Good Morning, Everyone! Thank you all for the "welcome back". I missed each and every one of you. Stormy here today on this Good Friday. Dark and a bit chilly out. Good weather for gardens though. Glad for the rain though. We've had high temps and high, dry winds this past week and wildfires every day. Nothing close to here, but close enough that I could smell the smoke. My dogs erupted in chorus with every firetruck that passed by over on the highway.(hehehe). I took pictures of the gardens on the 31st. Glad I did, as the hot, dry winds dried out all the pretty yellow Jonquils later that day. Blasted hot winds ruined them before our Easter Sunday family picnic and egg hunt. They were magnificent in chorus with the yellow forsythias, white Bridle's Wreath, and Redbud trees now in full bloom all over the garden. My beloved Jane Magnolia is breathtakingly beautiful this year and smells so wonderful. I planted out some Orange Perfection Phlox yesterday. Tried them last year, but they didn't make it. This rain may ensure these do. I dug around in the bin at the store until I found one, just one package with moist peat inside. Holding it up to to sunlight, I could just make out something possibly alive in that dark green plastic bag. Makes me mad to pay five bucks for dead rootstock. They are not the best looking root stocks I ever saw, but think they will make it. I only need one to survive to establish a nice clump this year for next year's blooms. I also planted a package of purple Liatris and a package of Freesia bulbs for summer blooms. I love the smell of Freesia. Yummy. All the Peonies are up and beginning to make tiny flower buds. Hopefully the red ones and deep magenta ones will bloom this year too. If they do, it will be their first time. Some deer came into the yard this winter and ate the top branches off the one surviving River birch sapling, but it is recovering nicely now. I caged it with a tomato cage and for now they are leaving it alone. They are "camped" up on the hill, hiding in wait for my juicy, delicious roses to start blooming, no doubt. :[ I've been taking the dogs for walks up there every morning and hopefully their pee and poop will make them think twice about coming any closer to the back yard. My English Shepherd could easily take down a whitetail deer. DH said this weekend he would finish stretching field fence around on the inside of the existing barbed wire fencing to keep out critters. That won't keep deer out, but it will keep our dogs in, so we can let them run loose on the property. That will be great. They need the exercise and I need them to do their job protecting the place. They love it, too. Hopefully the raccoons & coyotes will take the hint. Keep Out! Anyhow, so far so good. Gotta go check on my chicks. They poopy up their water really fast and will be ready for breakfast. :) Talk to you guys later. ~Annie

thank you for the suggestions. i got a 4 cu. ft. bag of vermiculite from a pool supply - i'm hoping its the right kind. i'm going to return the perlite and give the guy an earful for selling me perlite when i asked for vermiculite! not really, but this is really a headache! i'll feel better tomorrow once i get my soil mixed up and my seeds in =)

Linda, i admit i'm scared, what if you think boy, is she ever boring, boy is she is the most ugliest person i've ever seen! but i am really looking forward to meeting you! maybe we can go shopping, and my shopping consists of the sal. army, and yard sales maybe we can get you alot of wood things to paint. but, i do wish we were ALL meeting! this has turned into one great family here. we had rain mostly all weekend and i spent only an hour and a half in emerg. for them to look at my ankle (it pays to be a frequent visitor). i've just put up another one of those nylon sun shades between the garage and house so Al won't fry being out, plus it was more for me so i can deal with the plants in the backyard. for some reason, even living on a lake, we have odd even watering days, i don't water much, save the rain water in huge buckets, because water is so expensive here, average bill is 120.00 every 3 months which is way too much. i went to 2 yard sales and picked up beautiful material and outdoor things and books books and more books. i have to say i do have great kids, they haven't caused me any grief and have always kept busy and they were always allowed to pick if they wanted to play sports or dance the choice was theirs same with books, it makes me sad when i see parents picking out their kids books in the library and not giving them a choice and let them think of their own. al apparently is still employed at the college here and had academic upgrading - people who never got their high school diploma and wanted to take college programmes. as you probably know we have grain elevators here, paper mills and there used to be alot of shipping, but that has changed so most of the people here only have at the most grade 10 if this is where they choose to work. thank goodness al and i chose higher learning, so he has people maybe in their late 50's or early 60's going back to school, so he has math, english and a computer lab (but i learnt everything about the computer from carley!, she even knows more than matthew) matthew is golf crazy right now and enjoyed going to Lutsen for the day, he says it was amazing. on the rainy days i was found in the kitchen re-lining cupboard and drawers, and basically cleaning up the mess in here. the humid rainy weather had al in alot of pain and he hasn't had alot of sleep this past weekend. PeaBee i'm almost finished the book, i do think that Joan Hess knows of a teen that as she said in her other books "talks in capital letters" i know i for one wouldn't put up with her daughter Caron talking to me like that! but since it is a book it is funny. well we are supposed to have another thunderstorm this afternoon so i better do what i can outside before i spend the day inside. Happy 4th of July everyone, and drive carefully! debbie

Thanks fatamorgana2121(Zone 5/6)....:-)