Oh you lucky duck. I was the recipient of Terri's Tayberry Jam and boy do I wish I had more. It is fantastic. Enjoy -- but eat it slowly. You'll be sad when it is gone. I have a "Made by Terri" apron, too! I use it all the time. The handiwork on it is lovely. How thoughtful that Terri made one for MacKenzie, too. And a summer dress! I think I remember seeing her dresses on Chance, too. What a lovely and thoughtful swap box. Ann matched up two very special people.

I am holding on to Firemanswife and eaching out for the next person..... I watched my Mother go through renal failure due to diabetese. Saying a prayer here for you.

Really, REALLY late for a belated Happy Birthday. Been so busy lately raising Monarch Butterflies that everything else is falling on the wayside. It's fitting that the first came out of it's crysalis on Wednesday - your day! Sorry to hear about your leg, but I see everyone is making the best of it on another post by 'designing' the cast. Getting a good laugh from all the creativity. Oh, DH is telling me we have another crysalis wiggling. Got to go... Be well!

"That gator came in, grabbed that boy, pulled him, the dad startled that gator, the gator let him go and then the boy drowned," he said. That is sooo unlikely, honestly. You cannot startle a gator away from prey, seriously, really. Adults get killed or lose limbs trying to get away once a gator grabs them. Do you think they don't make a fuss in the process? Once a gator grabs on, it takes an awful lot to make it let go. It has to be so uncomfortable that it decides it's not worth it, and they're pretty nearly impregnable, especially in the water. There was someone down our way who managed to save a small child that a gator had grabbed, but two people pulled the gator out of the water and kicked it in the stomach and poked its eyes for quite a while before it got tired of the whole situation. It is certainly true that the water would have been murky, though. I think that the above quote is just an attempt to frame the situation in a slightly less horrific way, possibly for the benefit of the family. It's surely not realistic. ETA, Oh, and while alligators don't usually swim far, they can when they want to. We sometimes see them swimming up the beach here in the ocean when they want to get from one wild area to another, and they have at least half a mile to go to do that.