Anthony--Happy Anniversary Day!! There will be BBQ's and meriment everywhere tonight, I suppose. Australians surely know how to celebrate (and talk about old times) Wish I were there! Cheers!!

MMMMMM Lamb

Well, some young aussies yobbing it up sure sound like they had fun in the park next door Lot's of broken glass out there now, I imagine. At least they went home before midnight! *wearing offical party-pooper badge, but does not like loud, aggressive, violent drunks*

And I managed to very briefly see the beautiful lilies on display at the Devonport Lilium show today. Wish I could have stayed longer, but made a far too late arrival for lingering. Gorgeous fragrance wafting out the door and all around the carpark! Haven't checked how the pictures came out yet.

Devonport--That's quite a drive too. It's always nice to see pictures of these shows--can't wait. I kind of knew about the party atmosphere on 'Anniverary Day'. My nieghbor was in Sidney a couple years ago for it and I had worked with a fellow who had two daughters there so he would always schedule his vacations around that time to be there. It really must be a grand celebration! I hope you got lots of good pictures.

All I can think about is "Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow".

Well it is lambing time here in the midwest.

A friend at work yesterday said one of their ewe's just had triplets.

Be happy for the snow, mags. Here the weeds have gone back to growing .

Must be getting close to major lambing time here, too. The grass seed farmers often run sheep on the fields in the winter. The other day I saw a bunch of immature bald eagles working a carcass way out in a field.

I swept a dusting of snow off my porch and walkways. Fortunatly there was only that little bit of snow.

No fleece on my lamb!! actually not really anything at all any more..vegies were nice too...The shank was ''oooh la la''

Ahh--I love 'good times'. I'll bet the evening air was hazey of lingering BBQ smoke and the aroma of good food wafting thru the soft evening air everywhere in town. Ahh--no better enjoyment!

I checked the soil temperature in the seedling cage today. It continues to drop slowly, now reading about 31'F or just slightly below O'C. I expect it to drop another degree or so yet before it starts slowly rising about middle of Feb. I finally got about an inch of snow yesterday morning, otherwise a snowless Winter so far. A very dry Winter here in Southern Wisconsin.

Another cold sunny day here. I am already tired of winter and ready for spring!

Last Sat. on my inspection I spotted these
I think they are Asiatic, or Asiatic something. Burgundy-ish color.
I was tempted to tuck them in, but I changed my mind. I wanna see what happens in spring :)

Calin, we can save you some time. If you don't at least cover them with more dirt, etc, they'd likely dry out or become so dehydrated they would have a weak start up come Spring. Anything Oriental would be most affected while anything Asiatic would be the least affected and might survive but to play it safe--cover them and they will pull themselves down deeper next summer. The bergundy color is caused be exposure to light--no problem there.

Your pictures are fine examples of showing bublets being forced to the surface by frost heaving action caused by freezing/thawing cycles. This can be mostly prevented by applying a good layer of mulch in the fall. Sometimes entire bulbs can be lifted during this heaving action and will be exposed come Spring. Play it safe and mulch.

Edit note added here: Of course, if you don't care about these bulblets and want to continue your experiment so you can learn first hand what happens in your local setting etc, for that would be good first hand knowledge gained for you, and, as I aways say: there is nothing better than a vast amount of good old fashioned field knowledge.

I have been on a healthy eating diet and exercise for weight loss plan for 7 weeks now since I started back in December. Today I got to my first goal of loosing ten pounds from my starting weight. I exercise each day. watch what I eat and have cut out sweets compleatly.

I am really happy to have that first ten pounds gone. And the exercise is making me stronger so that when gardening season comes I will have an easier time taking care of my gardens.

So I am still way overweight but hey, It took me a long time to put the weight on so it will take a while to get it back off again.

The rats and mice must be still be partying out in my garage. I keep putting the rat bait out and it keeps getting eaten. All baits were eaten when I checked this morning. And I had put out a lot of bait. So I put out more bait, even more than I had out prior times. At least when the rats eat, they die.

This has been going on since late spring this past year. I have never seen so many rodents as I have this year. And the garage is detached from the house, which in this case, is a good thing.

I know I planted my garden to attrack wildlife but rats were not what I had in mind!

Rita, you are to be congratulated. As you know I am very supportive of your program, having been around two very close personal friends of mine (almost on a daily basis) loose a lot of weight over a 3 to 5 year period. One went from 430 pounds and size 60 waist down to 180 pounds and size 38 waist over a 5 year period. The other has lost 51 pounds during the last calender year. Both of them are so proud, they make me feel proud, too. So, keep pushin'.

Now--about the dissappearing rat poison. What might be happening is this: They are hoarding it rather than eating it. (I'm referring to mice here, rather than rats). A couple years ago in my garden shed, I was just at a loss for words over how fast I thought they were eating it. And I kept feeding them more and more and more and they kept eating it. I thought, well, new ones must be moving in all the time. And I kept feeding them more and more, and they just kept eating and eating.. I began to blame the Decon--thinking they must have changed formula or something and it was no longer any good. Then one day I went to retrieve some potting soil, and there, low and behold, I discovered a huge cache of stored poison inside the bag. Curious, I checked other bags and yes, they too had been chewed into with large stored caches of poison. Knowing that, I went back and set good old fashioned mouse traps the following day and caught the little buggers the good old fashioned way.

Thank you. I had to work hard to loose the weight. But I do have lots more to go so am still at it!

I don't think they are doing anything other than eatring the rat bait. It is in blocks, the blocks are always nawd at. There must of lots of those rats and mice.

Getting healthy is a marathon, not a sprint. The marathon leads you to consistency and and keeping it off longterm. Take each day as it comes and be proud of that day for what you have done. Perhaps its the nurse in me that says it is a change in lifestyle, I prefer that to the word "diet". As diet I associate with failure, whereas a change in lifestyle, is just that You're off to a great start Rita. Congrats. It all starts with a single step.

I really don't like "diets". Instead of a diet I am trying to change my eating habits to eat more healthy food. For instance staying away from the cakes, donuts, cookies and candy. Not that I feel I can NEVER have some. After all a treat once in a while is ok. But eating candy every day after dinner? Not so good.

I am eating less red meat, usually in smaller portions and then eating lots of vegetables. Lots of fruit too but especially lots of veggies. So instead of a large piece of meat and afew veggies, I now eat a small piece of meat and a lot of veggies. I like veggies so it is no hardship.

Ate my health food type slurry, washed the dishes and went outside. Walked around the garden and looked at the daffs that are up already and some have buds. Those are only the very early daffs though. Going to be a long time still till any blooms.

It is so warm out I tried to take a walk but only got to the end of the block. Well, long end from my house but still not very far. It would be a nice day for a walk but my legs feel like jelly, I can't walk far. So I got to the end of the block and turned around. By the time I got back home I was dragging myself up the driveway and had to sit outside on my lawn chair on the patio to recover.

I stayed there and watched the birds for a while especially the Song Sparrows. Cute little things. They are always hanging out around the garden.

Oh, I also checked the rat baits in the garage but they weren't eaten on overnight. Maybe this last batch of rats are dead. But it seems that a new bunch always arrives.