Judith, I thank you so much for your kind words and we are keeping a few that have been able to cope on their own, but all the burdens of rosegrowing which we have experienced over the past few years have naturally pared the garden way back. We have had our share of RMV,the ravages of RRD, a myriad of fungi and insects, a blight that killed most of the Noisettes, and in the past few years, such very late and hard freezes in late spring that pruned some roses so far back, they never rebounded, so the garden began to look pathetic, and we knew we were not going to be able to maintain the laborious physical and monetary schedule we had, in the past, while acquiring so many roses and maintaining them. We needed a gardener 2-3 days per week, and sometimes more often, lots of fertilizer, pruning, using chemicals and our water bill was rivaling that of the national debt. We are slowly replacing our losses with a few evergreens, conifers, deciduous ornamental small trees and some lovely ornamental shrubs, e.g., camellias, tea olives, gardenias, etc. We still have many climbers and ramblers remaining, enough so that we will have a beautiful late April/early May show. We still love roses as much as ever and I love coming here to see what everyone else is doing but in our area secondary to the condition alluded to above, it is, unfortunately, a decision we did not come to lightly but growing and caring for hundreds of roses is a love we must leave to others.

I hope those of you who aren't used to freezing temps don't suffer too badly. Those poor fruit farmers! We lived in Oklahoma for two winters and I never will forget how terrifying it was to be on the road with drivers who obviously knew nothing about "black ice" or other treacherous winter conditions as they whizzed by going 70mph. This county has been spared from the worst of the ice storm. My mom lives 30miles north and there has been a lot of damage in her area from frozen tree branches snapping and bringing down power lines etc. She still has power thank goodness and the road crews have been sanding the roads so I shouldn't have any problems getting there this morning. I'm wondering about Tracy and some others CG'ers that were in the storms path. Praying that all is well. Edna, I think your plants will be fine too. Only flowers, fruits etc. or exposed leaves are harmed in general. What kills our plants here in the north is the freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing. Don't know about your slugs though. Maybe Diana can make them some teeny-tiny slug quilts. :-) I agree with the dripping faucets helping. Also opening the cabinet doors where pipes are will allow heat from the room to warm the pipes. Here is some information from the American Red Cross: Here is a link that might be useful: Red Cross Facts about frozen pipes

Thanks for the kind wishes, everyone :) re used bookstores . . . my library has a dangerous room where they sell their overstock; anywhere from 10 cents to $3.00. Of course, I head straight for the cooking section where I've gotten many beautiful cookbooks. (sigh, I DO have "addict" stamped across my forehead, but I don't think I'm alone here :) I once said something about the expense of entering that room, and the clerk snarled about how cheap everything was . . . but she cackled like an old hen when I told her it wasn't the BOOKS that were expensive, it was the addition of the new wing I was going to have to build to house all my cookbooks! Scott, I never even THOUGHT that the '69 BC cookbook might have been a duplicate wedding gift!!! Now I feel kind of guilty for thinking the new couple was unappreciative, but I couldn't get myself to throw that card away anyway, so it's taped inside the cover as a reminder of my lucky find :)

To bzamp58 Hi, I make and decorate cakes. I have NO trouble at all with my recipes for doing cakes. I always use the roller. Just make sure you do the wet ingredients first. The add the dry. My cakes are light, moist, fluffy. (As with all recipes and the DLX the wet should go in first dry last). Thanksgiving...Whip Cream! My granddaughter is not too familiar with my DLX...was using white bowl and beaters, she said I can do the whip cream Gram. Huh well we had chunky almost butter whip cream! The look on her face was priceless. How we laughed! Just added a tablespoon of cream to the 2 cups whipped and consistency was fine for the pumpkin pie! And I am thrilled this year to have my DLX for all my Christmas cookie orders! So much easier! Last year I used my 1980 Kitchen Aid and did 3000 cookies in three weeks. I had been so booked with wedding cookies so got a late start! Still got a late start this year cause we did a total "kitchen make-over"! But now my wonderful DLX and new kitchen...I am so blessed! Time to get Pecan Tassies out of oven. May all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!