You all beat me to it. Carefully! I thought the tuna was the new leaves, which is edible. I don't know if you can burn the spines off the fruit? Father Nicholas. Perhaps another way to get the spines out of the fruit-- Use a tweezer and pull them out. I work as a volunteer at the Huntington Gardens, San Marino, I have eaten a few and they were very good. You may try to take the seeds out with a tweezer before you try and eat the fruit. Make sure they are soft to the touch, also fertilizer may sweeten them for next year, the fruit can be red, yellow, orange. Some are larger than others depending on the species. If you need receipes I will be glad to send them to you. Norma

On my last trip to Sicily (October 1996), I ate as many figs as I wanted as all my relatives had gardens with various fig trees and at each visit I would greet my hosts and drift away into the garden, only to return with a tummy full of figs. This was great HOWEVER, know that fresh figs are a natural laxative ...nuff said about that. In South Florida we get the occasional fig that the birds miss, the actual fig pigout happens when Publix supermarkets bring in the fresh figs from california, usually they'll have calimyrna, BT, black mission, kadota. I get enough for a couple of serious 'stuff your face full of figs' sessions and that will last for a while. Then as Christmas nears, my family will make cookies with dried figs and chocolate. I occasionally take a roll of dried figs with me to work and pick on from time to time... How many figs is enough? I could probably survive on fresh figs and dates and water...

I live in a rural area where it's pretty common for people to cut down trees. It might have been big pines. Last year a tree company went thru town taking down large pines. I don't know what the deal was but looked like a big mistake to me. I think you can get a quick start on vegetables if you do some simple raised beds or lasagna type beds. Well, you don't have the time for the lasagna beds to decompose this year but they would be ready for next year which is what I did when we moved June 1, 2007. You might check out permaculture ideas. Google Hugelkultur beds which look like they are built on piles of brush. I'm not experienced with these but you might find somebody in your area who is experimenting with them. Check out local permaculture groups on meetup.com We don't have rabbits but we do have deer. So far since I originally used deer repellant after they lunched on hosta, we have not had a problem. One possibility is there is plenty for them to eat in our area. We have about 4 that graze nearby. They did get some late fall cabbages last year but didn't touch the garden all summer. I've had good luck getting free or low cost (small fee for loading our utility trailer) aged manure. You could get some large tomato plants right now and grow in large pots to have something this summer. Ditto on growing some lettuce and simple things. At least in our area the plants are on sale right now but will probably be tossed in another week or two. There's still time to plant summer squash and cucumbers and beans. I think I would concentrate on doing a small project well and prepping for next year. You might be able to put raised beds over stumps. Since they are not sprouting makes me think they are pine or hemlock. It depends on what your budget can handle for stump removal. My husband was able to de-stump a field with borrowed equipment and had time to do so. Since I use the lasagna method, I don't need a tiller but I built on thick sod not stumps. Good luck!

My favorite of all favorites was fried chicken, or chicken fried steak, with milk gravy, and THEN serving leftovers with the chicken/steak heated in the gravy with biscuits for BREAKFAST! I am killing myself thinking about this!