Around the first of August several of us here suddenly got terrible outbreaks of blackspot. We had all been spraying regularly, but it just looked like we had been spraying with blackspot spores. We had quite a bit of leaf drop, and it was very difficult to control, even when hitting them with Manzate three times as prescribed. When the weather finally cooled off, it seemed to slow down quite a bit. Now it looks like mine have Cercospora. Big black round spots, but the leaves aren't turning yellow and dropping. I guess it's true - "If it isn't one thing, it's another".

I am so upset by what I am reading and what I have experienced over the last 12 years .. I am in the process of two major kitchen remodels and have 6 more to complete before I have them all done. Based on what I am reading here and on the internet blogs, I have ended up unwilling to order ANY new appliances. Over the last 12 years the only things I have purchased that have had great customer service are my Jura Capressa coffee makers and my Tempurpedic mattressses. All other purchases have been major headaches or outright nightmares. I am at the point that buying anything at all literally makes me sick at my stomach (and this is not just because I am a guy who does not enjoy shoppping in general). I have noticed that I have become openly hostile to sales people in general. With very few exceptions, I have never met a "sales" person who had even the scant ethics of even a democrat politician. The fact that I am now expected to buy appliances from one of these ingenuine sociopathic sales types is so upsetting that I have my two kitchen remodels on hold. I have great inset all wood custom cabinets with great custom granite counters ... and no appliances. Friends of mine in CA hate their Miele, friends in Henderson Nevada hate their Subzero and Dacor, friends in NY hate their Monogram, friends in Naples Florida hate their AGA and Viking, friends in the Netherlands hate their Miele, friends in Carmel Indiana hate their Traulson and Miele, friends in Arizona hate their Kitchen Aid ... and it goes on and on with nightmare after nightmare of new appliances defective out-of-the-box, incompetent installers, unethical distributors, sales people that grab the big commissions and then can't even return follow up calls, manufacturers that don't honor their warranty committments or try to stong arm the very customers that their business should be treating with dignity and integrity. To add insult to injury, many regional better business bureaus rate these retailers and businesses A+. No wonder consumers have stopped purchasing ... it is not the recession that has stopped people from making major purchases, but, rather, the expectation that after-purchase headaches will take months and months to resolve with stress levels higher than paying for your childrens' college educations. Short of having an attorney produce a contract that the appliance supplier has to sign and be held to legally, does anyone out there have any other magic process. A process that assures the customer won't be setting themselves up for an extremely stressful experience with underpaid customer disservice departments trained by the Insurance claims industry to intimidate and wear down the customer to a point of having to just give up? signed - a potential appliance customer in limbo

"Well my son has become picky now..so it must be a boy thing." It totally could be a boy thing! I think for SS some of it is just getting used to eating a certain way w/BM and then having to switch over to our menu. After having been with BM for 10 of the last 14 days, he wasn't adjusted to our food yet. He's in camp this week and the lunch I packed for him was NOT a hit b/c he's used to BM or grandma's lunches. When he came home on Wed, his trash was all in his lunchbox, and some of the food was leftover---I was shocked to see the lunch. A ham sandwich, which is fine, and he had eaten most of it. Then a Hi-C drink, which isn't great since it's just pure sugar. A fruit roll-up wrapper. Half-eaten bag of king-sized M & Ms. And a pop-tart wrapper. ????? So the lunch I packed---and this is very typical what the kids eat at our house for lunch--I packed him a PB&J on whole wheat bread. Fresh blueberries. Small stack of low-fat Pringles. Apple & Eve 100% juice box. And two fig newtons. I just try to keep things balanced---I am totally fine w/the kids having "junk food" so long as it's in moderation. I don't mind them having a small serving of chips or cookies w/lunch, esp. when it's a packed lunch for camp, but I make sure that there is ALWAYS a fruit w/it, and that the treats I pack aren't *too* bad! Anyway, SS didn't eat a bite of the sandwich b/c he doesn't like wheat bread, he wanted white, which is what BM buys. But he DOES eat wheat over here all the time, we never buy white---I guess he had just grown accustomed to BM's food. He didn't eat the blueberries and didn't eat the fig newtons either. So I guess he had Pringles for lunch yesterday. oh well. He will re-adjust---haha, just in time to go back to BM's, and then we will start all over again when he gets back!

I had the disappearing page issue last night, until I rebooted my computer. Firefox has been slow and wonky lately, so I thought that might be the problem. Also, several times lately, I get 'something went wrong/refresh and try again' when trying to post, but I've found that the message does post, it just takes a while to show up.