Welcome, welcome! Wow, we're neighbors, I'm just a few miles away as the crow flies. I'm upriver, past the towers. As far as the thrips go, are you seeing moderate leaf damamge? If so, then I'd treat. If not I'd live with them, OR, for a more organic solution go down to Home Depot and get a bag of ladybugs, let them go on you plants, you could even cover them with a very fine netting for a couple days to trap the lady bugs, they'll make short work of thrips/aphids. The reason I like lady bugs is that you're just borrowing them. They are harvested from nests in Northern CA and Oregon (finding a wild nest is amazing, everything is covered in ladybugs for a hundred yards, and sometimes the nests are a couple feet deep in ladybugs) and sold, then they migrate back to the mountains to winter and reproduce, almost like Monarch butterflies!