Mike, "I don't give a kumquat whether we are warming or cooling..." I am offended by your implication that there is anything negative about kumquats. They are great. I grew up with a tree that bore way more fruit than I could ever eat, and the extras served as excellent ammunition for throwing at my friends--especially the green ones b/c they are much harder. :) It is pretty funny with this current cold weather how much people on both sides of the debate cite it as evidence in their direction. As if one piece of datum out of context can lead to any kind of significant conclusion. Whenever winter rolls around gardenweb seems to slow down, which I find annoying considering I live NorCal where we don't have much of a winter. So I appreciate discussion topics that I find interesting regardless of how "on topic" they are for the various forums. I do find it interesting all the people that chime in about how this isn't a worthwhile discussion. In a free society, isn't any any all discussion worthwhile? You are free to discuss and free not to. Cousin floyd, do you not think that colony collapse disorder exists, or are you just saying you don't think it is a new thing? I didn't realize that was even a controversial topic. ryan

Hi Betty, First of all, your platform Windows XP SP2 is just fine. Windows Vista just came out but I would not buy it yet as it may have a lot of bugs...wait a bit...at least this is what I'm going to do befor switching to Windows Vista. More importantly is your Office package. From Office 97, I have upgraded to Office 2000, and last year to the latest Office XP.That seems to work fine with me. You have a lot of hostas. WOW!! 770 is a lot. It may be that you have reached over the limit that your blank CD can handle. Let's pursue this privately if you dont mind. My email is ghislain@hawk.igs.net The last CD that I burned took 550megs. If we exchange coordinates, we could possible send each other our CD backups. Hoping to hear from you. Ghislain Seguin (Papou on Garden Web)

You hit a raw nerve with this one, kt! When I lived in New York all those years, the idea of joining a garden club seemed obsure, at best. . .I had visions of Upper East Side ladies with their perfectly white-gloved hands, meeting over tea to "worry" over the tulip plantings on Park Avenue each Spring. . .an absurd exaggeration, I came to learn, but with the wealth of superb public gardens there - N.Y.Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, Wave Hill, Central Park Conservancy, et al - joining a garden club just seemed so, well, unnecessary. . . Now, I'm located in a small town in New Jersey, and they had a garden club. . .but after attending those first two annual Garden Tours, and seeing what they were touting as "gardens", it came as no surprise that this erstwhile garden club collapsed. A few years later, at the urging of a town official who knew I was a gardener, I joined a group whose sole resposibility was to plant and maintain eleven (11) simple signpost plantings at each of the various entry points to our town. . .disaster again. These "interested gardeners" would meet once a month, with minutes read, a treasurer's report, a rigid agenda of new/old business, etc. . .it was an absolute farce - they were really only there to gossip and chat about anything and everything NON-garden! There's an interesting development to this particular story, but since it's not germaine to your basic point, I'll leave it for now. . .but the point is, here was a group charged with "gardening" and they didn't know an annual from a perennial, compost was an alien concept, weeding and mulching were things you hired other people to do. I also tried hooking up with the NJ Gardening Forum on GW but that turned out to be unbelievably sterile ground. . . it was when I went to click on their forum one day last year, that I accidentally clicked on NE Gardening right above it and discovered the whole lot of YOU - an eclectic passel of actual gardeners, and I've been happily contributing here ever since. (Since I'm a Yankee-in-Exile, born and raised in Massachusetts, I was told I could hang out with you kids. . .) Finally, right after moving here, I joined the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (primarily because membership includes 2 tickets to their annual Flower Show, a life-long addiction of mine!) ,but what an extraordinary collection of fascinating people THAT revealed - gardening culture in the Philadelphia region is truly in their blood! - but since it's 60 miles away, being deeply involved is problematic. So, I guess my long-winded answer to your question about garden clubs is: sure, some of them might be great, but like most things, each of them is only as good as it's collective members - AND, their reason for having a garden club in the first place! My ultimate solution, quite serendipitous, was finding a local gardener (feeling equally cut off from other gardeners) with whom I share a lot of time in our own gardens, visiting other gardens (here a plug for the Garden Conservancy's Open Days program), and sharing a steady stream of books and magazines on our mutually favorite subject. This, to me, has been the ideal solution, and I fervently hope that every gardener out there is lucky enough to find one or two other soul mates - gardening alone is a fevered and wondrous passion, but being able to SHARE a garden is simply nirvana. . . Carl

I retired at age 55 and enjoyed a year of 'retirement' but decided to venture out to do several other things after that period. That year provided my wife and I some time to get reacquainted and enjoy some distant time together. Following that first year I felt that I needed to spend time in projects that I enjoyed. It wasn't long after that that I found myself back to work full-time in a couple other endeavors. Now that I am 63 years of age I retired again and this time working on projects that I truly love involving social activities. Retirement is an evolving process. Even though your husband may route retire at 55 it is very likely that you will find other things to do that will be more fulfilling than the job that he's doing now. This is a good time of life for both of you so take advantage of what it has to offer. Best of luck in whatever you choose to do. Here is a link that might be useful: Active Empty Nesters