All the best to everyone as well, and I'm sure the Californians posting here are intentionally trying to create climate envy,(well, maybe just a little...), but we do get winter here as well. I am definitely envious of Kim's San Diego right by the bay/ocean climate, where she can grow those colorful Crotons year round outdoors,(or was that your garden on the Big Island of Hawaii?) I love them for that dazzling foliage color, but have learned to use them as a summer foliage annual, to toss at the end of the season and start fresh with new greenhouse grown plants in early summer. The season for this croton was over about a week ago, as the night temps starting dropping below 40F... Here is a link that might be useful: Croton, your days of glory are nearly over...

Gee, I thought the first one was great, but the second one is super. Now all you have to do is give us the names of all those favorites!! I'm sure one of them is Rose F. Kennedy, and maybe Betty Ford(?) Time for me to go to bed and cover up my head, for Santa Claus comes tonight, hopefully delivering wonderful daylilies to all of us who love them. Congrats on being the new President of AHS. I think I had better get busy and become a member. Avedon

SAw my niece, in passing. Had overnight with brother's family, now that the pressure is off from dealing wth the reunion. Their son played a musical gig last night, another tonight in Saskatoon. They had a heavy wind and four persons were holding on to a tent for dear life - managed to keep it, but it was damaged. I'm on my way back home now. I'd hoped to meet cynic and sarksals, maybe some others in MN and Marie ND, but don't know precisely where to find Marie. She said they were rather busy with medical stuff and other things. It'll be hard to hear back from cynic and/or sparksals, etc., as it's nearing closing down time for libraries for weekends and we hadn't made plans earlier. Wish me luck for the rest of the trip. ole joyful

FOAS, I started a new thread just for what everyone cooked. :) Your meal sounds lovely. I'm trying to wrap my head around "risotto" made of pasta. How do you make that? We lost a lot of people with the change. I know I was mad at the format change because it went in right when I was stressed and exhausted and wanted to cozy up with my friends in the box. It took a lot of patience to get used to things and make it feel like "home". And I was only on GW for 7-8 years. Many go back to the beginning or soon after! Still, there were a lot of threads (including several of mine) about the cooking of parts of the meals. Hopefully people will post about their results. As you'll see, I kind of go ape over the vegetables for harvest meals (though this time of year is the barley harvest, it is Spring, so just as good an excuse. We use a lot of roots and dried fruits because traditionally they're the last of the previous year's bounty (and all there was in places where snow was still on the ground). The wheat harvest and the first fruits would be at the next harvest festival, Shavuot ("Weeks", seven weeks from now), when we traditionally eat dairy. There are some reasons for that, but none are particularly convincing. :)