It's been "interesting" to say the least this year. I lost no trees. I've lost more trees to the floods from the last 3 years. My Seckel pear lost most of its leaves, but all other fared pretty well--even the one and two year old newbies. Our Asian pears fruited for the first time, giving us a taste of what's to come, and I'm pretty impressed. A lot of local Asians I've tried have just been insipid. These were the opposite--juicy, flavorful, and a nice crunch--perfectly shaped and sized except for a couple stinkbug scars. My young apples are loaded w/good looking fruit--a little scab and some stinkbut scars. ' Early peaches were riddled w/curculio and mostly unusable. Later peaches small but good. We even got a good sampling from all of our two-year-olds. Plums did not set, nor did any of the cherries. Apricots did not flower. Blueberries are toast. I have 12 left out of 55. We lost half of our young currants and an entire 100 feet of both gooseberries and rhubarb. All grapes, new and old, survived and put out some new growth. Grape harvest has been impressive though very prolonged. The raspberries are confused. I have been picking both summer and everbearers since May from 200 feet of each. Small harvests of 1-2 pints a week, some weeks giving up a gallon or more. Blackberries were very disappointing for what should have been a record-breaking year. Only 25 gallons picked when there should have been over 200. We were picking some in June. I had ripe pumpkins in July, and watermelons are setting a whole new crop instead of dying out. The cantaloupes are covered in blooms. Another weird thing about blooms is that they have never shut down. I've got a restaurant that wants between 400-500 squash blossoms a week, and I've met that quota all year and am still meeting it. Amazingly, that's from all one planting, not a succession.

Actually, I don't mind paying for stamps for the postal service, but I mind greatly subsidizing the junk mail. As long as that stuff gets discounted rates, *we* are paying for their service. That's my big peeve. I used to work the junk mail sections at night. The envelopes are all odd sizes, it's a pain in the butt to deliver, and takes just as much effort as an important letter. You wouldn't mind so much, but you know nine times out of ten, it's wasted effort. It won't even be opened. It wastes trees and fuel. I'm a businessperson, and I know that if you get a two percent response from mailouts, you're doing well. That means 98% of the ads you mail are ignored. That's ridiculous and wasteful. We are getting 'new' mailings for my DH's ex wife. It just started about a month ago and she hasn 't lived at this address for 30 YEARS! Somebody made money selling an antique mailing list. We've asked the postal carrier repeatedly to please just junk it and not deliver it, but he does anyway and we have to deal with it. It's just easier for him to case it and drop it in our box. Return postage is of course not guaranteed. And we all pay for this with our postal raises and taxes. ARgh.

quirky, don't lose faith yet. About 1/8th of my current lawn was common bermuda grass 2 years ago that spread from my neighbor's lawn. It's all bluegrass today, and since the roundup attack of 2 years ago, not one bermuda has returned. The lawn was sprayed by a Landscaping company, then after it died, I completely destroyed the roots system with a roto tiller. I wish I would have taken pictures of it them, because I know that seeing is believing. Having said that, I constantly have to patrol the areas adjacent to my neighbor's bermuda lawn. To matters worst, my neighbor is the type of guy that will let his bermuda grow to about 4 inches tall, seeds out like son of gun because it's a commong type, then chops it down to an inch leaving bermuda sticks and dirt. Then a couple of weeks later the cycle repeats. I have a plan, next spring when the bermuda starts to come out of dormancy, I'm going to spray Turflon at night to make sure stays a sleep a little longer:-)

No problem, maybee. If you don't want to read it - no one said that you had to. The reference to the high living related to students in Univ. that go to sleep at the beginning of the class that they paid expensive tuition to attend ... because they celebrated a bit too loud and long on the previous evening ... was that I would feel it necessary to help them get their money's worth! It was made substantially tongue-in-cheek, with regard to your situation. Anyway - what responsibility do I have to waken you ... you didn't pay any fees, here! Sorry if I offended you ... I do instigate some levity around here, at times. However - would you like to deal with the issue? Rather than shooting the messenger. I was checking my old copies of the financial magazine that I respect, this evening. I found a saying that I like. "Financial freedom is ... priceless! Pass it on!". Learning how money works is useful, and pays. And I've been offering my viewpoint regarding using money more effectiely for some time. To help people achieve financial freedom. Free ... here. Anyone who wishes to check it out is welcome, and if many choose not to, that's fine ... I wouldn't twist arms, even if I could. I don't appreciate others trying to live my life for me, though I take heed of their comments regarding it. I have felt for years as a counsellor that my task with others is to help them examine and deal with various aspects of their life that they invite me to do, in ways that will enable them to cope with living more effectively, on their own. It's not up to me to make others' decisions for them - they need to become increasingly capable to manage their own lives more effectively. I want individuals and families to learn how to run their own money. A local man who makes presentations about money management laments that there isn't more of it taught in schools, and I agree. Is it possible to buy a dollar's worth of value for 60 cents, as that mutual funds' manager said? Who knows. But I still think that it makes sense to do some buying, as time goes along. As many say ... trying to time the market is a fool's game. "What's the greatest risk in the investment market", asked one writer in the mag, "being in the market when it's going down?". "No - not being in it when it's going up!" was his advice. Good wishes for managing your income and assets with increasing skill. ole joyful P.S. I want to be able to fund what part of my future medical services which are not covered by the Canadian medical and hospital care system, for which I am mightily thankful, though I've made minimal use of it, thus far. Plus cover residential and nursing home care, as may be required. Plus pay for funeral and final income tax. I want to leave some assets for my offspring, for I feel that there may well be some troubled years ahead for our economy - and I'd like to leave as much extra cushion to enable them to cope with it as I can. And I want to support some charities at the end of my life, as I have during it. I lived for years where people had to scrounge what they could to build themselves a shack and wondered where the next meal was coming from. That has an effect. No way could I justify owning one home for year-round use, plus a second for a short stay in summer: millions have been able to (so far) ... I can't. Also - it takes a great deal of energy, which reduces the remaining supply, plus adds to both global warming and pollutants flying around the air and water, to build an automobile. It cost me more a few months ago to fix my 20 year old car than I paid for it less than a year previously, but I think that there's a good possibility that it will run for quite a few miles yet, so felt that it was the responsible thing to do to repair it. We should get on the backs of the builders of our appliances, requiring them to build appliances that will last for 40 years rather than 10, as it takes a lot of resources plus much heating and polluting energy to build a fridge. Soon after they began building fridges, 70 years ago, they were building ones that would last for 40 years. They won't do it now, for they want us to buy new, again ... soon. We can no longer afford such foolishness. They say that it'll take the resources of four planets like ours to serve the needs of our world with its present population, if most of them get to live higher on the hog, anywhere similar to what we've been used to. Further ... I grew up a few years after the Dirty Thirties, the Great Depression ... and during the six years of scarcity during World War II. o j