Wintersow "What Were You Thinking Moment" this week. I set out to find plastic containers. Talked to GW people about how to mark-every marker I've tried has failed in the last 2 years. I found tubs. Without thinking I bought glass jars at Goodwill. They're great for the greenhouse effect, but putting in the drainholes is a challenge. Duh! Why, yes, I'm blond. Why do you ask?

OFFERS TODAY: Tuesday Feb 10, 09 1 offer Bi-color Mixed varieties? 1 offer Watermelon Sugar Baby 1 offer Melon: Honey Dew 4 offers Maltese Cross 1 offer Watermelon Jubilee 1 offer Large Pear Shaped Tomato 1 offer Passion Flower Passiflora caerulea yr unknown Comm. pk 1 offer Lavatera Mont Blanc Annual yr unknown Comm. pk Full Sun 1 offer Euphorbe Summer Icicle Annual yr unknown Comm. Pk Sun to Part Shade 1 offer Thyme (Organics Biologique) Comm.pk yr unknown 1 offer Lettuce Mesclun Bon Vivant yr hand written on it 2008 1 offer Dill Chia Brand Herbs Comm year unknown 1 offer Morning Glory Heavenly Blue Comm yr unknown 1 offer Tomato Brandywine (Oragnic Biologique) yr marked out 1 offer Castor Bean feels like 4 seeds comm. pk unknown yr 1 offer Tomato could be black no other info 1 offer Heirloom Tomato Basinga 2006 1 offer Isis Yellow Flag 2 offer Asclepias Soulmate Pink zone 3-9 Please note I have NO clue what the first one might even remotely be, your guess is as good as mine! Also remember anything you are requesting could be on your list and if I have put one pack in your bag already and you request these extras too, then you have 2 I will not pull the first pack or the requested. It would be too confusing to try to keep up wiith I think so you will just have 2 lol. :) Fran

The thing is with mini muffins, things you put in them ought to be small...or they take up too much of the muffin...or ther is only one or 2 pieces per muffin. I got raves on this muffin....sorry I don't know where I got the recipe. Taste-testers have deemed this the best muffin ever! They are moist and delicious with a touch of spice from the cinnamon and nutmeg with the awesome flavor from the espresso coffee shining through. Great for brunch, dessert, or snacks, and they also freeze well. Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes Ingredients: � 2 cups all-purpose flour � 1/2 cup sugar � 2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder � 2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder (or instant coffee) � 1/2 teaspoon salt � 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon � 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg � 1 cup whole milk � 1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled � 1 egg, slightly beaten � 1 teaspoon vanilla extract � 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate mini-chips Preparation: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line muffin tins with papers or grease liberally. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, espresso or instant coffee, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside. In a medium bowl, mix milk, butter, egg, and vanilla until combined. Stir milk mixture into flour mixture only until combined. Do not overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake 15 to 20 minutes for standard muffins, 10 to 12 minutes for mini-muffins. Cappuccino muffins freeze well. Yield: 12 muffins or about 48 mini-muffins LEMON POPPY SEED MUFFINS 1/4 c. butter 1 lg. egg 2 c. flour 1 tbsp. baking powder 1 tbsp. poppy seeds 1 c. milk 1/2 tsp. grated lemon peel 1/3 c. sugar 1/2 tsp. salt Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 2 1/2 inch muffin pan cups. Whisk wet ingredients together in medium bowl. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Stir wet ingredients just until combined. Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin cups filling each about 3/4 full. Bake 20-22 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes. Remove and serve warm. For mini muffins, bake 10 to 12 minutes�.makes about 40. L

When an old dog who has chronic kidney disease insists he must go outdoors now, you must drop everything and take him out. If you don't, you'll find yourself mopping up the floor. There's none of that "wait a minute and I'll take you out". Nope, he is a little dictator (unwittingly, perhaps) now---one sharp bark and I drop everything and take him out because I know the consequences if I do not react quickly enough. Kim, No lady bugs around? Sometimes you can attract them to your garden (if they are in the general area) by making wheast. Or, even just by spraying a sugar-water mix on your plants. Here's some recipes for these: Recipes To Help Attract Beneficial Insects This morning I did a quick walk-thru of my garden to see how it has been doing without me and I did see some ladybugs (real American ladybugs, lol, not the Asian ones) hard at work on some of the watermelon plants. Sometimes in extreme July/August heat, the ladybugs seem to lie low---and who can blame them? I always wonder if they are up in some shadier spots just trying to survive the heat without subjecting themselves to full sun and full heat. Jennifer, It is great that Stella knows how to have a good time, but unfortunate that she chooses to have that good time in the garden. I've been leaving my garden gate open every day so the chickens can go in there now if they wish. Now that they can go into it, they no longer want to. I guess they've been excluded for so long that they've forgotten that good times can be found in the garden. Or, now that's there's no low-hanging tomatoes or melons for them to enjoy, maybe they just aren't motivated to go in there and eat grasshoppers and such. I'm glad you don't have a stress fracture because I know the time you'd need to stay off of it would drive you crazy. Still, take care and let it heal. The older I get, the more prone I am to catch the flu. I hardly ever got it in my 30s and 40s and, when I did, recovered quickly. These last 5-7 years, I seem like I get it every year and the recovery is harder every year. All my life I've heard that peoples' immune systems weaken as they age, and I see that now in my own life---at the age of only 59. By the time I'm 70, I'll have to hibernate at home during cold and flu season because I won't have any immune system left at all. On the other hand, an immune system is a funny thing. Last year, nationwide, a lot of young people in their 20s, 30s and early 40s died after they went sepsis during a case of the flu. When you go into sepsis like that, it normally is caused by your immune system over-reacting to an infection, which in these cases was the flu. What is it about the flu last year that caused young peoples' immune systems to overreact and throw them into sepsis shock? This sort of thing puzzles me. Obviously we want to have healthy immune systems but maybe not such robust immune systems that they overreact and kill you. It is such a conundrum. My garden is dry and pitiful looking, as the drought continues and no more rain has fallen here. It is what it is. August in a drought year is a tough month as it is, and the rain we got a while back was nice, but not drought-busting type rainfall. The rain made plenty of weeds sprout though. I see lots of morning glory, bindweed and foxtail grass to deal with---that will be next week as long as I don't encounter any snakes in there between now and then. Eileen, I bet it was the flu. I'm just basing that on the fact that there's low levels of flu cases being reporting across the country in August. My BIL in PA had it two weeks before I did. I did an uncommonly high amount of flu research while sick---trying to figure out if there was anything more I could learn about it that I didn't already know. One thing I learned is that it is not uncommon for the cough to persist for up to 4 weeks after you've otherwise recovered from the flu. I didn't know that, but I do remember that last year, the cough did persist for an uncommonly long time. Just take care of yourself and get your energy back. Last week I tried to do too much too soon and promptly relapsed, so this week I've been trying to take it easier on purpose so I don't do that again. Larry, I'm glad you're finally going to be able to go and get that PET scan. I hope all the news is good after it all is done. I love the deer but they sure can be destructive. What I've noticed is that when I plant stuff on purpose for them---like one of those fall and winter deer plot mixes, they ignore it. If I plant stuff for us, well, that's what they want to eat. It drives me crazy. Have y'all been watching the weather? Are some of you still getting rain? I've been out to lunch, weather-wise, not watching very carefully, while sick. Now I'm starting to pay attention again, and am not happy to realize we're back to being hot and dry, hot and dry, hot and dry. We had a couple of cool mornings earlier in the week and they sure were nice but I didn't even feel like sitting outdoors and enjoying them because of all that smoke in the air. It doesn't seem as smokey today, but then tomorrow is supposed to be really windy. I hope the wind blows away any lingering smoke, and not that it blows more smoke down to us, which I guess always is possible. Hurricane Lane has been a surprise. The last time I paid any attention to it was probably early last week and it was way out there in the Pacific as a topical depression, not expected to come within hundreds of miles of Hawaii, and not expected to do much of anything. So, fast forward a week or more, and I click on Dr. Masters Wunderground Blog maybe on Tuesday night and discover it is a Cat 4 headed towards Hawaii. By the next morning it was a Cat 5, but it now is weakening as it encounters wind shear and is back to a Cat 4 again. Still, they are going to get tons of rain if nothing else. I suppose that rain is usually good, but not when it comes in feet instead of inches. I hope everyone there stays safe and above the flood waters and out of any potential mudslides. I would joke and say why can't we ever get a hurricane here to bust our droughts, but you know, we got the remains of Hurricane Erin once, and also of Hermine, and the flooding was awful, so I won't even go there.... Have a good day everyone. Dawn