fruitnut, According to Mr. Purvis, "Concerning the difference between the original and the Hoyt Montrose, the main difference is that the Hoyt's fruit is larger. Both the original and the Hoyt bloom late and ripen late, and both are self-fruitful." I have asked Mr. Purvis if I can share what he writes me and he has said it's okay, but I still feel wierd just publishing it. In this case I think it would be useful to just copy and paste what he wrote to me about when I asked if Hoyt Montrose was patented: "Rhonda, rest assured that the Hoyt Montrose is not patented. For that matter, Dr. Lloyd Rosenvold, who found the original Montrose apricot tree, never tried to patent it but instead shared freely of the pits and scions produced by the tree. A Mr. Hoyt (not sure of his first name) in northern Idaho planted one of Rosenvold's Montrose pits and found that that seedling produced larger and better apricots than the original Montrose, but he too made no effort to patent it. I obtained my Hoyt Montrose wood from Dr. Roger Eichman, DDS, who lives on one of the islands in Puget Sound, and I was fortunate to be able to graft and grow a tree of it. Dr. Eichman in turn got his scions from Mr. Hoyt, according to my notes. Here at my location, the Hoyt Montrose blooms even later than Zard although this is only based on one year of observations (2012). The Hoyt has also proven to be amazingly adaptable to wet conditions (NW Washington State and western NY State [Wayne County]). Fruit quality is good, but not quite as good as Robada, and it ripens late also. The situation with the bloom is that the Hoyt requires a lot of chilling hours as well as a lot of heat units to break dormancy and blossom, and for the latter reason it is very poorly adapted to the San Francisco Bay area. So take good care of the Hoyt Montrose; it is the apricot cultivar that is probably your best bet for Colorado's highly changeable weather."

I always think of those Welsh place names that seem to be all consonants, but none specifically jumps to my mind. I did however have a friend in college whose last name was Przybyl. It was pronounced Priz-bil & was all consonants unless you want to count those y's (as in "sometimes y") as vowels.

cracker stackin' How high can you stack soda crackers? Also, have each kid grab five crackers and stuff them in their mouths at the same time, when you blow a whistle. The first one to "whistle" is the winner. great fun. Write a short story or journey of a camper. leave the nouns all blank. For each blank, have the kids come up unbeknownst to them a noun. If your story has twenty nouns, write down 20 nouns from the kids. Now, put them in a hat and pass the hat around the circle to each kid. You now begin reading" Jen's camping Adventure weekend" that you of course wrote. Each time you come to a blank space, ( a noun) you have a kid pick a folded piece of paper out of the hat and insert the noun. It goes round and round and gets pretty funny. (ie) Jen woke up early in the morning excited to begin her camping trip. She began checking out the car to make sure it was all prepared for the trip. To the engine, she added__________ A kid pulls out the word "A hermit crab" then passes the hat to the next person. You read on: "She then hooked up ___________ and _________ and even________ to the trailer hitch and was very happy at the hard work accomplished so far. fill in your own blanks and on and on... screamin' ball toss. For a large group, bring a beach ball. Every time the ball in in the air, everyone yells as loud as possible. When the ball is caught by someone in the group, immediate sudden silence. Everyone stops. A real giggler. You can fake tossing it up at times. As the ball goes round and round up in the air, from person to person, everyone is hollering. Sometimes, long yells and sometimes short yells or sharp burst as it goes from one person to another quickly. Fun in the water, too. hoola- hoop frisbee golf.... Bring nine hoolahoops and set up a course like a golf course out over a grassy area. From a start area, each golfer tosses a frisbee into the hoola-hoop to score. keep score how many tosses it takes to get around the course. campfire race! Have small sets of small kindling set up 50 ft. away from each small fire pit. EAch team of two people, Usually an adult and a child (due to the matches) stands by their fire pit and when you give the signal, they scurry to their pile of little kindling chips, twigs, etc. and hurry back quickly and build a little fire. You have two stakes hammered in the ground with a piece of "TWINE" tied between them. The teams put their kindling under the twine and the object is to build a fire and be the first team to burn through and "BREAK" the twine. Think about this one awhile. Fire and certain groups are right out.... eh? I always liked it, though.

I could tell you got one by the message on my machine the night of return, even though only the last couple of words came through. Can't wait to see more pictures, although don't you know that you can find pales in northern Jackson county, MO, where they intergrade with syspila? In northwestern Jackson, you can find syspila/gentilis/multistriata that blow the common multistriata out of the water -- long live Marshall. May this week's adventure be so successful... oh me oh my am I excited.