grandm1, True, the only blade that will allow manual angling from the cab is the 48", part BM19415. It is not designed specifically for the GT235, it will fit just about every late model Deere garden tractor through GX series. But you need to note that while the blade that fits the GT series will also fit the older 240/325 series, the blade that was made specifically for the 240/325 and family (BM18130)will NOT fit the GT series due to clearance issues on the GT undercarriage. Here are some pictures to clear things up. First, I must mention that the really big difference between the 42/44" and 48" blades are the 42" just mounts to the front frame of the tractor, then has two braces which attach to the mid-frame to provide additional support. It pivots on the front frame mount. The braces are just there to prevent the front tractor frame from bending. The 48" blade has its own frame, like a snowblower. It mounts to the same point mid frame, and unlike the 42", it pivots on those mid-frame mounts. This is certainly a more rugged design, and the blade is less likely to ride up on ice due to the pivot being further back. To use the 48 blade, you need to get the front lift kit for the GT series, which uses the front section of the tractor's frame to mount a jackshaft which will lift the front part of the 48" blade's frame via a tie-rod clamped to the deck lift handle. This is the same lift setup used with the 42" snowblower. This is the front lift kit: (you will not need parts 1,2,3, your tractor already has that D-hole incorporated in the frame. Hopefully I haven't confused you. Now that I've shed light on the two bracing systems: if you find a 48" blade for sale online (used), and it has a straight frame, it is made for the 240/265/325 tractors. It will not work with your GT tractor. See pic: You need this frame: This frame (the bent one) will work with any of the tractors. The two holes in the back near the J-hooks are for the 240/265/325 tractors. The GT series use the front holes (as shown) with the front lift kit). All these diagrams are on the JD parts catalog, linked below. Go to "Equipment Search" and type in "Blade" then scroll down to the 42, 44, 46, 48 front blade and click on "sectional index" to see the breakdowns. Do you have a foot or hand lift? If you have a hand lift, that other blade I mentioned will work with the right mounting parts. I mounted my GT's 42" blade to my old 111H before I found one online specifically for it which included the braces and rear frame weights (for $50). The 42 inchers are all compatible, like I said, you just need to buy the proper braces and mounting hardware. You'll still need to buy the blade angle kit from Deere. That's something like $180 new. You might find a 48 blade for sale which has it mounted, but it's unlikely. I've been looking for one for my Dad for about a year and only saw one, which went for the retail price when you count shipping. If you have any more questions, ask. I've spent quite a bit of time researching compatibility of the GT series, and it's paid off, having found a like-new 42" blade for my GT225 for $100, and a pair of new-in-box 42" snowblowers for both my GT225 and my GT262 for a total of $300 (plus $50 in gas to have my brother pick them up). In both cases, the sellers didn't think they'd fit my tractors. In both cases, they did. Here is a link that might be useful: jd parts

Defrost - I wrote a long message this morning that seems to have gotten lost in the ether. There are a several roses that I've grown in the past or am growing now. Many of my current plants I started from cuttings, and you'd be welcome to come take cuttings if you would like. I have found them relatively easy to grow from cuttings even though I don't know much about it. Almost all my roses are relatively easy care, but the Japanese beetles bother all but the earliest. I recently read that water that has had cedar soaking in it will discourage the Japanese beetles when sprayed on susceptible plants, so I'll be trying that this summer since I have way too much field area to treat for grubs. - Rugosa Hansa (previous house along with one other Rugosa) - Lovely scent, easy care, but I didn't get good repeat. - Double white rugosa - Lovely scent, not good repeat, looks like wet tissue if it rains but gorgeous if it doesn't get wet. One of two current roses from Uncanoonuc, and it is grafted. I fight the understock to keep it from taking over. - Apothecary rose - striped red and white shrub with strong rose scent. I fight the understock (multiflora I think) which has come up 8' away from the plant. Early bloomer no repeat. Uncanoonuc. - Autumn Sunset - Gold Climber, good repeat, light scent. Another Uncanoonuc rose, also grafted, and after about 3 years didn't come back after one winter, though I don't know if it was due to voles or it was too cold. I would grow again if it were on its own roots. - Fairy rose - previous house - no scent, repeat (almost constant) bloom, easy care. - Dr. Huey - Dark red climber from understock. Not much repeat. - John Davis - light scent, medium pink, one of the Canadian Explorer roses, shorter climber. Long bloom with lighter repeats continuing. - Lady Elsie Banks - medium pink shrub, no scent that I notice. Repeats well. - New Dawn (probably) AKA George's rose since it came as a cutting from my now-gone neighbor George. Vigorous climber, very pale pink very double flowers, little if any scent (can't get close enough to smell) and wicked thorns that require that it be planted away from paths. - An unknown pink shrub rose that was here at the house when we arrived. Lovely scent, no repeat bloom. Cleanest foliage of any rose I grow, and the foliage has a light scent. Although IME own root roses don't take off quite as soon as grafted roses, in the long run, I prefer them as I don't have issues with the root stock and all my own root roses have always come back. I don't do any extra winterizing. I don't know if Uncanoonuc has any roses that are own root. I added Zepherine Drouin (pink climber) and Westerland (orange mix) this past summer and haven't yet any feedback on them. This winter will test them, but they are both own root, so I have faith that they will come through.

Here is a tip from my mother and her sister. They went and had a colonoscopy a few years ago and got the bad gas pains. To take care of the "problem" they were instructed by their doctor to get on their hands and knees and put their head on the floor with their butts in the air and let nature take its course! Looks funny, but they both said it worked for them! Picture two older women doing this together so they could finish the day shopping at a mall! Hey, it worked for them, you might give it a try!

Lots of lady bugs made it into the mudroom Friday, and there's some in the sunroom. A few made it into the house. I told the girls Friday night that I was going to vacuum up the lady bugs and put them back outdoors (I use the shop vac and they survive being vacuumed up, so no harm is done to them) and the 4 year old was very upset. She told me I couldn't vacuum up her favorite 'pets' in the whole world and send them back outdoors to die in the cold, and she said she wanted to play with them and talk to them. (sigh) So, I told her we'd let them stay indoors for at least the weekend, meaning that as soon as she leaves Sunday afternoon, I'll have the shop vac out, searching out every one of those little beetles and returning them to the outdoors. I'm not sure what good it does---on every sunny day they are swarming around all the doors, trying to come in every time a human, dog or cat goes in or out. I don't really want to spray any sort of pesticide to keep them away from the house, so am resigned to them continuing to fight to come in and to me having to vacuum them up and put them back out until it finally gets so cold that they stop swarming. We even had a couple of them in the car yesterday. Oh, and true to her word, the 4 year old will pick one up if she finds it, carry it around and talk to it. She wanted to catch some and have them sleep with her, but we overruled that little plan. I think somehow they are even getting into the mudroom around the exterior door frame, which I thought Tim had re-when we repainted the exterior of the house 2 or 3 years ago.....so, we need to examine that area and see if there is a gap somewhere that isn't filled. I am so happy to see lady bugs of any type outdoors in the growing season, and they surely do eat tons of small pests because I rarely have any issues with things like aphids. However, their garden usefulness still doesn't mean they are welcome to come into our home for the winter. They can overwinter in the garage or greenhouse all they want, but I don't want them indoors. We still have butterflies, despite multiple heavy frosts and nights as low as the mid-teens. At this point, I'm not sure how they're surviving, but the garden does still have dianthus and salvia farinacea in bloom, so at least there's that. I've seen various butterflies flying low over the now-brown pastures searching for something, but I can't imagine what they're finding there, if anything. Even the native autumn asters are frozen and gone, as is the native blue sage, the helenium and all the other late-season fall wildflowers. We have the girls all day today, and then a funeral in Fort Worth tomorrow, so my brain hasn't even thought about Thanksgiving much yet, except the meal is all planned and taken care of. So, really, it is just a matter of cleaning house Tuesday, and then spending Wednesday getting ready. Oh, and squeezing in a trip to the grocery store sometime, perhaps Monday on the way home, before the stores get too crazy. The house has been decorated for Thanksgiving ever since the day after Halloween, so at least that part of it all is done. I know some people have Christmas trees up already and all that (why? why so early?), but I redecorated the mudroom's pencil tree, changing it from a Halloween tree to a Thanksgiving tree on November 1st, and I love that Thanksgiving tree with its Thanksgiving decorations. I think it looks a lot prettier than the somewhat scary Halloween tree did. The girls adore having a holiday tree in the mudroom, and both they and Tim have lobbied for me to keep it up year-round, changing the decorations with each holiday and season, but I am not inclined to do that because I am not crazy, At least I don't think I am crazy. It is one thing to spend a little time decorating an autumn tree for Halloween and Thanksgiving, when the rain is falling almost daily and I cannot be outdoors anyway, but it would be another thing to let decorating a tree seasonally pull me away from gardening time any at all once the gardening season starts, so after Christmas the tree goes back into its box and into the attic. Winter is my least favorite season, unless we have snow on the ground (which we almost never ever do) and it already looks like and mostly feels like winter here. I have tried to learn to appreciate the subtle variations of color in the wheat-colored, brown, and tawny golden fields, but I just cannot. All I do is look at those fields and long for the green plants and flowers of the growing season. When we drive past a field of winter wheat or rye grass and I see the green, that makes my day. Our dog yard does have a nice carpet of winter rye, and it is the best-looking part of our property at this point. It looks awesome, undoubtedly because the dogs fertilize it daily. It is small enough that it is easy to mow in winter, which isn't true of the yard in the years when we overseed it with rye grass, which we didn't do this year because the rain never stopped falling. It is hard to overseed the lawn with free-range chickens because they'll run around and spend days eating all the rye grass seed before it can sprout, and I'm not inclined to keep them cooped up in the chicken run for a couple of weeks until winter rye can become established. After Thanksgiving is over, I'll take down all the autumn decorations and put up the Christmas decorations. That's how I spend Black Friday, as I simply refuse to step foot in the crazy stores. Oh Lordy, I do not want to sound like my mother or grandmother talking about how things were different back in the olden days, but I remember how, way back in the 1980s when Black Friday was a big day, there were truly great sale prices you never could get on any other day of the year---and people still were civilized and didn't fight over the last Christmas Barbie Doll or Cabbage Patch doll or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy. We'd run into friends while out shopping the Black Friday sales and would stand and chat and be perfectly relaxed and in no big hurry, trading info on what gifts we had found in which stores, and I miss that sort of thing nowadays, with the way Black Friday has become more like a competitive, winner-takes-all battle of some sort. I refuse to participate in it at all. This year I've noticed a big trend by the retailers to be pushing us all to go out and Christmas shop this weekend for the Pre-Black Friday Day sales in order to beat the Black Friday crowds. Oh, give me a break! The retail world drives me nuts any more. We try really hard to keep the Christmas gifts simple and to focus on Christmas as a time of togetherness and making memories apart from the gifting. I feel like we often lose the spirit of Christmas if we pay too much to the retailers and their endless pushing of the "hot toys" or "hot gifts" of the current year. If the retailers want to get me into their stores at this time of the year, they need to have big displays of potted, growing amaryllis or paperwhites, Christmas cacti, etc......or maybe they could be sneaking the spring-planted bulbs into a corner of the Christmas-oriented garden center madness we have now That, at least, would get me into a store. It is deer gun season now, and even though we don't allow hunting on our acreage, it is a scary time with people firing off guns everywhere. We try to make a point of wearing red or orange every time we step foot outdoors during deer season so that nobody hunting on adjacent property will think we're a deer and shoot us. I had a bullet whistle by my head one day years ago, so close I could hear it go past me and am grateful to God to this day that the bullet, fired by a teenager two properties away from ours, missed me and our next door neighbor both. It was very scary, and our next-door neighbor immediately went next-door and read that family the riot act about irresponsible firing of weapons in such a way that the bullets are a threat to innocent people on their own property. Since that day, we keep the dogs indoors as much as possible because Jersey is the same color as a white-tailed deer, and she runs like the wind and leaps like a deer. Fortunately, gunfire terrifies her so it is easy to keep her indoors in deer season because she doesn't even want to be outdoors. The two smaller dogs probably have learned their gunshot anxiety from her, so they cheerfully trot outdoors to do their doggie business and they run back, pawing at the back door and barking until I let them back in as soon as they hear gunfire, no matter how far away it is. As far as we're all concerned here, deer season cannot end soon enough (the current deer gun season ends December 2nd, if anyone is wondering). The garden still looks pathetic and will for several more months, but at least the rosemary, sage and parsley remain green. Oh, and the onion chives and garlic chives, dianthus, salvia farinacea, autumn sage and malva sylvestris 'Zebrina'. The asparagus still is green too, which is quite vexing. I like to cut it back to the ground after it turns brown, but so far it is refusing to help me out by turning brown so it continues to live on, green and billowy, swaying gently in the wind.