First of all... wonderful pictures, everyone! Thank you for sharing them all! Beautiful trees, flowers, and other living things! I love it! Second... why do I plant my bulbs as shallowly as I do? Because there's no reason to bury the entire bulb when it's in the controlled environment of a container. The important plant to medium contact point is the basal plate, from whence the roots grow, and that part of the bulb is sufficiently buried. I like to keep the majority of my amaryllids planted shallowly for a few reasons... some amaryllids actually grow more as epiphytes in their natural habitat, I like to see what's happening to my bulbs, and having them above the surface level a bit allows for ease in keeping them groomed. Most bulbs settle in once planted, and either draw themselves down or lift themselves up a bit as their roots grow, to suit their growth habits. It's more of a habit for me to place them rather shallowly, mainly because of past experiences with saturated bagged soils and a propensity for Hippeastrums to rot in excess moisture. So, there are many reasons why I tend to plant amaryllids shallowly in pots. If I could grow them in the gardens, I'd place them deeper... well, most of them.

Thinking I might have found the bright side of the garlic grass that's invaded most of my gardens, I went googling for "plants that repel voles" and found a promising article on Elsevier (they publish research journal articles). The goal of the study was to find plants that kept voles out of orchards. The method was to see what deterred them from eating their favorite food, applesauce, when it was mixed with different concentrations of the various plants under consideration. I'm not positive that these results actually imply a repellent, but for what it's worth, here are the results: Pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis Sieb. and Zucc.), boxwood (Buxus sempervirens L.), daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus L.), and crownvetch (Coronilla varia L.) were the most effective. The abstract is at the link below. I can probably get a PDF of the full text from the WHOI library system if anyone wants to see it, but I'm hoping to find something more apropos (I really don't *want* pachysandra everywhere - or anywhere.) Here is a link that might be useful: Crop Protection abstract

I asked my friend what email program he is using. Here is his reply:" I use an integrated browser and email package called "Seamonkey", which is Firefox and Thunderbird rolled into one. Although it is supposed to be 100% compatable with IE and others, it isn't. Some sites are programmed so narrow for IE that it is difficult for Seamonkey and others. I usually save jpg, wmv, and others to my "My Videos" folder and then go there and double click on a particular one. I'm going to get up to date on the plugins for Seamonkey and see if that helps. Windows tries to make it difficult for other browsers in an effort to get them to switch over. Some of my wife's friends have issues as well. I have been thinking about switching to Firefox and Thunderbird to see if it makes any difference. Sorry for any inconvenience." Perhaps there is some information there to explain what is happening. What say?

Lynn, Are you using 'Windows XP', 'Vista', or some other operating system? You mentioned 'Superantispyware' removing "several spywares". Have you also run a full scan with your 'anti-virus' program? If not, update and run a full scan. Something else I overlooked when I read your initial post, I see you're using AOL 9.1. I'm still using AOL 9.0 SE, so there may be some changes to the way things are done in 9.1 as far as repairing the software. I'm not even sure they have the same features in 9.1 so let's forget about 'rebuilding the AOL adapter' for now. Someone else using that version of AOL will have to jump in here. If you have the 'AOL' icon down in the system tray (by the clock) you can right click that and see what options there are. System Restore is painless and if you don't get the results you want you just 'undo' the restore. If you had any kind of virus or spyware infection and you restore to a time when your machine was infected, yes, it will restore those infections, but you can always run your anti-virus and anti-spyware applications again to remove them. I can't say for certain whether or not 'system restore' will affect your bookmarks but it is always a good idea to back up anything on your computer that you cannot afford to lose or want the hastle of having to replace. There can never be enough said about the importance of backing up important data! I use Acronis True Image which makes an image of the complete hard drive, sector by sector, that will restore everything including operating system, programs, documents, pictures, data, etc. to the 'T'. This is on a second drive in my PC in case my primary drive should fail. I also have an external hard drive where I back up 'My Documents'. "I also ran ccleaner right after the updates (I thought at first that that was the problem) - should I rerun that as well?" No, running CCleaner again is not going to fix the problem, nor do I see where CCleaner would have created your problem, unless by chance, if you also used the 'Registry' feature in CCleaner, it may have removed something. Anytime you use any kind of registry cleaner it should have the option of making a backup in case things go wrong, which is exactly why most cleaners, some don't, have the backup option. Either that or create a 'system restore' point before you use it. Using a 'registry cleaner' is a hot topic. Some swear by them, others swear at them! I personally have use Macecraft 'Reg Supreme' for years with no ill effects. "There may have been an easier way to do this, but I just copied and pasted all the bookmarks I made_____". There is: Internet Explorer has an 'import/export' feature for transferring or backing up your cookies and favorites. Click on 'File' in the Menu bar at the top of the IE browser, select 'Import/Export', and follow the Wizard. You can save them to a file on your computer for retrieval later if you should need to do so using the same wizard. I made a folder called 'Backups' in the 'My Documents' folder where I store a copy of my 'cookies' and 'favorites'. In Firefox, I'm still using version 2.0.0.16, if you go to 'Bookmarks' in the Menu bar and select 'Organize bookmarks' and click on 'File', you'll find an 'Import' and 'Export' wizard. Drink some 'brave' juice and try the system restore first to see if that works. Witz