Trees

You wouldn't think a tree would be such a tough decision! I was led to the Hawthorn by a discussion on the Cleveland pears. I enjoy the pear family as beautiful trees but they're classically known as "break your heart pears" because of their tendancy to break and split under ice and wind stress. Given our winter conditions I guess I'm a bit worried about them. I agree that the Hawthorn might be too messy with its berries though this particular brand isn't supposed to suffer from the disease issues of the other types. Magnolias are a good idea and we'd already identified that one type that does well in our area. Perhaps that's the way to go out front but I was somehow under the impression they were a bit of a slow grower. More research to do! Fortunately I have time as March is about as early as I think we can plant a tree.

Returning something to Amazon is easy even if you have opened it. At the very bottom of the front page is a "Return an item" link. Now that page says they'll only refund 50% of the cost if you have opened it but I've never had that issue on returns I've done before. However, that may be true for you. The entire process is handled online and you'll get a sheet to print out with all the details.

Garmin DC Vehicle Power Adapter

Wednesday woes

I have no idea about Landscaping software. I know that they show it on TV in some of the landscape shows as a tool to plan, but I do not own any.

I have never returned an item to Amazon. Will they take it back even if you have opened it? What is the procedure for returning it? I hate to eat the cost if I do not have to.

I know you have read my comment about the hawthorn by now.

I have not grown the plant you asked about. I do not think they do well in this area, but have seen them in catalogs. I do have the 20% off coupon, but it was sweet of you to offer to share.

Paul called too last night. He is doing well, but has his second jury duty call in as many months and is not thrilled about it. Nor would I be. I hate jury duty.

Better Page

A better link for the Hawthorn. I'm really leaning to this.

Winter King Hawthorn

A few other alternatives

Have you grown any of these? Know anything about them?

Serviceberry
Winter King Hawthorn (I like this one. http://www.hort.net/profile/ros/craviwk/)

'nother neat nursery place. Possibility Place

Why you can't blink in the Midwest

Yesterday it was 60 degrees and my palms were itching to be working in the soil. Thoughts were filled with new hardscape and wondering if I could start that soonly. This morning at 7am it was 50 degrees and the dog was joyously galloping around the back yard as I drank coffee. When I drove to work at 8am, it was 36 degrees. Currently, it's 21 degrees and snowing horizontally with 40 mile per hour winds. I guess it's just as well I'm still going through my garden catalogs.

Speaking of which, I got a postcard from Bluestone Perennials with a code for 20% off orders placed before February 6. (?) I think it was the sixth. Did you get that? If not, I'll post the code if you're planning on ordering anything from them. I haven't started my list yet but need to.

Thanks for the tree list. I'm going to go find pictures of them this afternoon and I'll report on my findings.

So if I wanted to share landscaping plans with you, wonder what the best way would be to do that? I can get the file to you easily using several methods but what program do you think would be best? Do you have something that will do landscape plans nicely and I can match it or do you have a recommendation?

Ornamental tree suggestions

Hopefully better late than never, here are some recommendations for ornamental trees:

red twig dogwood
Cornelian cherry dogwood
paperbark maple (acer griseum)
star magnolia
saucer magnolia
Merrill Raebner Magnolia
dwarf cherries (lots of varieties, some upright)
Oklahoma redbud
dwarf red-leaf plum (prunus cistena)
Cleveland flowering Pear ( Pyrus calleryana)
Chaste tree
Syringa pekinensis (tree lilac)

Go to Images on the Google home page to see pictures

Spring Garden Plans

I just ordered the August Afternoon Perennial Garden and a Longwood
Blue caryopteris from High Country Gardens. It should ship out the week of March 10th, so I will let you know how I like them. The plants are all in 5inch pots which is larger than you usuall get. You can go online to www.highcountrygardens.com and take a look if you are interested.

Kudos to Dell

I ordered my toner replacement cartridge yesterday late in the day and it arrived today. Wow that is great service. I have replaced the old one and I am back in the printing business.

I also ordered another car plug in for my Garmin from Amazon. Thanks for the tip on that.

Hope that it warms up as much as they are saying for tomorrow and that you will have the opportunity to plant that tree. I am going to a tea with Cindy and Diane. Right now it is very cold and drippy. If it is going to warm up, it had best get started.

Tomorrow's Friday

Yay!

I can't wait for the weekend. We're supposed to get up to about 60 degrees on Sunday which means I might be able to putter about the lawn. I desperately need to repot that lovely evergreen you sent us for Christmas. I'm trying to keep it healthy and happy until I can get it into the ground and I think it's going to be a race. At least Faye hasn't tried to eat it.

Have you ever checked out About.com's garden section? I was on their site looking for information on something else and decided to search gardens on it and discovered they have a nice section! I'm sure it's all old hat news to you but there were some lovely landscape design articles as well as pictures. I'm still trying to find a tree to replace those nasty bodarks on our parkway. About.com Gardens

They've also have what appears to be a pretty neat area on Interior Decorating. I haven't had time to really delve into it but it's nice. I think I need to browse around About.com some more. About.com Interior Decorating

Since it's about the web links today, a friend of mine sent me a link to factcheck.org I don't know how interested you might be but I found it absolutely fascinating to see how much of the political rhetoric out there is simply untrue.

I'm still maintaining my treadmill schedule of 3 days a week. This week will make 3 weeks at 3 days a week and next week I'm going to shift to 4 days a week. At least I'm going to try! Thanks again for the flannel comfie. I'm sure we're going to love it. I felt bad hearing how much trouble you had to go through to do it for me but I'll sure enjoy having it.

Flannel

I got the flannel in the mail to you today. I just sent it regular speed, so you should have it by Saturday or Monday.

LINDALUCINE'S

LINDALUCINE'S


I thought this was an interesting site and offered some creative inspiration. I hope you agree.

Get FIOS jealous again

The engineer did not get the word about the problems with the FIOS setup and showed up to hook everything up. I explained the problem, he took a look and long story, short, he figured up a way to do it without going through the backyard. They are supposed to come out Monday and set up the fiber connection and come Tuesday to do the inside work. I hope it will go as smoothly as the engineer thought that it would.

I just put a big pot of homemade chicken vegetable soup on. Wish you and Kevin were here to have a bowl. I am sure thinking of you right now and guess that you are on your way to the doctor or are already in his office. I am sure praying for good news.

Garden Dreams

Don't you love getting catalogs to dream over? I sure do. Never feel bad about me making things for you. I love doing it. I think you are going to like the flannel throw. I think the colors are pretty---sort of a Northwoods feeling and really soft and snuggly. I hope to get the other two finished at the latest on Saturday and to the laundrymat on Sunday or Monday. I really was trying hard to get them done today, but it took longer than I thought (doesn't it always?)

I just do not want you to think that every time that you call that I will talk your ear off. I never feel upset if you have to get off the phone. I appreciate your gift of time to chat. I always enjoy talking with you and am aware that when you arrive home, you have a lot of "to-dos" not to mention a husband and critters that have not seen you all day and that you have not seen.

I am loving the laptop. I am in the den with it on my lap...now how cool is that? I am even getting a bit better on the keyboard, although not nearly as good as on the desktop.

Many things

I got my High Country Gardens catalog yesterday and boy, do they have some pretty things. I wanted one of each of their boxed gardens! Of course I had to chuckle at all the "does not thrive in clay soil" on so many of their plants. I'd certainly like to try to use native plants a lot and get some semblance of xeriscaping in my beds. Watering in deep summer is a pain---not to mention the expense. I suppose I am getting smarter about this gardening-speak. I know to translate "abundant reseeder" as "you'll be pulling this plant up for the next 5 years".

On a more serious note, I do wish you'd stop apologizing for chatting. If I hadn't wanted to know your thoughts on a subject, any subject, I wouldn't ask. It always makes me feel very funny when a friend feels they have to apologize for passionately discussing a subject---much less my mother. I don't have any problem telling you I need to drop off the call to go handle things and hope you'd never be offended by that.

I can't wait to get the surprise you told me about. I always feel funny about those things too. I know so much labor and work and expense go into them that I feel a bit guilty that you make things like that for me. But I sure adore having things you make with your own hands. I don't think I've ever adequately explained to you how much I treasure them and how special they make me feel.

I would absolutely love to have some of those hyacinth seeds. Hyacinth isn't anything I've really grown but I think they look terrific and I'm really trying to work on plants to feed birds and butterflies. Heaven knows the cats and Faye need something to terrorize.

Tuesday chat

Got my Bluestone Catalog. Yea!!!! I have been busy working in the sewing room and house. I am trying to get some "ought to dos" finished so that I can work on some "I want to do's. " Be sure to let me know if you are interested in the hycianth beans. I hope that they will come up and thrive, as I know the plant is beautiful and if hummingbirds also like it, it is a whooo whoooo. Put on a pot of lima beans and plan to make some cornbread to go with it. Wish you all were here to share it with me as it smells very good.

Detailed information on Hyacinth Bean Lablab purpureus

Detailed information on Hyacinth Bean Lablab purpureus

Chatty Me

I do not know what got into me last night. I certainly was running my mouth. Sorry about that. Guess that will be the last time that you want to discuss politics with me. I think I was rather feeling like "Those kids, those kids, those darn kids".

I am plugging away at the family history. I got a lot of information from Aunt Ruth that I am plugging in and I must admit that I am not working non stop, but as I have time. Be patient for it will get there.

I have not forgotten that I promised to send you a goodie for helping me with the computer. I am working on that too. Painting and gardening are also swirling around in my mind. So much to do and so little time and energy. I keep jumping from inside to outside chores and cannot seem to get anything totally finished. I really need to focus on one task at a time and start clicking off jobs from the "To Do" list.

Good luck with your resolve regarding the treadmill. I certainly need to get back onto mine. I have a friend that is displined to doing her treadmill every day and has for years. Did I mention that she is slim and trim as a result???

Do you have the music CD of the soundtrack of the movie Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil. It is amazing and I have been playing it a lot lately. If by any chance you have not seen this movie, I certainly recommend it. It stars Kevin Spacey, which is a favorite of mine and an actor that I think is under used and highly talented.

Need to get going on some of those "To-Dos"

Winter or Spring?

Thanks for the catalog recommendations. I zipped right up there and ordered one from each. I love hearing about new catalogs though the 3" pile next to my ezchair indicates to me I should go through some of them!

We got our treadmill today and I'm rather excited about that. I'm hopeful I can build a good habit with it and not have it turn into a giant junk pile. Now we just have to put it together. Can husband and wife build a complex device without throwing objects at each other? Film at 11!

Did you watch any of the New Hampshire coverage last night? I think it's going to be a really interesting year as we watch these races develop.

KC is like your weather. It can't decide whether to be winter or early spring and this week we're changing literally day by day. Yesterday was cold with blustery bitter winds and today is sunny and really very nice. I had the same thought as you did about the plants. You know last year we had that---two or three weeks of gorgeous very warm weather causing the plants to start their growth followed by a week of sub-freezing bitter cold. I think that's why so many of my plants just did not do well all last season. I have to admit that the sunshine and promise of spring has me starting my plotting and planning.

I can't wait to get the family history information. It should be fascinating to go through.

Family History

It might be several days, or longer before I get the family history information to you. It is in a format that is hard to follow, so I am going to redo the entire thing adding the new information and correcting several spelling errors (the teacher coming out I guess) before sending it along. It is really neat to have and I am very excited to get my hands on it and very curious to know more about the ones that do not have all the information there. There is a lot more information on your grandfather's side than your grandmother's. Maybe I can get more information from Aunt Ruth.

This warm weather is so nice to have in January, but I fear that so long a period of warmth will fool the plants into thinking it is spring and that they will begin to bud out and will get zapped. There is nothing I can do about it, but do not think the real spring will be as spectacular as usual this year.

TGIF

Your job seems to be pretty stressful a lot of the time. This is a bit concerning as it takes a toll on the body and mind. I hope that you will offset that stress with some "just for fun" activity. That does not mean work at home. (That is mom talk)

I really like Charlie's War but was aghast at how casually our tax dollars are dispersed. I know that goes on, but like to put my head in the sand most of the time to avoid massive frustration.
Tom Hanks was his usually "high performance" self.

I am still working on cleaning and reorganizing my sewing room. It is a massive job, but it will be so nice to start the year in good shape. I have not had time to begin learning how to interface computer and sewing machine, but will be able to get to it soon I hope.

I ordered two catalogs on line that you might be interested in. High Country Gardens (www.highcountrygardens.com) and Forestfarm (www.forestfarm.com) www.chalkhillclematis.com was another place that I wanted a catalog from, but could not locate a place on their site to order one. You might enjoy browsing the online site so I included it here.

Painting to me is a room-by-room undertaking. If I ponder the complete list of rooms that need doing, I just feel totally overwhelmed and I do not seem to do any of them. You amaze me that you get so much done working full time. I don't and I stay home.

Hai2U!

A little internet speak for you this afternoon in my title. You can't believe how happy I am tomorrow is Friday. For a short week, it's been a long week. Your mail said you saw Charlie Wilson's War. Was it good? The reviews have been great but it's always good to hear it from someone you trust.

Outside of that no real news. I'm currently researching repairing popcorn ceilings as I don't see us getting beadboard up in the near future. Too many other things to do. I'd be happy to get the painting I want done---done. Seems like every weekend rolls around and there's another higher priority project waiting. Looks like there's some compounds like spackle out there designed to repair these types of water damage. A trip to Home Depot!

I'm heading home for the evening. Hope you're enjoying the laptop and I'll talk to you soon!

Thursday morning

I am having a lot of fun with the laptop. The new keyboard takes a bit of getting used to and I am trying it without the external mouse. Meeting Kay and Lois so must dash.