Probably. We have a pond with three pools separated by weirs. About four years ago, I cleaned our pond removed; everything and scrubbed. We purchased about a dozen $0.26 feeder fish. Only four survived the winter. The next spring I did some minor repairs and started the pump. It ran about two weeks, and then I shut it down as we took a long vacation. When we returned from vacation we had hundreds of babies, in all three pools. From the first four that survived the winter we have about 70 fish in the three pools today. The original four are over 8" long. They reproduce every spring.

Annie, Our governor here in Washington just signed the Cottage Food Law in July, 2013. I checked the requirements for your state and they are, fortunately for you, much more lenient than ours. We have to pay $230 annually; have a limit of $15,000 income (you're at $20,000, and go up to $25,000 in five years); and I can NOT use my separate canning kitchen ... because it's not part of the same building as my home. Go figure! (The canning kitchen doesn't have home cooking, or animals, or children, and there's no co-mingling with anything else.) And don't you just love not being allowed to sell ICE? That just doesn't make sense to me either! However, at least we have this law here now, and that's helping many people. But for me it's fine, because I don't sell my items; I donate them to the church and gift them. It's just something that I enjoy doing for myself and for others. That's why my costs of $1.25 to $1.50 per jar is fine. I'm fortunate because I have so much fruit in my orchard; I'm great at finding sales; I enjoy the time I spend creating things and "prettying up" the jars, labels, etc. The time I spend doing this pleases me; the $300+ I spend on supplies is just another donation or gift to St. Luke's so they receive the full purchase prices; and, everything I make is appreciated by those who purchase and use the products. I had to freeze some fruit because I wasn't well enough to do anything right after my surgery 8 weeks ago -- so I have cherries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries in the deep freeze. I'm half-way through my goal of 20 dozen jars ... still have to make: Cherry preserves; Peach-Brown Sugar Jam; Blueberry Jam; Apple Butter; Apple Pie Jam; Dill Pickles; canned Italian Plums; Italian Plum Jam with Triple Sec; Pear Honey; Pear Chutney; Apple Chutney; Watermelon Pickles; Raspberry Jam; ... and anything else I decide I just MUST DO! I'm donating a dozen jars of each variety, and keeping several of each for my use and gifting. I've enjoyed reading all of your comments and appreciate your recipes. Just wish I could make and (legally) sell some of your Salsa! But at least I can enjoy it for myself and friends! Kathy

Thanks folks, staticx, IMHO the onion does offer a nice compliment to the tangy berries and fruity heat of the habs. I like your smoked pepper idea. I'll definitely give it a shot when I make my next batch. steveb3, maybe it's just me but I don't find heat loss cooking the peppers. Actually, I think the acid in the vinegars promote extraction of the capsicum from the peppers and spread it around. John, I'm sure it will work well with milder peppers, the original recipe called for using Jalapenos. If I can find Melly's original recipe I'll post it for you. Bill

Steve, at this point, at least around here, the trout fisheries is under such enormous environmental stress that if I catch something, I just put them back - exception would be hatchery rainbows. I might grab a bucket of salmon from the Fish and Game guys this fall when they catch them to strip the eggs as they come up from McPhee Dam to smoke - that can be pretty good. I'm conflicted on the potassium nitrate to keep the meat red - on the one hand, deliberately adding the stuff seems odd, but then so does grey meat. I grabbed a couple of those bagged pork loins when they were on sale and froze them, and at some point when it gets cold enough, I'll brine, smoke, and slow roast them and hopefully come up with something I can use for sandwiches. Grey ones. But, if you slather enough mustard on, and add some green pickles ...... I'm now working on cleaning up the veggie garden after the hard freeze. This is the one garden chore I really don't like. Cart loads of whiffy, rotting vegetation. Bushels of fermenting tomatoes. When I ask my kids to help, this being part of the farmers market toil, they very suddenly have really, really hard home work they just gotta do. I was surprised to find out that my green peppers, picked 10 days ago and refrigerated in plastic bags, are still just wonderful.