Tracey, What fun you must have had with your granddaughter being able to stay for such a long visit! It is great that so much of your garden held on and has put out new growth. I stopped watering the veggie garden in July and, despite that and very little rainfall, some veggies have put out new growth and are producing well. Some flowers and herbs survived as well. It is nice to have a little green around, isn't it? Tomato plants often put out new growth in the fall and manage to produce a few fruit, even if the plants looked pretty much dead and gone in July or August. Tomato plants are perennial in their native setting, and people who garden in frost-free areas sometimes can keep the same tomato plants going for 2 or 3 years before disease gets them. Often the fruit you get in the fall do remain smaller because they are getting fewer hours of sunlight per day as daylength gradually shortens, and the sunlight and heat are less intense too. There is so much you can do after a freeze. You can work on soil building. I do that by gathering grass clippings and autumn leaves, spoiled hay, etc. and chopping these materials up into small pieces with the mulching mower. Then I rake them up into buckets and carry them into the garden and pile them onto the beds. If I have finished compost in the compost pile, I pile it on top of them. I leave them there and let them decompose for a while. Then, if I have a chance, I rototill them into the beds using my Mantis cultivator. Or, if I don't get a chance to rototill those materials into the soil in fall, they break down a lot over the course of the winter and I leave them on top of the beds as mulch and plant right through them. Another way to improve garden soil is to plant a cover crop that can be incorporated into the soil. There are a few cold-hard cover crops that you can plant in garden beds. My favorite is rye, and if you have sandy soil with nematodes, then you need to use a cereal rye like Elbon rye(developed at the Noble Foundation in Ardmore, OK, of all places) because the nematodes become trapped in Elbon's roots and die. Sometimes I plant cold-hardy herbs in the fall to get them off to a good start for next spring. I usually do that with parsley, chives, sage and a couple of others. Sometimes I plant new plants from seed and sometimes from small transplants or by dividing old clumps of plants. You can plant garlic in fall for harvest in about June or July of the following year. I also scatter-sow of early cool-season bloomers sometime after the last frost. This includes seed of Texas bluebonners, larkspur in shades of blue, white and pink, poppies and sometimes (in the yard, never in the cultivated garden beds because of its invasiveness) pink evening primrose. You can plant bulbs of spring bloomers like daffodils, grape hyacinths, hyacinths, crocus, tulips, etc. I usually plant them after our first hard freeze here, which normally doesn't occur until mid- to late-November. I do a lot of garden clean-up, but leave most of it until after the first hard freeze because otherwise I encounter too many snakes. There's a lot to do in fall and winter. You can draw up scale models, by hand or using a computer program, of what you want your veggie or herb garden or flower beds to look like next year. I usually make lists of the veggie, herb and flower varieties I want to grow next year, then go through my seed box and check off those that I already have. Then, as soon as the seed company websites are updated (some of them already are updated for next year, but others are not and won't be until closer to the first of the new year), I order the seeds I need. I try to have all my seeds ordered before the end of the year. That way, I am not sitting here all frustrated and irritated in Feb or March waiting for back-ordered seeds to arrive when planting time is already here. After the first freeze, I move compost from the finished 'current' pile to the garden beds, and then start a new pile, using garden debris from garden clean-up, lawn clippings if I have overseeded the lawn with rye grass, chopped or shredded leaves, small twigs, bedding/manure from the chicken coops, fruit and vegetable waste parts like peels, etc., from the kitchen, coffee grounds, etc. It always amazes me how active the compost pile is all winter long. It often gets hot enough to cook down during the winter so that I can add more compost to the flower, veggie and herb beds in spring. I clean up and reorganize my potting shed and sun porch in fall and winter so it is all neat, tidy and ready to go in late winter when I start doing more gardening-type chores. Fall and winter are a great time to clean up, sharpen and repair garden tools. We normally do the harder garden chores, like bed-building or making structures like arbors or fences, in the cooler fall and winter months. Chores like that are more pleasantly accomplished in mild weather instead of during extreme heat. Most years, in the fall, I will empty out all the soil from my garden containers, except for those that are overwintering plants, and mix in compost, organic amendments, etc. to replenish the soil-less mix and refill the pots so they are ready for spring. Sometimes I don't get around to doing this until late winter or early spring. We have acreage with lots of fencing, so usually clear our fencelines of unwanted growth and make fencing and gate repairs in fall and winter. After the Christmas-New Year holiday season is behind us, I usually look through all my garden supplies and then go about finding and purchasing whatever I am short of. I like to have all the stakes, row cloth anchor pins, zip ties, garden twine, plant labels, seed-starting containers, organic fertilizers and pest repellents, etc. gathered together, organized and on-hand for planting well before I need them. This fall will involve more pruning and brush removal than usual due to the high wildfire risk elevated by the ongoing drought. This weekend I am working on limbing up trees around the house so that the lower limbs are no lower than 8-10' above the ground. This makes it harder for fire to climb up into the crowns of the trees. As soon as we have the first freeze, I need to clear all the undergrowth in the woods within 40 to 60' of the house. I don't even bother clearing that stuff, other than cutting pathways, in the good rainy years, but I remove it all in the drought winters. We feed birds and wildlife all winter long, so I always start stocking up on birdseed in the fall so we don't run out during a particularly harsh cold spell in the winter. I also repair any damage to various feeders, etc. long before the birds are relying on the food in them to supplement whatever else they are eating in winter. A lot of our berry- and nut-producing plants did not produce well this year, so it is likely the wild birds will rely more than ever on the birdfeeders this winter. Finally, to keep myself happy and busy raising something, I always overwinter a handful of plants either indoors or out in the garage, and I always plant winter bulbs in pots indoors, usually in October. I mainly plant paperwhites and amaryllis, and usually have a Christmas cactus and a few potted herbs inside. In a good fall and winter (with milder days and some nice sunny days), the Laura Bush petunias in containers near the garage stay warm enough (they are sitting on a concrete slab and gain heat from a metal wall behind them) to bloom most of the winter. If I didn't have hungry deer and rabbits, I'd have containers of other winter flowers like pansies or snapdragons, but when I've attempted to grow them, the wild critters eat them, so I just stick with the Laura Bush petunias. Then, of course, fall and winter are a great time to pore through the seed and plant company catalogs, make endless lists of new things to try, etc. Dawn

Techno-dummy here with a question: If one has Trend Micro or McAfee (or some other commercial product, I suppose), are there significant advantages to also running Malwarebytes from time to time? Seems this post outlines one disadvantage. Tracey's skills, together with the great help provided here, got her through this issue. I, on the other hand, would just freak out and after reading all this, probably just not run Malwarebytes unless it catches a whole bunch of stuff that the other programs missed. TIA!

I also love that bowl - it's great. And the edible goodies are mouthwatering. That's supposed to be The Word on Italian Cooking. I have the book, but have been too daunted to know where to start. Marcia - please do post any recipes you try on the discussions thread. And for the rest of you who have this book, please let me know which recipes you recommend. With over 1200 (and no editorial comments), I don't know where to start. Enjoy it all. Lynn.

Tracey - some points of reference for out local climate/economy Nobody uses anything but flex duct at R8(code in attic and used elsewhere for simplicity). Our original HVAC budget was $13 and we spent $20. One contractor was $30 for metal ducts. Original was Seer 13 with no frills. We got Seer 15/16 Heat pump with gas backup down/electric up. Variable speed. 2 stage. Zoning. Total of 7 tons - 4 down, 3 up Your specs are typical in that they are not very informative. They don't give size - usually what they'll do is say that they can maintain 20 degrees cooler than outside and ?? degrees warmer. If you have the $$, seer 15 is generally worth it. I think dual fuel (ie gas and HP) is worth it. Variable speed and 2 stage are more comfort items - worth it if they are worth it to you (the other 2 are worth it in $$ saved). If you have the land and the $$, geothermal is worth considering. To throws numbers around, I suspect we would have spent $40 for geo - down to $27 after tax credit. If you have land, the geo should be less - perhaps down to $20 after tax credit. You can then not have gas, longer life of Pumps, quieter operation, no external pieces and of course energy savings. Geothermal is the one of the few options for tax credits on new construction. In my situation, the money saved was not worth it in just $$$. Lastly - there are a few items for our climate worth mentioning (forgive me if I have done this before). R-40 in the attic cost me $200 and reportedly saves $50 a year (code is r-30). Radiant barrier in the attic gave similar numbers. Energy star certification cost me $850 (or so) but saves me 5% on gas and electricity for life (Progress Energy and PSNC) - payback about 8 years. The extra insulating they do with energy star (cost hard to figure) all makes a ton of sense - mostly using foam around windows and doors - which I think cost $200. They also install backing behind tubs/soffits/on attic walls - that is hard to figure cost of since it went to the framers