i have only now gotten on a machine where i could see pictures--yikes!

-pats diana on the head and offers 90 min IPA (dogfish)-

now bearing in mind i'm likely the least knowledgeable person in this
group: are you anywhere near a chemical plant? storage area? refinery?
natural gas or propane storage or pipeline? i remember reading
somewhere how sensitive orchids are to certain airborne insults; also
something about someone who lived over a drycleaners having plants
regularly drop dead. (i'm 200 yards from a major gas pipeline; 4 42"
mains buried less than three feet deep. i told my housemate if he ever
came home and found all the orchids yellow and shrivelled, to turn right
around and get back in his car and drive east for at least 5 miles.)
i'm wondering if there could have been a release of something that
wasn't big enough to get the local gendarmerie in a tizzy, but that
could have hung around just long enough to snuff the plants? one of our
local generating plants has signs around it: if you hear a siren, pull
your shirt over your mouth and nose and try not to breathe for a couple
hours. but if they only have a mild hiccup, they don't sound the alarms.

just a thought....

--j_a