When I had geese, I never could bring myself to butcher them. They followed me around like I was their mother, and were particularly social fowl. I remember one Christmas my father asked my mother to please fix a goose instead of a turkey. My g'mother always had a goose for the holiday meal, instead of turkey like they do these days. She complied, but you could tell her heart wasn't in it. LOL. If it's the grease you want, they certainly have their share of it, don't they? My SIL's mother in England fixes turkey for the holiday meal now, and buys her plum pudding in. Travesty, LOL. She was amazed I still did a suet pudding on my own. In fact, one of my fav cousins asked me if she could come to my house before Christmas and jointly make the Christmas pudding because her family is grown and gone and she couldn't justify making one just for herself. Our family receipt makes one weighing at least ten pounds! We never got around to it since that is a busy season for me with my work, and my schedule didn't fit hers. But, I am looking forward to inviting her over this fall to do our home made minced meat, and this winter we shall be doing the Christmas pudding.

So many fellow coffee ground people on this site its a great Xmas present! Good advice with adding to wood chips, lawn clippins, or leaves, and keeping the whole stack moist is a good tip also. I've found that when they are used in isolation it can cause problems with crusting and preventing air and water flow to the lower levels, so always have some additional materials ready to add. When adding to the worm farm, the best results seem to come from letting the bag of UCG ferment for a week or two and then add them in with lawn clippings or kitchen scraps, again never on its own. Here is a link that might be useful: Ground to Ground

Thanks Mskee and Gfult for the compliments on the hydrangeas. Gfult, I wish I could give you info on it. I don't know what kind it is. I purchased them around easter time 25 years ago at the local market. Planted them outside in the shade and was told they wouldn't come back because they where hothouse forced and wouldn't be hardy for New England zones. I was lucky as both of them have been there every year blooming like you saw. Except for 2 years ago when we had that bitter cold January and no snow protection. they didn't bloom that year. The smaller one is a 3 year old from root cutings of one of the 2 original ones. Some one on the hydrangea forum suggested it might be one called Mathilda Gutges. The pic looks like it but I can't be sure. I can tell you that the stems and new leaves come directly from the ground and new growth on old stems. Some of the old stems suffer winter kill and I remove them. The flowers bloom on the new growth from the ground and from new stems that come off old stems and on old stems too. I prune them to keep them from getting to large because of where I have them planted. Also they are a very deep blue color and if you have too much light on your computer screen you may not be seeing how really deep blue they are. I have never seen another hydrangea with this deep blue before I got these or since. they are acid lovers and the blue usually need at the very least, partial shade. These used to get almost all shade, but since I originally got them, many trees have been cut down so they get partial sun in the morning and then in the late afternoon, which has not affected their color. Fran

momotaro, that was very fascinating. And we think we have crazy TV shows! Thanks for posting. Don't know why they seemed to be making the correlation that the bees were increasing sweetness. Bumblebees are used all the time in greenhouses that are growing tomatoes to increase pollination in an enclosed environment that has limited airflow. So that is nothing unusual. I have read of withholding water to increase tomato solubles while growing processing tomatoes --called I believe a type of 'dry culture' but I can't find the link. We know that too much water prior to harvesting make a tomato bland and tasteless. This Japanese grower has just carried it to the nth degree. Looked up nigari--magnesium chloride plus trace minerals. Derived from processing sea salt. It wasn't a small operation--I presume they have done comparison studies. Growing with and without sort of thing. momotaro, those tomatoes looked like your namesake. Momotaros, according to Tomato Growers Supply Co. is the most popular tomato in Japan. His method just 'shrunk' their size. It is my favorite tomato just grown 'normally'-as it is very sweet. Wouldn't hurt to cut back on the watering abit prior to harvesting but I really wouldn't want to grow them to that smaller size.