"Oh, 'Starting from Scratch,' book..thank you. Once some woman emailed, 'few yrs ago,' asking me to fax 79 pages to her. I told her I didn't own a fax machine..she then asked me to 'TYPE THEM OUT.' lol..Yes, ma'am, right away.." Hey, I'll take a copy of that! You're about finished right? Holy ___! Sweet potatoes, I read about that retardant spray after I had potatoes in the ground. Maybe they were local and it wasn't used or one of those dumb luck things that work when people don't know it's not supposed to. I just cut 2 potatoes in half and buried the pieces a few inches down. They grew vines all summer, and we dug up the potatoes when frost killed the foliage. Yum! About 25 potatoes last fall, and what will come from what's grown back this year is yet unknown. Not bad for a few minutes' work and the cost of only 2. Thanks for the kind words, but I don't put up pics of the failures. There are definitely some. I just do so many, I end up with plenty of successes. That's my fav thing to do with plants, chopping them into pieces and watching them grow back. The eyes are where the foliage sprouts out, the black holes. It takes a very small amount of the inside attached to the eye on the peel to start growing more potatoes. The spot we call veggie patch is for ugly/unruly plants like sweet potato, tomato, zucchini, cantaloupe. But all around with the flowers and Coleus I have peppers, Basil, sometimes a broccoli, lettuce, spinach, okra, onion, garlic, the other experiments I mentioned before. I want some purple eggplant plants next year, and purple cabbage. Tried swiss chard seeds but it was too dry where I put them. Veggie seeds are cheap, worth trying where there's a spot. When you want to pick a tomato that's as big as possible but still green, you notice way too much about how they ripen. Between green and red, they are white for a time. The immature seeds are too wet, gelatinous for frying *as well* when they go from white to green. In case anyone wants to copy/paste: Gramma's: Slice green tomatoes fairly thin, usually 5-6 slices per slightly-smaller-than-tennis-ball-size. Moisten slices in water, then coat with: mixed: 8 parts flour, 1 part sugar, some salt/pepper Fry in oil, flip when medium-going-on-dark-brown. Drain on paper towel & eat plain, on a sandwich, or dipped in something, like ranch, spicy ranch, or remolaude sauce! Where I'm at lately (this does 2 tomatoes): bowl 1: plain flour bowl 2: 1 egg, 1 Tbs water, 1 Tbs spicy or buffalo ranch, 1 Tbs regular ranch, dash worcestershire sauce, dash hot sauce, few taps of coriander, couple pinches dry chopped rosemary, pinch of garlic powder. I don't measure anything, but that should be pretty close. Put slices in bowl 1, then 2, back to 1, then fry, same as above. You can also add crushed corn flakes to bowl 1 if you have the time and like a crunchy breading. This is making me hungry!...

The TigerLily did. The Christmas, they were out of, so I picked it up seperately. I didn't miss the date, but I was late. Much of what I wanted was gone. Next year, I'll be earlier.

Lydia, It's pretty cold in Omaha compared to SL in those months. Compared to the early 80's , I personally think the snow fall has been much less. Still, there are weeks where the snow and ice never melt. Luckly Omaha is fairly well equipt for bad winter weather, plenty of snow plows, sand, etc.. Years ago after moving here as a teen, I lived about 1 1/2 hours away from Omaha. Didn't know much about snow and didn't have a garage for my car. It was brutal scraping my car off some days. If the weather permits, I would recommend at least coving the front of the car with a tarp. Sometimes life comes to a halt if the snow is really bad, everyone trys to stay home. It depends but I'm guessing maybe 3 times a winter it gets bad enough for school to be out. Our superintendent is always the last one to call school off tho. I recall last year the buses going into ditches because of the ice and finally he calls school off. The electricity failed in our building, which made it impossible for the lunch ladies to make lunch, they were so bent out of shape. The kids that made it were loving it. What will your DD be doing in Omaha, Lydia?

Thank you for your support Nibblin. She is a funny dog in a very odd way. Here is a picture of her sleeping on her back on the middle of the road that goes through our farm. She barely has any hair on her chest or buns. oh, and yes the vet has checked her out and given her meds, shots and shampoos, with minimal success. It's been tough road for her. (pun intended) I will get back to this thread when I have more time. This is Mandy being Mandy.