Please don't take this the wrong way, but: Have you thought about taking a class in photography? This is not so much a comment on the above pictures but more a simple suggestion. One of the things my mother did when her husband passed away was to invest in a really nice Nikon as well as macro lens and tripod (she never spent that kind of money on me!). A few months later she took a photography class or two in the Villages and her pictures went from nice pictures, much like the ones above, to framable art. And I'm not kidding, she actually has a few pictures that she had stretched onto canvas and is now hanging on her walls. Everyone who has seen them has wondered where she bought them, never guessing that she took them herself. Here are are just two of the macro shots she took after her classes:

I'm sure you can find one, but if you have trouble or just want to look and have something to compare, Thermoworks does ship to Canada. They also often have a few things on sale or some giveaway. They just launched a new alarm, so that may be it for now, but I would expect that the coming month and up to our Thanksgiving will have a number of sales or specials if you are willing to take a chance on waiting. I told DH I was going to probably use this method for the dough from now on -- unless we don't plan ahead, I suppose. My greatest frustration with pizza dough in the past was not being able to predict the rise. Nothing like being really hungry and waiting for that danged dough to rise. Rrrrr Was bad enough the other day for just the two of us while we were busy watching a football game. When the boys are home? You can imagine. Double Rrrrr -- by the time the pizza was ready, they'd filled up on snacks. Having dinner time ay your control is always better, whatever the reason. I'm very happy to know I could adapt your method to my sourdough recipe. I hope to play with some bread loaves soon. In the larger oven though.

" ... face plants in the muck ..." ... are those "face plants" something like water lilies, Rosie? Or a wild rose-bud? (wild rose being the official plant of Alberta, for you other folks). Referring to hauling newborn calves. When I was a kid we did most of the hauling on our rather large (in those days) farm with a trailer behind the car. The farm was a mile and a quarter long and when one of the heifers had had her first calf in a pasture field just this side of the woods at the back Dad took the car and trailer back there to load the calf into the trailer to bring to the barn. As he began to drive slowly away from the calving place, the mother followed for a short distance ... then returned to the place where the calf had been born. I don't remember whether Dad made a circle a couple of times to try to get her to follow, but she didn't. I was nine, and Dad asked whether I thought that I could drive the car to the barn while he pushed the calf ... and I, of course, said that I could. There were a couple of gates to open and close, which I accomplished without difficulty, and we had a gravel pit about half way to the barn, which gave me no trouble as I drove slowly and carefully down into it .. but as I was moving up the slope to go out ... the car stalled, and I had no success in trying start it again, on the upslope ... so had to wait until Dad came along, pushing the calf, with the heifer following, to get me out of my pickle. My introduction to driving ... and as a farm kid, in World War II, I got my driving licence at age 15. Still got it, 70 years later ... and soon need to have my driving consultation and tests for rules of the road, driving signs, and a vision test ... with a few participants being asked to take a driving test, as well ... my fourth, as we have to have one at age 80 and every two years thereafter. Thirty-five bucks a shot, good for two years ... but it may go up, as the province is darn near broke, and having kept the annual fee for auto licence at the same level for a number of years, they increased it from $74.00 to $98.00 this year. Once I asked the consultant/tester whether we got a gold star if we got them all right ... and she said that she'd been thinking of getting a smiley face with a car on it to give out. Dad wondered whether, should one of the tires blow, he could get permission from the local ration board to get a replacement for the car ... so he talked to old Uncle Charlie, housebound for years, whose farm Dad sharecropped and who hadn't driven for some years and whom Dad shaved about once a week, whether he could use his '26 Hudson, with a square back, to make a truck, and Uncle said to go ahead. So Dad cut the square back off and welded it back to the frame just behind the front seats, leaving a space of bare frame behind it, over the back wheels, then built a square, flat wooden platform on it ... one had to tie the loads down or drive *very* carefully ... or suffer a loss of load. The tires, having sat unused for years, weren't useful ... so Dad got four tires for that home-made truck! A toggle switch on the dash that one pulled to the left to turn on the ignition, and one beside it that one pushed to the right to turn on the lights - and one had to push a lever on the floor to operate the starter. What memories a simple little story brings back to our minds! ole joyfuelled

I wonder how many things there are at Lowes we could be using but don't have the creativity to realize it. I use those shop wood clamps to hold the layers on the table when I sandwich the quilt. I just wish I could figure out how to rig something up to do it automatically - like slip all the ends into something like a giant roller and crank it out all even but then could be all folded down into a small packet and shoved in the closet! LOL! If I could I'd make a billion dollars. I've asked Hubby to think about it but he won't.