We can tell! We can tell! Thank you, so much for writing to us! Most the time when we go on forums, Mommy types for us, and everyone usually thinks they're typing back just to her! We're so pleased you know we are here too! The whole Teddy Bear family thanks you! (We work so hard!) Thank you for the pretty pictures! Can't wait to show everyone tomorrow! (It is late, and most are asleep!) As for Dangsr2's questions -- we can tell! The bottom of two liter bottles is like a funnel, downward, when the bottle is upside down! Makes it easy to water into the soil! And, since the bottles are sitting upside down in their carrying cases, the tops just need to be unscrewed a little (I'm guessing you don't take the tops completely off) to let the water drain through! Brilliant! And Mommy and Daddy drink lots and lots of soda! All we have to do is convince them to go back to drinking out of 2 litter bottles this winter! ::::::::::The Garden Gals run over to the calculator, figuring out 1.5 bottles per day for the winter....ummm, do I stop typing now?:::::::::: Ummm, sorry about that. They were here a minute ago, telling me what to type, but you got them so excited... well, they just left me here. LOL I can tell how you did the corn, (did you pollenate manually, or did you really have enough for them to pollenate naturally? I've wanted to grow popcorn ever since my brother did it when we were young! LOL) and can see there is enough soil to grow each stalk, but does it work for tomatoes too? Is there really enough soil in a single 2 liter container to grow a melon vine? Cukes? Potatoes? (How do you get the potatoes out?!) The Garden Gals grew a huge sunflower last year. (It's on the same page of the original web site mentioned in my profile with the two youngest "Garden Gals" climbing on it. They're 5" tall, to give you an idea how big it was.) It was so big that the root still hasn't even started to decay yet. I took it out of the compost pile because it was like having a large branch in there. It wouldn't even fit out of the top of a soda bottle. You actually had enough soil and room to grow it out the bottom of one? The Garden Gals are so excited they're bouncing! (Not a good thing, since Valentine T. Bear is a rabbit, is prone to bouncy naturally, so gets quite hyper when she gets this excited. LOL) I'm quite excited too, and, even seeing it, I'm still not sure how it can be enough soil for so many big plants! LOL I'm aware that many reading this don't really understand our references to Teddy Bears, but, to clarify, check out my info on my member's page, and click onto my website too. It makes more sense. Also, Really loving to garden (even if I'm terrible at it), I had to start another site just about my garden, but, since I am a bit "imaginative" about my stuffed animals too, the theme continues on to both web sites (and a blog too, but that's a different story...sorta. LOL) Below, I'll include the link to the latest web site devoted to gardening and "Garden Gals," but please be patient. It's still gardening season, so I'm having trouble getting it all set up. Some pages are still blank, and I have to explain the page names on the first page when I'm finally finished setting it all up. Hope you enjoy, and, please, do take this good naturedly. I might well be a few cards short of a full deck, but I promise I have kept the jokers. LOL If I'm crazy (and crazy people never think they are, so I'm not sure LOL) at least, I'm harmless -- well, unless you're a plant, apparently. LOL

I have canning directions from a number of universities, Ball, Kerr, Presto, etc., dating back for over 20 years to the present. There have been many changes to the recommendations given by the various sources over the years. Example: pressure canning tomato juice in "Presto Cooker Canner, Directions and Recipes, 1978" lists no requirement for adding lemon juice or other acidification, and a recommended processing time for both pints and quarts is given as 15 lbs - 0 minutes. We've used that recipe over the years with no problems, but have since changed to other processing methods (processing time, acidification, pounds of pressure). It was only until a few years ago that we could find an "approved" method for preparing and canning vegetable tomato juice (V8?), but we've been canning quarts and 1/2 gallon jars of our own "V8", using our own directions which I've published here a number of years ago, for over 30 years! Jeez, did I get the nasty comments after posting that. And, the person that posted that the large canneries monitor the temperatures of each container in a batch, and conduct lab tests on products from each batch has certainly observed canneries other than the 10 or so I've visited. Getting back to recipes for half gallon jar recipes, I know it would be no big deal for a University that routinely conducts food safety testing and publishes "safe" recipes to conduct tests and provide recommendations for canning at least a limited number of recipes they standardize as to type and amount of each ingredient, etc. Heck, I can't believe that a great number of grad students haven't wanted to do just that!

I would be excited too upon receiving that wonderful swap package! The berry bowls from our local potteries look a bit different, but the purpose is the same. Here in NC ours look more like colanders with cut-outs instead of holes and there is a shallow saucer that the bowl sits in to contain the water. That cookbook looks verrrrr-y interesting! Good job, Katie!

I have never had a subscription to a cooking magazine - the only subscription I did have was to Illuminatrice, an Italian lighting magazine, and that was at work. The only magazines that I buy at the newsstand are Italian design magazines, some of which are quite expensive (I used to buy men's Italian fashion magazines, when I was more fashionable), and I have saved every one of them. I also buy Architectural Digest, Interiors, Veranda, etc. when they publish photos of my furniture designs, and I keep these also. My old magazine collection takes up one shelf in my garage, and I do refer to the Italian magazines from time to time for inspiration. I do collect clutter, but books and magazines are not part of that. I have one shelf of cookbooks in the hall next to the kitchen. I once bought a magazine on Feng Shui, but I decided that the magazine was clutter and got rid of it. I spent last week-end trying to declutter my bedroom because I also bought a new mattress that will be delivered tomorrow, and I want my room to look nice. Yesterday I made a runner with the fabric left over from making new drapes for my bedroom (to be able to block out light) and put it on the wide dresser beside my bed. The dresser on the other side of my bed has a runner I made from fabric left over from when I made my bedspread. I find that decorating or trying to coordinate rooms helps me get rid of clutter. However, I did put a bunch of books on the wide dresser using bookends. I don't have room for another bookcase. If I need to get more books, I will get rid of old ones that I have. Lately I have been buying and reading books on Anthropology and early human evolution. I read them at night to help me get to sleep, and so it takes a while to get through them. I cannot stand to watch Hoarders, but I will watch Clean House if I need inspiration to declutter. Making my house and yards look as beautiful as possible is one of my top priorities, and this helps me let go of clutter. I haven't gotten rid of it altogether, however, and so I think it is an on-going process. I have a hard time getting rid of old clothes that no longer fit, and I am convinced that sometime in the near future, they will fit again. Anyway, that is my goal. They may be terribly out of style or inappropriate by that time, however. Getting rid of old clothes is my biggest problem. One of the things I came across yesterday while decluttering was a printout from a Cooking Forum thread from 2005 that I started asking what was in everyone's freezer. It included a post by Ann_T on pitahaya (I happened to have some in my freezer at the time) that she had copied and pasted, bad Google translation and all. The translation was hysterically funny. Lars