is that suddenly the days seem appreciably longer. I love being able to watch the sunset through the bare trees *from home!* instead of seeing a bit of it as I drive my 40 minute commute home and then have it be darkening as I pull in the drive. Still, a pot of mini roses to fuss with wouldn't be a bad thing at all. I've done that before and ended up with as many as 5 nice little plants that went outdoors in spring to become a pretty border to my front flower bed. Hmmm...I'll have to go shopping after work today. :-)

Glo - Thanks for reassuring me! I hope your move is awesome! My husband has wanted to move us to Colorado for years and hasn't managed to quite convince me yet, although I think it's absolutely wonderful there. LOL So, Winter Solstice is the same everywhere? (LOL)... I guess you're seeing how little I know... Nancy - Thanks for the tip! I am gonna have to watch the lead hand myself as I way oversowed my cantaloupes this fall. The poor babies are fighting each other and giving me 2 to 5 inches fruits that don't look like they're EVER going to full ripen. I will be much more careful in the future. I'll try to not get TOO excited when I go to plant. LOL Carrie - Wow! That's some really good info. That's exactly the kind of thing I was worried about. I'm grateful for the heads up. Liz - LIZ!!! Hey, girl! Fancy meeting you here and there and now here! hee hee... The whole last paragraph of what you wrote is exactly what is concerning me. I know that I personally wear shorts through-out almost the whole winter except for those few crazy days that we see. 50's or what have you is not cold to me... We do get the occasional freeze, but then a week or two later at most you could have a 70+ degree high! All this in the same few days / weeks / months... it's SO crazy! Oh, and if they're having a plantswap around the 8th of December as well, I sure want to know as I'll be out that way. :-) Blessings, Angela

Well, a rainy day and time to get back to the forum. Thanks for the encouragement, all. Hi Mabel. West Paris is a pretty friendly place, judging from all the folk who stop by to talk gardening or strangers who see me in the General Store and comment on the garden. (I do spend a lot of time out there and the garden is right on the road so the "new guy with the garden that moved in over at Mrs. L's house" has become a topic of conversation around town, I'm told.) Thought I'd take a couple of minutes and post some pictures that I posted earlier on another forum I participate in. The garden is progressing pretty well and I'm generally happy with what got done this first year thought there is a whole lot of room for improvement and better planning. (I do tend to be overly critical of my own work, although too forgiving of other's. A bad trait for an engineering manager, I suppose, but that's me, I guess.) I did manage to get most of the weeds in check these past couple of weeks, so that's something to crow about. I centered the garden between two Red Maples and around the enormous lilac that falls dead center between them. Here's some views taken a few weeks ago: The west side: Finished the fence and only a little of that soil is still unplanted. Fall crops like kale and late snap peas will go there. One of the broccoli beds: (harvesting every day now!) And the east side: Following is a picture of the lilac that is at the core of the garden, taken earlier in the season. As I worked on the east side of the garden, the first half I focused on, the breeze from the west made the scent a constant fixture. I'd like to eventually cut it back to about 2/3rds its current size to make it a little less overwhelming and a little less shade-casting. This is where the main gate on the road-side will be. I still haven't gotten around to building a proper garden gate, but that is on top of my (ever-growing) wish-list. Wayne

Speaking of lying in a casket with "all the good stuff" piled around you....one of my favorite possessions is an old concrete water trough that my husband moved here for me from our old place, which had been a dairy. Not exactly an easy feat, mind you. It is just over 10' long and 3 1/2' wide and has 8" thick sides. I love that old trough...was poured with boards for a mold and you can see the faint outline of the wood grain in it, and whoever did it, did a great job and beveled the edge. It is poured with finely crushed oyster shell and green moss grows on it. I go out and lovingly stroke it and splash water onto the moss. Of all my junk, I think I love it the most. I had told my husband I didn't want to be buried when I died...unless I could be buried here on the place. I'm just too "queer", as my mother said about me, to go in a cemetary with all those other people...so I told him, put me in the trough and then pour a layer of concrete over me, and put the waterlilies and water back in. A second idea...put me in the trough, and pile in as much of my old junk as you can, and pour in concrete. Top off with my hundreds of old marbles. What a lovely tomb that would be! :))