Zep, not sure. Sometimes I'm a bit quick with the delete key. I have replies sent to my email, so I may have thought it was something I'd read on the forum anyway and sent it into never-never land. Try it again. I'll look closer this time. MK - who says she's suspicious? Maybe she's playing/exploring/curious, much the same as I am. She just found the way sooner. For everyone's information, this is a simple desktop machine, noting fancy that we both use. No separate accounts, no passwords, just turn it on and away we go. A silly stupid machine I'm curious about. As far as getting involved in a pissing match here, I'm not interested. For the relatively short while I've been reading these, I've learned to recognize certain "helpers" and tend to respect their opinions over others. But, I do read all the answers to the posted questions that interest me. Opinions are like ........ a--, um, noses. I expect everyone to have one. Thanks guys, you've told me what your comfortable with. I'll play on my own. Hope I don't need help for somethng I've goofed up in my playing.

I guess I tend to be on the "spirit sensitive" side and have encountered all sorts of activity. The earliest I remember was when I was 4 or 5, on Christmas Eve at my grandmother's old house. The room seemed full of people rustling and whispering and one woman even sat on the bed and sort of "petted" me. I stormed into the living room where the grownups were and complained that "the people" were keeping me from falling asleep and that they would ruin everything because Santa wouldn't come if I were awake. Of course, the grown-ups chuckled and advised me to go back to bed. It was quiet when I returned and I learned later that Grandmother's house had been the town funeral home and that my room was where the bodies were laid out for viewing. Visitation, indeed! As a teenager, I saw a young girl in that room with her back to me, who seemed to be unaware I was watching her. Suddenly, and I mean so fast it wasn't human, she whirled around and rushed up to me, glaring and then glided through the closet door. Yikes! Note to self: don't sneak up on ghosts. They don't like being spied upon. I lived alone in an old apartment with a disagreeable, mischievous spirit. In the sunroom, I would tie all the matchstick blinds the same length and come in the next day to find they had been rolled up and down at different heights, all re-tied. Things were always disappearing and reappearing in other locations, if at all. A friend of mine named the ghost "Lucinda Huggins" to sort of keep things light while I tried to be patient with the tricks and mild hostility I was sensing. I pretty much let Lucinda have the sun room--it got too uncomfortable to hang out in there. One time I did a calligraphy project for a friend's birthday and I left it out to dry overnight before erasing the lines. The next morning, I found that Lucinda had poured ink over the whole project and screwed the lid of the ink bottle back on. Dang! After I left that place, I was chatting with a client and learned she had lived in that same apartment. She looked at me strangely, "So....did you have any encounters with the.... little spirit?" The next old house I moved to (it would probably be helpful if I didn't keep living in old houses, lol) was full of action, all mostly harmless. There was "someone" in the living room but he/she seemed warm and inviting to me. The most active "The Boot Ghost" who walked up and down the upstairs hall very loudly. Never saw anyone, but it was nerve-wracking when you were alone downstairs wondering if it was the sound of an intruder. Then there was the "Squeezing Ghost" which was like the Old Hag Phenomenon. You'd just about drift to sleep when suddenly you were being hugged tightly by something dark and awful and...knowing. Terrifying. Got me twice and my husband 3 times, one of which he found his feet being lifted. We moved from there to a 100-year-old house around the corner and I keep my antennae pricked for any presences and there are none. Like kframe19, it feels so odd and lonely! Been here for 7 years and the only strange activity seems to be a ghost cat, which will rub against your legs if you're sitting at a table and jumps on the bed and walks across you. Infrequently I'll see a little cat-sized shadow pass by a doorway. But that's it.

I've only had one very negative experience that scared the crap out of me. When I was a teenager, my friends and I were interested in a "darker" subculture and used to hang out in cemeteries and things like that. One night, we were at my house playing with the Ouija board. I know better now, and I won't touch them, but when you're 16 you don't really consider the consequences. We didn't really experience anything during the game because we were laughing and having fun with it. But later that night, after my friends left, I went to bed and woke up to a visitor at the foot of my bed. My room was dark, but this thing was the complete absence of light. It was about 7 feet tall, solid and black as sin. Just standing there at the foot of my bed staring at me. My two cats were sleeping on my bed and they both jumped up, hissing and ran for the closed door and clawed desperately at it trying to get out. I sat straight up and screamed, and at that moment it sort of dissolved into glitter and then shot under my bed. Upon further reflection, I think I invited something very negative into my house and I was relieved to move out soon after. To counter that, after my mom died, I had a few pleasant experiences. My mom wore the same perfume her entire life so I immediately associate it with her. I also collect perfumes and she knows I have a huge collection. A few weeks after she died, I noticed a small bottle of her perfume on the floor so I absently put it on a dresser in the guest room. The next day, I went in there and the perfume was on the floor again. I didn't think much of it assuming the cats had knocked it down so I put it back up, and then the next day, it was on the floor again. I thought this was really strange, so then I put it back up, right in the middle so it couldn't accidentally fall off and the cats couldn't easily knock it off, and put a bottle of my perfume right next to it. And then the next day, I come into the room and both bottles are on the floor. Now, it could have been the cats but I doubt it. Just something fun and it made me smile. Another really strange thing that happened was a few months ago, I really wanted to relocate from Boston to California. But it meant leaving a good job, leaving my apartment and leaving my friends, and I was really struggling with whether it was the right move for me or not. And I landed an interview with a company out in California, and while I was doing some internet research on the company, I Googled the company name and one of the people who works there and the 3rd result that popped up was my mom's name, which is pretty unique and not at all related to any of the search terms. I just thought it was really cool and I interpreted it as a sign. After that, everything fell in place. And now I'm here in California. :)

I drizzle out cleaning over winter. Last weekend I raked and trimmed some plants back, sort of a rough stage one cleaning, the biggest one will be in late January or mid February when I cut back the grasses. Henbit is coming up in earnest along with the invasive Privet seedlings and a few dandelions & fescue from the property next door so thats been being weeded out with gusto. I've been direct sowing seeds in dribs and drabs insuring all kinds of surprises coming up in the mini prairie. I've added Astralagus, Prairie Larkspur, more Moss Verbena, Three Leaf Sumac, Spectacle Pod, SW & Texas Native varieties of Penstemon and quite a few others I would have to rack my brain or go through my box of home made seed packets to remember. Upstairs in a sunny window I'm growing various varieties of grass plugs which need warm temps in 4" pots (S. 'Prairie Blues', S. nutans 'Indian Steel', Weeping Muhly Gulf Muhly & Sacaton Alkali). I also have some Sand Penstemon up to get a head start on plants for spring. I plan to order some Muhlenbergia porteri (Bush Muhly Grass) seeds this week and sow those coming up indoors. To add more silver/blue I'm starting more Fringed Sage from rooted sections I took from the established plants. The over all plan is to tone down the bloomers in favor of texture since I want the blooms to just be accents of color among the grasses which will dominate in drifts. I took 3 large cuttings from a blue O. macrocentra cactus that I'm rooting indoors to add some more blue/purple sculptural interest in chosen spots which I will set out in March. I also have a nice blue shindagger agave I got in a trade this fall to set out that came from New Mexico, its under the carport wintering over dry along with another cactus that will form a patch of fuzzy 'dinner rolls' eventually. No journals or drawn out plans happen around here. No plant tags are saved or organized since most plants are from collected seed rather than a nursery but if its growing out there, I always recognize it and know where it came from even if I don't know the name of it yet which happens a lot. I like to spend time online trying to ID some of these wild things. Luckily I have big windows upstairs and I can look down and right away see the layout and spacing and plan changes visually. Thats about as close to a plan as I have, the rest is done in my head where I pretty much have it memorized anyway and nature makes many decisions here which are better than the ones I had. The sowing I do in winter makes the next year an adventure of sorts as I discover things coming up. This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Mon, Dec 15, 14 at 14:10