Farmerwife, As I read back through your posts, I get the impression your Dad is worried about insect problems from the unmanaged trees, which is why he wants them removed. You mentioned his reason for removing them was not aesthetics. If this is the case, I think he's made this a bigger issue in his mind than it really is. Sure there will be more insects affecting the apples vs. if they were sprayed, but I don't think there would be more insects in an unsprayed apple orchard vs. an unsprayed pasture. If you could at all talk him into it, I simply don't see any downside in just leaving the trees as they be, as an unmanaged orchard. In fact, there could be plenty of upside benefits in leaving the trees. Potential increases sales value of the home and property. Potential part-time or full-time business opportunity for another family member, or potential buyer. Most people would recognize a quick turnaround to renovating an abandoned dwarf apple orchard, vs. planting one from scratch. As much as I am reluctant to mention it, your father is nearing the end of his life (statistically speaking). The property will likely soon pass on to other family members. I believe it will be more valuable as it is, instead of bulldozing the trees. He may be quite surprised how well some of the trees do without any care. Below is a link Milehigh posted on another thread. It is a video of another pretty much abandoned orchard. There are still plenty of edible apples on the abandoned trees. Perhaps your Dad could be inspired to keep his trees from watching this man's story. If you can't talk him into keeping his trees, at least go as slow as possible in helping him destroy his orchard. Give him the maximum amount of time to change his mind. Here is a link that might be useful: PBS video of Nick Botner (86 yrs. old) and his apple orchard

Desirae, I pick only the male blossoms( they only bloom for one day before falling off anyway) early in the morning and put them in a cooler to let the bees and bugs escape. I then put them in a Ziplock and into the fridge. They will keep for several days. Winter squash and pumpkins make the best blossoms. I'll advertise them on my mailings, and I have agreement w/my restaurant for anywhere from 500-1200 per week, depending on demand. I'll also take a few to the market and sell them there. My fruit production has never been hurt by harvesting all those males either. If you are going to the effort of planting asparagus for sales, I would advise going w/roots and the all male varieties. The long term production from them is significantly greater. The purple variety is impressive too. You'll get huge stalks, a lot of them, and it's recommended they be planted closer together. Planting seeds means you don't know what the plants have crossed with and you'll likely get a preponderous number of females, which expend a lot of energy making seeds rather than stalks. Actually, you'll still get roughly 25% females w/the supposed "all male" varieties as it is. There are some places you can get good roots at a great price--ie Simmons in Ark and DeBruyn in Mich.

My parents were packrats and are now hoarders (living in filth/squalor with five inside dogs). It's become worse over time. Even if they want to change and clean up their lives, I think they've lost the will power. I do believe they are lazy and irresponsible (they blame each other for the situation) but also probably have mental illness to confound the situation. Additionally, they live like they are poor and mom has always felt like she had to scrape by on little or nothing. I do not actually know their financial situation but my dad recently lost his business and my mom refuses to get a job (that's not how she would put it but that's essentially what she's doing). They also have a bad marriage and seem to enjoy having heated arguments where they place blame and critcize each other. My maternal grandmother is also a hoarder (even of people--which I never realized was what she was doing until I read it in this thread, LOL). I'm in my early thirties and, recently, it has really started to bother me b/c I'm worried about them and the way they are living; I know there is nothing I can do to change them. Furthermore, my 18 year old brother lives with them and I have no idea how he's being affected but he seems to have no happiness in his life, no goals, no plans, no nothing. He won't get a job and he seems to be a reluctant junior college attendee. He won't talk about it with me. I have two other brothers, both in their 20s. One is schizophrenic and lives in another state, the other is still in college and seems to have a large chip on his shoulder regarding my parents and how terrible they were. He often uses whatever opportunities he can to put our parents down. I worry that some of the things I do are just precursors to early packrat behavior which may lead to hoarding one day. I don't understand what's going on with them, or me, or what is considered "normal" vs. "wasteful". My mother thinks I'm wasteful because I donate perfectly useable things; she thinks I'm selfish for not letting her peruse everyhing I want to donate (in case she wants something). Recently I saw she had a stack of at least 20 washed single-serving yogurt containers in her kitchen (along with a bunch of other disposable/recyclable plastic containers). I inquired what they were for and she said she wanted to give them to my son (he's almost three) to stack and to play with. I said no--he already has all the wooden blocks that we played with as children b/c mom couldn't bear to part with those when we outgrew them (and she was very pleased to finally be able to pass them along to her grandson). I can understand the blocks, they are special and my grandfather made many of them, but why the yogurt containers? She also had a yellow scooter she proudly rescued from someone's trash. She wanted to give it to my son--who has a bike--and I said no. Later I found she put it into my car, we ended up putting it back into the trash because it had a large crack. I've recently begun to discuss this issue with a counselor but, prior, I have lived in total shame that my parents live like this and that I have possibly similar tendencies.

Sugar is a carbohydrate, last I checked... Furthermore, beware of the commercially prepared sugar-free products. Most of them contain Sorbitol which is sugar alcohol (but doesn't contain alcohol). It is a carb and a different kind of sugar but still, it is sugar. Everything that ends with -ol is sugar alcohol and a big no-no for the diabetics. Another thing is, lactose-free milk. This thing is good for the lactose-intolerant folks. The process of getting rid of lactose is adding a special enzyme to the regular milk, so that the lactose (milk sugar) is converted into 2 simple sugars, one of them is glucose. Meaning that it's best for the diabetics to avoid lactose-free milk altogether. Someone has posted about a diet with 250 carbs a day for the diabetic; to me it sounds a bit extreme. My carbs a day are as follows: up to 4 carbs a meal and up to 2 carbs a snack. 3 meals and 3 snacks = 18 carbs, give or take. I was told I can have an occasional candy. So far so good.