honalee, We love Shelties too. I love the names you gave them. How cute!! Right now, we have a male Sable Rough-coat Collie (Angus McColly), a large English Shepherd, black with sable (Sheppie) and a female Bluetick Coonhound (Bonnie Belle). Lots of fun and games on our place from them! All were adopted. We adopted the boys and Bonnie adopted us! :) My DH liked your pictures of your DH with the Shelties. We plan to go for smaller breeds eventually. He wants Shelties; I want Corgis. :) Our dogs are so big. In this tiny cottage, it is congested traffic 24/7. You literally have to step over the furry bodies to get from room to room. :) And when they all get excited and rowdy, watch out and grab hold of something to anchor yourself! :) All sweet pups though and very loyal. We sure enjoy them and love them. Our 12 remaining cats tolerate them, because "dogs are handy when you need a warm body to cuddle up with...so I guess they are good for something", or so the cats seem to regard the dogs :) I started Little Brother on Clindamyacin two days ago. He seems somewhat better, although still running a fever and feels cold. His stomach is very tender when touched. You have to lift him carefully or he cries out in pain. He is using the potty box and drinking a tiny bit of water. He acts like he is sick to his stomach, but is not vomiting anymore. That is good. The medicine is staying down him. He started making "biscuits" on his bed this morning and purring again. :) I rubbed a little bit of tuna broth on his gums and let him lick it off so he wouldn't get choked. Keeping him warm and comfy and giving him lots of loves. That's about all we can do. Thanks for the hugs and well wishes everyone. ~Annie

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Barb! look at all of those flowers! Those violets are pretty but they are a real pest here! spread like wiregrass! You really make me miss tulips too! (I knew winter was good for something!) Is that a trillium at the top! I can't remember the last time I saw a trillium!I am sorry to hear that Al has pain, I have suffered from hip/joint pain for several years, the doctors have told me the best treatment is 'keep moving' grrrr, sometimes it is very tough to do. Regina I am happy that you are getting some rain! (I hate to complain about water from the sky but it is still raining off and on here! The plants are loving it, but it sure makes it unpleasant outside (muggy, mosquitos and soggy) That Brug is beautiful! I can't wait till mine bloom, I have 3 potted and one in the ground, I just love those leaves! Even if they didn't have flowers My elephant ears hit the ground running too, all this water really perked them up. I cannot believe the size of the leaf on one of them (Is it my imagination or are those leafs still growing?!?!) Here is a photo of some of the plants Michelle sent (see the little rose that bloomed in the box!!! 9 different coleus cuttings!!! can't wait to pot those up! they are gorgeous! Michelle I am sorry to hear about your little GH! Glad that is was not worse and that you and your family are fine! Last of the Iris Peony my herb garden Hummingbird magnet! Tropical Sub-Tropical Surplus Swap Status 1.bigmama4ever sends to chellflower 2. ladygreensleeves sends to rosepedal SURPLUS SENT and RECIEVED! 3. fcoffill sends to Tina_2 SURPLUS SENT and RECIEVED 4. rosepedal sends to deig01991 SURPLUS SENT AND RECIEVED 5. deig01991 sends to divahethr SURPLUS SENT and RECIEVED 6. chellflower sends to ladygreensleeves SURPLUS SENT and RECIEVED 7.divahether sends to greenthumbgrow SURPLUS SENT and RECIEVED 8. greenthumbgrow sends ro Micyrey SURPLUS SENT 9. tina_2 and micyrey send SMALL (yes SMALL please) boxes to fcoffill miceyrey - SURPLUS SENT and RECIEVED Have a great day everyone! Frances

wow- so im no longer the only tropical fruit freak in NYC!!!!! WELCOME- GREAT PICS- we have many identical plants- i also have maha chinook, sweetheart, and tangerine and i used to have a guava. please keep us posted as o your progress. also highly recommend you buy a mauritius lychee. those mango buds look like leaf buds and not flower buds to me but hopefully im wrong (Harry?). your sweeteart is a really nice size for a 7 gal and is starting to flower very heavily just like mine. interesting how your brewster is several weeks ahead of he sweeheart even though it ripens several weeks later. I would recommend using a pair of tweezers to surgically excise the male flowers and then rub them directly against the appropriate area ( i forget the biological name) of the female flower- turns you into a pimp but cuts out the middleman brush. i posted some pics of me doing this a couple years back on this forum- if you search for lycheeluva and tweezers it should come up. also if you still have brewster flowers around when the sweetheart flowers are around, i would cross pollinate do you buy lychees and rambutan fruit in the summer? if yes, whats your source?

As a resident of SE Fla for over 30 years I will try to answer some of those questions. It really comes down to a few things. The 'veterans' who have been through at least one good storm will usually be very prepared. They will typically have some sort of hurricane shutter for their house and have a stock of supplies before the season starts in June. My personal opinion is things come down to 3 things - 1. New residents and 2. Money (what a surprise) and 3. Denial. With 1, these people may be new to the area and are not familiar yet with what to do, etc so they follow along the advice and guides that are published. With 3, some people still think 'It can't/won't happen to me' so they do absolutely nothing until the last possible minute. These are the people that suddenly say 'oh crap, I better do something now and they run out and buy plywood, etc" With 2, some people just don't have the means to protect their houses properly, hell, too many people here have a hard enough time just keeping their houses out of foreclosure. Like everything else, hurricane protection/shutters, etc are not cheap, so some people play the odds and hope they can get by without it and if stuck go out the last minute. Plywood is one of the worst things to use, it is HEAVY and clumsy to store and install. And yes, after it gets rained on and wet alot, it will warp, etc and with expansion/contraction you sometimes can not get it installed quickly. I don't know of too many people that actually use/depend on plywood as an annual protection system, it is usually used as a last minute 'oh crap' solution. Some people in a hurry even actually use nails to nail it to a homes exterior and it usually causes more damage removing it then the whole storm did. Hopefully there are not many doing that any more. Generators are popular but again not afforded by everyone. And the uneducated sometimes cause more problems with them due to CO2 or wrong/defective extension cords, overloads, etc. So, anyway, I think most of the stuff you see in the media are the newbies or people in denial and don't represent the majority of educated Floridians.