I grafted an unknown early peach that my neighbor has grown for 10 years or more ( It was there when he bought the house). It's very delicious but as soon as it got old enough to have good fruit, I only had 2 years of sweet peaches and the last 2 years when the tree flowered in Jan. not Feb. the weather has been too cool and overcast and the ripening peaches all taste terrible. The same for the neighbors tree that I made the graft from. I could just wait and see again what will happen. Still, it's a cheerful sight in bloom and the bees are grateful for the pollen to bring back to their hives. I like to sit and listen to them. It's one of the earliest trees to wake up so I called it my rooster tree but now has been named Cogburn's Peach by my friend. Cogburn's peach has been such a good tree for my neighbor and many people enjoy it because it hangs over the fence and the sweet peaches hang down over the sidewalk. There never is any mess because everyone eats the peaches as soon as they are getting ripe. I would trade tangerines in January for peaches later on and the super sweet ones were so much better than the just ripening ones that people got hanging over the sidewalk as they walked by. I wanted my own tree so much in case something ever happened to the neighbors tree. We never could find out what it was. That tree is looking stressed out now but mine looks in the prime health of its young adult life. I would hate to remove it but I worry about the loss of our cold and wonder if I wouldn't do better with something more reliable. About the strawberry fields next to Disneyland. They were owned by an old farmer and although Disney tried to buy his fields many times, he refused to sell. The soil in that part of Anaheim is so wonderful. It's fine and sandy river bed soil. Whenever they work on the roads, you can see the magnificent soil that was paved over for parking lots and hotels and the parks. I would love to have that soil. Anyone who grows crops would love that soil. Strawberries do very well here. You see them here and there but mostly now nearer the beach cities. The children sold the fields right after he died and they put parking lots on them. It was very sad to see it happen that way. I wish they would preserve some of the agricultural heritage of early Orange County. I remember when my parent's home had orange groves for miles along the roads and the air was sweet with orange blossoms. There are a few remaining orange trees in backyards of that neighborhood ( built in 1963) and they still produce great oranges today. The builders left some of the trees instead of knocking all of them down. The same thing happened when they built an industrial park on an orange grove. They left some rows of trees instead of planting grass like all the others did. The value of the strawberry fields on Harbor Blvd. was too tempting because of its proximity to the Disney resorts and being on the main road where all the hotels are. The same thing is happening in Irvine. Soon all the farms will be gone forever and replaced with planned association neighborhoods and shopping.

I dragged one more plant into the garage last week. It's a Jatropha curcas (a.k.a. physic nut) from which I've been expecting flowers for the past two years. Instead it has concentrated on growing into a 5-foot tall multistemmed tree. I had to hold onto it, though, since according to folk medicine it is "abortifacient, anodyne, antiseptic, cicatrizant, depurative, diuretic, emetic, hemostat, lactagogue, narcotic, purgative, rubefacient, styptic, vermifuge, and vulnerary, physic nut is a folk remedy for alopecia, anasarca, ascites, burns, carbuncles, convulsions, cough, dermatitis, diarrhea, dropsy, dysentery, dyspepsia, eczema, erysipelas, fever, gonorrhea, hernia, incontinence, inflammation, jaundice, neuralgia, paralysis, parturition, pleurisy, pneumonia, rash, rheumatism, scabies, sciatica, sores, stomachache, syphilis, tetanus, thrush, tumors, ulcers, uterosis, whitlows, yaws, and yellow fever" Chances are one or more of those afflictions will come my way eventually (excepting parturition and "uterosis"), so it's good to have a cure on hand. Besides, the seeds can be processed into biodiesel fuel. Hopefully the plant will stay dormant in the garage until spring.

You're going to love it, and you are getting it perfect timing for canning some things this season too. Congratulations!! And ditto the weight set if it comes with only the dial gauge, canning with the weights really simplifies things.

Jan in response to your asking about my mom, she's doing okay. may be able to come home tomorrow. She will be 61 on May 9th and has had major heart and lung issues since Jan. of 92". She's not overweight at all,has diabetes, had cancer 2 years ago, a mild stroke on top of that and now this issue with pneumonia that just doesn't seem to want to go away. this makes the third stay in the hospital since mid Dec.I personally think they keep releasing her before things get completely better and then she comes home and tries to do things that she should not be doing and then she relapses. As far as having to bring all of my hoyas inside that just ain't gonna happen unless like I said I run out of propane and can't get the tank refilled for some reason!! If I had to bring them all in or risk loosing them like I said earlier,I would bring them in but I would have to be faced with no other alternative. My hoya collecting has just gotten WAY out of control. I know this and I know that I DO NOT need any more but i can't seem to get that little monster in my brain that keeps telling "buy some more", under control!!! Good thing about it though is now I have so many hoyas that the BF never knows when new ones come in!!! I can always hide the new acquisitions amongst the old ones and he'll never know ,,unless he intercepts an incoming package before I do!!! He could care less really I think,at this point in the game he probably thinks i'm nutty as a fruitcake anyway playing with my plants all day long!!!! All joking aside though,after 12 years of being together he knows that i'm seriously into my plants and that time spent with my hoyas is DAVID time. It's a great stress reliever for me,it's extremely relaxing to be able to go into the gh,shut the door,listen to the water feature,work with the hoyas and just get my mind off of things that are going on in the real world outside of those gh walls!!! David David