Fun pictures Woody. those are some nice fish. Barb is so cute. How nice she came to help pack and brighten your day. You will be in my thoughts and prayers in the days to come. Wishing you a speedy recovery. Norma

I did some research about figs in Canada and the west coast is where you'll see fig trees loaded with crop. It's amazing what they can do on the west coast. There are bay leaf trees, 30-foot palm trees, huge laurels, huge rhododendrons, tall bamboo!, redwood, eucalyptus and of course figs... with a second crop!? I can't find much about Ontario figs but they need forms of protection. I'm reading about climate and the west coast winters are much milder than Ontario's but the coast has cooler summers than the BC interior and southern Ontario. But in pure irony bamboo and palm trees grow with ease on the BC coast. They have grapes and wineries on Vancouver Island. Rosemary is evergreen there. I like video evidence. Videos of figs on a BC west coast island or palm trees swaying in the wind in Vancouver tells a bigger story than was ever told before the Internet existed. Retiring gardeners should explore the west coast online at the very least. Here is a link that might be useful: Figs galore in BC

Not all cowhorn types get that tall, especially in drought years and particularly if dryland farmed, which is how my family always grew okra. With good soil and good irrigation, most cowhorns get unmanageably large. To control their size somewhat, you can plant them in your worst soil and don't irrigate them and they'll stay more manageable. There are a few types of cowhorn okra available commercially that remain a reasonable size. Two that I can think of that are available from Baker Creek are Grandpa Kurtz's Cowhorn Okra, which gets only about chest-high, and Pitre's Short Red Bush Cowhorn Okra (I probably butchered that name by trying to type it from memory, but it is close if not exact). Fife Creek Cowhorn generally doesn't get any taller than 6 or 7 feet tall for me if I plant it in unimproved soil and don't water it. Since I'm only a couple of inches over 5' in height, a 6' or 7' tall okra is still taller than I like, but it is not as tall as regular cowhorn okra. I'm fairly sure that in the children's tale about "Jack and the Beanstalk", those tall beans must have been climbing a cowhorn okra plant and using it as a trellis. Little Lucy is becoming very hard to find, but Burpee's Baby Bubba is a green okra plant that stays under 3' in height. It is pretty ornamental but not as ornamental as Little Lucy.

I see trouble brewing. I do not think that Frog has thought this through. Surely, there are other things on Frog's diet. But then, maybe the birds took his special prepared, chocolate covered bugs and now he's mad. You can't trust those Canada Jays. I had one take a slice of bolonga off my daughter's sandwich. When she looked away, that Jay dived in and snatched the last slice of meat we had. (True story)