We went off to visit grandparents, aunts and uncles
and cousins in Southern Oregon (Medford).

Note of caution - being Porg can be darned dangerous.
I was driving two kids to Ashland (home of the Shakespeare
plays) to go shopping when I spotted a sign that said
'water gardens, ponds, plants' which I spend a bit too long
looking and darned if some other Porg-type, didn't slow
way down in front of me to turn into the place and did I have
to slam on the brakes to keep from turning his car into an
instant pond.

At my parents planned development they are putting in a bunch of new lots
around a planned lake/pond and one of my relatives is looking at a lot on the
'water'. I asked for full reporting on the construction of the lake/pond.

We walked along a creek which had a real investation of purple loosestrife. The
stuff is all over Southern Oregon.
Visited Harry and David and toured their fruit packing plant and
candy/cookie/cake factory (boy did that place smell goooood!).

Kids went rafting on the Rogue River, moms went shopping ;-) Littlest ones went
fishing where we found a huge dragonfly nymph case (now Aunt Kathy is going to
send them a book about dragonflys from birth to flight), found two noxious
underwater plants in the lake, caught a fish, let it go, saw lots of osprey,
blue herons and kingfishers. Ate outside and watched some enterprising
chipmunks pull napkins out of the dispenser, wade them up and carry them off to
their dens - going to be some very cozy chipmunks this winter.

Came home to 40 zillion aphids on my container tropical lily!
Pond is clear and the new lilies from jan are sending up pads. Frog bog is even
more overgrown and the
labs have been tromping around in it.




kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html