Blackberries are producing every day for the last 2 weeks. and still going strong. The blueberries have slowed to 2 fruits.. but then, i have only one producing the other is just planted.. The strawberries did ok this year. I did not get too many fruits this year. the figs are still green.. I am waiting to them to ripen.. the sour cherries.. The birds and the deer get them before i can get to them. the apple , peach and pear and plum are resting in eternity...:-(. the raspberries I just got from Ralph at the swap.. I got 4 berries from them... I am assuming it will grow bigger and produce more.. Ralph, could you tell me which cultivar it this one.? I am planning on getting a thornless one too. Still trying to decide which one.. I bought the box store ones.. Bad idea.. nothing grew even after a year. Tammy, Lisianthus, you mentioned a great place to me for buying fruit trees for less. Could you message me with the contact... address / ph # or email ..." please Thanks in advance

The rose hip tea. MG, you don't have to clean them from seeds for this purpose :) Tea is usually made from dried hips. Rosa canina hips are classic, but Semiplena or Rugosa hips will work as well. The recipe is for 1 Qt of tea. Take a handful of dried hips and put it in the thermos bottle (the real one, the one that will keep temperature for hours)and fill thermos with boiling water to the top. Close thermos and let it stay for 4-8 hours or overnight. High temp helps extraction of flavors. You will have the most delicious tea, very dark and flavorable. With good thermos it will still be really hot. You can add some suguar if you like your tea sweet. Olga

We have a softener. Culligan. The water tastes close to normal; I can't tell if I taste any saltiness or whether I'm imagining it since I know I have a softener. Where I do notice the salt taste is on glasses from the dishwasher. DH has never mentioned it, and it doesn't bother me.... but it IS there. It is not a strong taste, but enough for my taste receptors to say "salty." For drinking water, we have a R/O faucet. That water has absolutely no taste, no saltiness, etc. It tastes like the purest bottled water. Can you put a R/O system on an instahot faucet? Your water hardness is "hard" or "very hard" .... I imagine your plumber knows what he is talking about. We quickly got lime build up on our new kitchen faucet pre-water softener.

I have all the plastic ware (knives, forks spoons- and cups ) that were left behind from last falls swap. I will be adding napkins to the box. I will be bringing salsa and chips and something else.. not sure what yet. I also have the 'Hello ..my name is' ..tags