What the heck is with Calgary and hail? My extended family all live there and are constantly getting gardens hailed out. We get it here in SK, but not like you guys! I'm going to be devastated if my clematis don't survive this onslaught. We made a special trip to Calgary just to take cuttings from my grandfather's very old vines before they were moved (big time sentimental value, we weren't sure the 35+ year old plant would survive transplant), after he passed away last summer. They weren't supposed to survive, but they did. And then this. :(

Its probably just a pipe dream, but here it goes. WeÂve been talking and dreaming about buying a house ever since the hullabaloo began with the boys next door. They smoke (putting out cigarettes on our brand-new-paid-for-out-of-our-pockets swing and throw the butts all of the walkway and yard), party way too loud and generally disrupt our lives in very disrespectful ways. Plus, we get robbed once a year when the kids let out for school and are totally bored. I also miss my gardens that I canÂt have because the yard guy cuts down my beautiesÂand and and and and the list goes on. The two sides of the camp are, Ed wants to live in some suburb that is at least a thirty minute drive away from where I work so that we can get a bigger, nicer house for a smaller amount of money. I, on the other hand, would love to NEVER ever commute again, would pay dearly to stay where I am and have LF go to the best schools in Nashville. No compromise could be found. To top it all off, we ruined our credit a few years ago. Admittedly, weÂve been working on getting it straight for at least 18 months now (evidently it worked). Ed took it upon himself to ask about a house loan while at the bank one day a few weeks ago. We fought about it pretty hard because I really wanted to wait until the first of 2008 so that weÂd ironed out some of the wrinkles (like getting debt free, yes, weÂre that close again) and he didn't talk to me before he did it. I finally calmed down, did the math (including the taxes and insurance) and figured out we could afford a $XX house. IÂd decided that was my compromise. Talking to Ed, I agreed that I would move (even as early as tomorrow) if he could: A) find a house close to where we already lived, B) it was $X or less (but we could go higher if needed, IÂd just be happier if it was less), and C) did the legwork. Amazingly, the loan officer called and said that was the amount we were approved for a $XX, the exact amount I thought we could handle. I took it to be a sign. Last week, Ed was driving LF to camp through a territory close to work and saw a house for auction. He wanted to go badly. I encouraged him to go, warning, "You donÂt get to pay more than $XX". It sold for $X+70,000. BUT... he talked to the loan officer about what we could do since he's getting anxious, telling him we wanted a house that someone was dying to unload, could even be in bad shape (remember, we can do electricity (brother), plumbing (Ed), carpentry (Ed), carpeting (brother in law), landscaping (Robin)), but needed to be over on this side of town. The loan officer said he knew of a house in our price range, exactly as we described. We went to see the house all together after work last evening. When I met up with LF I told him what we'd been talking about, telling him it wasn't real, more like pretend playing and if he had a house what would like for it to be. He wanted a tree house and a club house. All boy. I told him I envisioned a covered back patio which attached the kitchen on the back of the house. I didn't tell him, I also envisioned a sunken patio that was also in the back yard because it was just plain weird. I couldn't explain why I thought it or have ever wanted something like that. It is in bad shape. You can tell no one has been there in a very long time. It is overgrown with shrubs and vines. There are cracks in the glass on the windows. Every window has a covering pulled completely down. The garage is filled to the ceiling with an old Cadillac sitting on flat tires, cases of bottles, junk in general. This appraisal site says Davidson County appraises its current worth at $XXX. I imagine we can get it for $XX if there's nothing too wrong with it. We can promise to take it as is for less and they won't have the headache, and we'll get to finish it like we want. When we rounded the back of the house, there was a screened in porch, covered with a roof, attached to the back door. How much you wanna bet it's the door to the kitchen? And, it had a smaller patio right next to it, with a 1 1/2 foot high wall around it. Not sunken, but felt that way. I was dumbfounded, but pleased to see that it fits even my imaginary ideas of what it should be. And it's on a road that has Robin in its name. Wonder what that means? It's all coming together, I hope!

Just wanted to update on the snowstorm tonight just in case our power goes out & I can't post tomorrow. The storm has already dumped close to a foot in my yard and it's coming down fast & furious at 11:30 p.m. It's supposed to go all night and til around noontime tomorrow. I've been watching the weather channel and it's crazy how much snow is coming out of the storm for such a widespread area. The wind is getting pretty strong up here and when I put on the spotlight the trees are bowing down with the weight of the snow. They are saying at higher elevations there will be the most amounts so I expect when I wake up in the morning I will be in for a shock. I notice that the Weather Channel focuses mostly on the metropolitan areas in their coverage. Those of us in tiny rural towns are getting huge amounts of snow. I see there are already some deaths related to the storm and I hope there will be no more. Jean, my husband works weekends so he will be at work tomorrow whether he wants to or not. He owns the local hardware store and also fixes power equipment so he was swamped by folks desperate to get their snowblowers fixed in time. Snow shovels were selling off the shelves...LOL. My son works the overnight shift at our local police department and when I talked to him a little while ago he said there are cars off the road everywhere. People just weren't expecting snow in October so they don't have their snowtires on yet. Everyone in the path of this NorEaster, please be careful! Celeste

Josh, This is from another site. I had always been just a bit skeptical of the fact that snow contains nitrogen. My research when I was first asked this question back in the late '70s -- which I don't need to remind you was pre-Internet and Google -- failed to turn up any reliable data confirming what I considered to be just another gardening wives' tale. Well, it turns out not only snow, but rain as well, contains nitrogen compounds that were suspended in air as they formed. It is estimated that 2 to 12 pounds of nitrogen are deposited per acre as a result of snow and rain. Most of this nitrogen comes from emissions as a result of burning fossil fuels and industrial manufacturing. The rest comes from lightning fixing atmospheric nitrogen, which makes up 70 percent of air, as I recall. In fact, it seems the amount of nitrogen in snow and rain has increased dramatically since industrialization and the advent of the automobile. One study I read indicated that by the 1980s the amount of nitrogen deposited in the Colorado Front Range was 30 times greater than it was before the Industrial Revolution. Another study says that this number has since doubled. Granted, to a chemical gardener, 2 to 12 pounds per acre is not that much nitrogen when one considers the suggested rate of application is 3 to 5 pounds per 1,000 square feet. (An acre has 43,560 square feet). But in more and more areas, particularly along rivers and in watersheds, the nitrogen from rain and snow, particularly when snow melts in the spring, has been enough to cause serious changes in the ecosystem. Add to this studies that show an increase in nitrogen mineralization -- uptake by microbes a la soil food web -- in tundra areas when there is snow cover and it becomes clear that snow falling in your yard can be counted for something, especially if you have not damaged your soil's microbes with harsh chemical fertilizers. No wonder the old wives' tales called snow "the poor farmer's fertilizer." Here is a link that might be useful: Poor Farmer's Fertilizer