Hi folks... I had a blast today at the swap. It was great fun to see so many long time friends and make some new gardening friends too. We had over 100 people and over 2000 plants for sharing. Awesome! At our first swap in 2001 there were 28 people... it's was so fun to see some of those same people at the swap today. Thanks to everyone for coming with such a kind and sharing heart - that's what it is all about. Everyone seemed to go home with lots of new plants. :-) Murray and I came home with some tomatoes, sedums, lillies, coneflowers and many more. Thanks so much. Of course, thanks to folks for bringing a wonderful array of tastey potluck food! I say this every year... gardeners sure can cook and bake. Thanks to folks that donated door prizes. We always get such a neat array of goodies to choose from One last thanks to everyone who came with a kind generosity of spirit. Good gardening to you all! Beverly

Annette, in spite of its long DTM, the BE#3 might make it with an early start. It has proven to be highly disease resistant in my climate, which might help it to survive cooler weather. Only one way to find out. Drloyd, I say... roll the dice. And add my voice to those hoping for a much better bean year in 2011. Given the wide separation between my location, Drloyd's, and Fusion's, 2010 was an extraordinarily bad year for beans. Great year here for soybeans & yardlongs, though. Since both of my planned trips were canceled this year (to SSE, and to the AHSC gathering in Kentucky) I didn't collect many new varieties for 2011. A shame, since I hear that Fusion brought his whole collection to Kentucky this year. ;-) Beans - Because of the bad weather last summer, there probably won't be too many new bean trials for me in 2011... it will, in large part, be a repeat of 2010. BE#3 and "Soissons Vert" will need to be regrown for good seed, as will "Clem & Sarah's Big Bean". I'll also be growing a much larger crop of the unnamed Serbian pole that had such wonderful flavor as a shelly. The seed has a three-color pattern very similar to "Hidatsa Shield Figure", but is more closely akin to "Snowcap" in size & shape. The only new bean variety planned so far is "Doloff", which was supposed to have been planted last year, but never made it into the ground. There was also an apparent cross or mutation in my BE#3 last summer; every seed on one plant had small white spots on a red background. I'll be re-growing it (hopefully under a tent) to see if any of the seed breeds true. The pole wax bean trial is still to be determined, probably the nearly extinct "B.B. Wax" or the heirloom "Schwarze Witwe". Runner beans - "Bianco de Spagna" is another bean which was planned last summer, but never planted due to weather. I'll try it again in 2011. Limas - "Carolina Red" is a pole lima that I've wanted to grow for quite some time, and thanks to a trade, it will get a trial in my home garden. I'm still wavering over which lima to grow large-scale in my rural plot. The medium-large pole varieties "Madagascar" (red & white) and "North Star" (white) were both grown on poor ground for their first trial, so I would like to test their performance in more fertile soil... and normally I grow a pole variety in my main/rural plot as part of my barrier crop strategy. However, I really want to grow the heirloom bush "Cave Dweller, Black Seeded" on a large scale. My love of limas may yet drive me to turn over a garden in a third location (it scares me that I'm actually considering that). Yardlongs - If Evergreen Y. H. is operational this year (their site appears to be) I will be growing a trial of one (or two?) of their more unique yardlongs. I'll also be doing a larger planting of either the "Thailand Pole" which I grew in 2009 (very smooth, almost white pods) or the Philippine yardlong "Sierra Madre" (tender to snap bean width). "Yancheng Bush" has made my "must grow" list, since it is so much earlier than the others. Several of my dry cowpeas require replenishment, I'll have to integrate some of them with my yardlong growouts. Peas - This will be my third year attempting to stabilize the table pea "Purple Podded Parsley", from breeder Alan Kapuler. Last summer's crop was very encouraging, nearly all purple pods. I'm very optimistic, hopefully this year the purple pod color will be fixed & I can begin to select for yield & flavor. Quite a few of my soup peas are in need of being replenished, haven't decided on varieties yet. Soybeans - I was very impressed with the black & green edamame "Natsu Kurakake" last year, but it was a seed crop, and I only ate two meals. And I almost lost this variety the first year!!! This year I hope to grow enough to freeze some, and further increase the seed. The main focus of my soybean trials this year will be high-yield Northern-adapted field varieties... but I always grow several edamame varieties as well. 2011 will be my final year of new soybean trials from the collection of the late Robert Lobitz, since the seed I obtained from his estate is all from 2006 & germination is beginning to drop off. I'll be looking for good homes for the remainder... perhaps in Canada, since many of Robert's field varieties were selected for short seasons. Many other legumes will be planted, mostly to replenish seed in my collection which is nearing the end of its storage life. I should have a complete list by the time someone starts the annual "what are you growing" thread. Which if memory serves me, was started by Dean last Spring... chomping at the bit, eh Dean? ;-)

Squirrel, as usual, you're the voice of reason and, btw, my favorite poster here. I understand copywright issues and the like and have no doubt that MSO would pursue blatantly illegal infringements like copying an entire book, a picture here and there - probably not. I've posted a couple of worthless pics here myself and would not have done so if it mattered to me, much less plaster my name all over them - not that they would be worthy of watermarking in the eyes of anyone, including me. FWIW, Google owns Blogger. If those pics were gathered by means of a Google search then I suppose Google is guilty of some kind of crime too. After all, every Google results page is loaded with sponsored links - it's how they make their money. Heck, anyone that has posted a pic here that is not their own is also *guilty* considering the fact that this forum and all of ivillage's other sites are full of sponsored links and advertising - it's how they make their money too. I've seen a lot of beautiful, inspirational pics on this forum and Sqirrelheaven's work is something I always look forward to. But it is still my opinion that I've yet to see one thing that warrants watermarking including my example - which I'm full aware of being very specific. No different than those that voice their opinion of Tuscan, matchy matchy, big clocks, Ashley furniture, mainstream 'cheese' etc. - they're just passive aggressive about it, usually under the guise of being witty and/or an authority of some kind - that's what I consider insulting. Everyone have a great day :-)

People cannot just "walk away" from their mortgages. People with mortgages signed contracts stating that, if they did not make the payments, they would lose their house to the lender. They also ding their own credit rating big-time for 3-7 years, depending on whether the property went to short sale or foreclosure, and some states will tax as income the difference between what is owed and what the property is sold for. There's no painless exit. There is, however, a growing number of people who bought late into the bubble or refinanced to repair/improve their houses or to pay medical or education bills (not to buy fancy cars or boats or vacations) who have done the math and realized that they will never have a serious chance at making up the difference -- not without putting their retirement savings or their ability to cover other future expenses at serious risk. This is true especially when retirement or disability or other continuing costs shorten the horizon. And sometimes staying put is not an option. So people are exercising the provisions of their contracts and giving their houses back to the lenders. This economic disaster was not of their creation -- they were good borrowers to start with but now have an asset that no business would continue to pay for and they will have other (big) bills to pay. So here are the keys. It still will hurt. And finally -- take it from someone who has purchased two foreclosures and is looking at a third -- most mortgage lenders (even the small ones) don't seem to know their backsides from their elbows. Mortgage lenders in the U.S. are a convoluted mess of too many people who touch the paper and none of them seem to work with each other. I strongly suspect there are corporate-tax reasons to let a property go to foreclosure -- more of a write-off or something -- because there certainly does not seem to be any drive on lenders' parts to get what money they can. There are a number of lenders who won't even talk to you unless you're behind on your payments. It's frustrating, on both ends.