I'm curious...where were you shoveling "to", Gandle? Do you have animals outside to feed? Is it your driveway? I'd sure stay off the icy roads unless a real emergency. Please take care. josh

Many years ago in El Cajon Ca. we use to play golf at a course that had been an olive orchard. There were many trees left after putting in the course, but people complained about the olives. I wrote to the U.S. dept of Agriculture and got a whole booklet on how to cure olives. I don't know when I had such a good time and so many people wanting my olives. The golf course even provided me with a golf cart to collect the fruit. Amazed when I found out that the olives are picked green, well they turn a beautiful satin green color. It was all in the curing as to whether we wanted our olives green or black. At our poker parties/any party, olives were expected at our home. After 40 some years I still have that booklet and sometimes the urge to cure olives again.

CELESTE, Your photography is fantastic,and the daylilies are all gorgeous.I hope when you get a really good bloom open on cameo Luster,you will post another picture of it.it looks to be very beautiful DL. INNER VISION is gorgeous, too, Love your annuals, too, and those Hibicus are beautiful.That LIly is so different from your others you posted, but pretty.Love that mountain scenery picture.Its really pretty. AND the kitties,That ZEUS is such a gorgeous cat.His hair (FUR) looks so soft and ir shines.He is a very gorgeous cat, BUT, so is Nemo too, in a different way.Hard to beat that coat of fur on ZEUS, I have been looking at all the news about the floods in Vermont and New Jersey.Its horrible.I feel so bad for all them folks that has lost everything they have with the floods.I am hoping that most had flood insurance, but,I bet they didnt and end up with nothing.Its very sad. Jean

One of my friends owns an apple orchard, and due to the reduction in the bee population in recent years, has to rent bees every spring. The beekeeper can pretty safely market the honey that is produced as "apple blossom honey." However, at the slightest hint that all is not well with the bees, the beekeeper packs up his hives and hightails it out of there, leaving my friend's orchard virtually bee-less. I used to buy honey at a farmers market in southern California. The honey was all different colors and had very different tastes. I asked about it, and the "honey lady" said that indeed the hives were simply placed in fields of whatever crop was named on the label. Not 100%, but close enough. I told her that gave me an image of a rural paradise teeming with flowers and bees, and she said I wasn't too far off in her case, but that is not always true. She said that quite good honey is produced in suburban areas, but you can't be sure of where or what the bees feed on. I surely miss that honey, I've never found as good here in Massachusetts.