Deanne - there isn't really a recipe for the blueberry shortcake. This is what I do: Preheat oven to 450F. Make biscuit dough (I use my recipe for low fat cottage cheese biscuits - I'll include the recipe below...). Divide the dough into three pieces - one large and two smaller pieces. Roll the large piece out and line an 8x8 cakepan with it so that it completely covers the bottom and sides with some draped over the edge. (Spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray before putting the dough in!) Roll out the smaller pieces so that they will just fit in the 8x8 pan - but set aside for now. For the blueberry filling I used one 600g (~1.3lb.) tub (the size of a large margarine tub) of frozen wild blueberries, thawed; one pint of fresh cultivated blueberries; 2T corn starch; 1/2 cup sugar. Combine the berries, sugar and cornstarch and heat in microwave until they are very hot. (You need to have the filling hot when it goes into the pan or else it takes too long in the oven to heat up and the center layer of dough doesn't cook!) To assemble - put half the hot berry mixture in the dough-lined pan. Place one of the smaller dough pieces that you rolled out earlier on top. Add the rest of the berries on top of that. Then put the final piece of dough on the top. Fold over the edges of the bottom dough layer that were hanging over the edge of the pan. Bake at 450F for ~20-22 minutes. The filling may bubble over so I usually put a sheet of aluminium foil on the bottom of the oven! Serve warm or cold - but warm is better! (If the filling bubbles over, the end product may look a bit messy but it tastes great!) You can also make strawberry shortcake the same way. Wild strawberries is what Grandma used (it was my sister and my job to pick them!) Since wild strawberries are a bit(!) hard to come by these days, I use cultivated ones but chop them into small pieces. As with the blueberries, get the strawberries hot in the microwave before adding them to the dough. ----- Low Fat Cottage Cheese Biscuits Heat oven to 450 F 1 ½ cups flour ½tsp. salt 2 ½ tsp. baking powder 1/8 cup cold butter 1 egg 1 cup low fat (1%) cottage cheese ~ ½ cup milk Sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Add 1T. sugar if you want to make sweet biscuits or plan to make cobbler (or blueberry shortcake). Cut in the cold butter using a pastry blender or fork. Make a well and add the egg and cottage cheese. Mix together and add enough milk to form a soft dough that sticks together. How much milk you need will depend on how much liquid is in the cottage cheese. The dough should be slightly sticky but not too wet. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead gently a few times. Pat out to ~ 1/2- ¾ inches thick. Cut into rounds using a biscuit cutter or water glass. Space biscuits slightly apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for 20-22 minutes at 450 F. If you prefer soft-sided biscuits, place the biscuits close together on the cookie sheet or in a cake pan (which is what I do)

Chris, The older onions likely still would be fine. You know, you always could plant the older ones close together to use as green onions/scallions and use the fresher ones you just purchased for your bulbing crop. Yesterday I was looking at (a) the mostly empty vegetable garden which only has some reseeding flowers and herbs sprouting in it along with a few leftover fall greens and (b) the greenhouse full of flats of young plants, and I told my husband "but I do have my spring garden planted....it is just that all of it is planted in flats in the greenhouse". That was a slightl exaggeration, but not much of one. My onion plants from Dixondale arrived two weeks ago today and I thought I'd have them in the ground already, but recurring rounds of rain and the threat of snow have prevented that. I'm going to plant them on Wednesday unless something drastic happens to prevent me from planting them that day and I don't care if I am standing ankle deep in mud in the pathways to plant them in the raised beds----I'm gonna git it done. We are so far south that the snow will totally or almost totally miss us. We haven't had much snow in the forecast all along, and if we get any at all now, it is supposed to be less than an inch. All we really have down here south of Marietta is lots of gray, gloomy skies, wind and the tiniest amount of light rain. Last year I was so much farther along than I am now, garden-wise, but last year we had winter in December and part of January and then it was more or less over. This year is backward. We had little cold spells in December and January, but then February turned quite a bit colder and snowier, and now I wonder if March will continue the trend. I kinda think it will. I'm afraid we'll all be planting around recurring rain and snow storms in March and just hoping that there is not another big snowstorm. This is not feeling like a year where we plant as early as we like and feel good about it....it is feeling like a year when we'll be out protecting the plantings from late cold weather. Larrry, Isn't it always that way? There's something about a sunny, mild winter day that makes gardeners just lose their minds. And speaking of losing its mind....the Methley plum tree has been right on the verge of blooming for 2 weeks but ever since the weather turned back colder after those days we had with highs in the 70s, the blooms had stalled and not progressed, and I was relieved. I was hoping maybe the stall would last until the end of February at least. Nope. This morning, with cold wet weather and a chance of snow in the forecast, the whole dang tree burst out into bloom. Once a plum tree decides that it is time to bloom, you surely cannot stop it. If we get any snow here at all, it won't be the first time I've had a plum tree sitting out there with snow piled on top of its blooms, but the bad part of it is that the bees which could be out flying around pollinating those flowers are nowhere to be found today. Who can blame them? I wouldn't be out there flying around in a cold, windy rainstorm. Dawn

My mother would have been in a nursing home years ago if she didn't have me to care for her. I care for her because she was a wonderful mother. I won't have anyone to take care of me when I get that age, but it is no use to worry. Lightning may strike me tomorrow. I think you have to let go of some things and be happy with what you can do. Some people start having failing health young and others are still dancing at 90; that is a matter of genetics and life style. When you can't dig up a big garden, it is good to be happy with raised beds. When you can't do raised beds a garden in large pots and watching birds through a window will have to satisfy. I worked briefly for a government agency couldn't stand the depressing work. There was a sweet little old blind lady with short curly blue hair. When I visited she had adopted granddaughters teenager from her church coming to fix her lunch. She gave them some money to buy hamburger because she thought that is what they would like to fix not really what she wanted to eat. She had been in a nursing home wasn't happy and her church people friends got her out. Friend, neighbors and government agencies were taking care of her because she still had her mind and was sweet and cooperative. Another lady called the police on her neighbor for a barking dog when he was the one who had been doing her yard work. She accused the lady who watched her house while she was in the hospital for stealing food. I don't blame her; her mind was slipping but staying a little flexible and being civil helps.

It wasn't on the decorating forum, but another one here at GW. The little girl has been called 'repulsive' and 'homely' and 'illiterate trash' and it was implied that her family should be 'neutered' so 'people of this ilk' don't populate the country. When I voiced my objection, I was called a "rightie", lol.