"Shake and Bake" refers to the nickname given to the state of California, which it is not only named for, but it is the state flower for :) California is often referred to as "Shake and Bake, USA WELL DUH!...lol, FANNA WHO IS Hysterical laughing at herself for FORGETTING THIS FACT about Callie! See I am afraid to TRY any Poppy for breadseed because what if someone sends one they THINK is safe and it isn't? JASMINE, I ACCIDENTLY TYPED THE WRONG NUMBER! All is WELL it WAS Margos I was working on and since I believe I meanted the gift she gave me it was clear it was just a slip of the finger or brainwave or something along those lines..... Lisa I stayed up last night til 5:00 am or would that be stayed up this morning til? Oh well, which ever that is what I did. It is just a matter of me bring ODC and can't stop until I feel HAPPY with the results....lol!!! WOW you all are sending in some REALLY REALLY good stuff!!! Wendy, thanks for my GIFT...I will be on a CHOCOLATE high tonight, haha! That was so sweet of you to think of me, thanks again. I am actaully taking a breather at this minute to eat supper then I will get back to the seeds. :) Fran I will go ahead and post #11 thread!

A couple of notes because the rest is going to be rather long and involved: Lynda, I have the Vitex marked for you and in your baggie! And thank you for the marigolds! They will be very interesting with my others! Dessie I would be more than happy to receive your little helper's seed packets! I think it's great! Wendy Try some Chai Spice tea, it works wonders in helping clear up colds and flu. I always add a dollop of honey to help sooth the throat. It's a staple in our house and really does help. Alright, here is my take on this.. I can understand how many were hoping that the two swaps would not coincide, but, we all knew there was a fair chance of that happening. For myself, I know that I continued to update my list, even well after Patty's swap's mailing deadline. I did my updates using the same method we did for Patty's swap- using an updated date. Even had I not, I knew there was a good chance the two swaps would overlap. I joined this one knowing full well- according to the guidelines posted for it- that I may NOT receive as many as I sent in. That I would receive as many as were sent in FOR me, up to five packets of the SAME item. I recall there being some issue with this and a member who became very rude in their comments about this fact. Yes, my package from the What's Left swap is in the second batch to go out. No, I did not keep strict record of what I sent to those who were in the What's Left swap. I did keep better records of what I'm sending for this swap. I also know that a lot of people will be sending in baggies of seeds marked as extras- not dedicated for anyone, but to add in when it's seen those items are on someone's list. No, these may not be some of the rarer or more exclusively wanted items on someone's list. But if someone has some of those rarer or more specific items to share, I'm sure they would have put them into your baggie before they mailed. So, I don't see that anyone would be missing out on anything. The only way I could see having updated one's list further as complicating Patty's swap would be if someone had removed things from their list. Updating and adding items would not have conflicted. Because if there were any extras of what you were wanting, Patty would have included them. So, I guess I'm not really understanding how there is such a need to update the lists just because one is in both swaps. If I receive duplicates, wonderful! Because the things on my list are things I want! If I don't receive something on my list, then no one had it to share. If I receive so many of something that I can't plant it all, then I can bless someone else by offering it up for a trade. So, perhaps I'm being dense here, but how would one not receive something sent in specifically for them (up to FIVE packets of the same item!) that was on their wants list in this swap? Everyone has the chance to see your wants as posted and you have had the option to add to that list, as many including myself have this whole time. The only thing I could really see the two swaps happening almost simultaneously possibly affecting would be one's have's list. I'm sorry, I don't mean to upset or offend anyone. I'm just honestly trying to understand why this is such an issue. So please don't take this as meaning to offend or as pointed to anyone in particular. This is just me trying to understand why so many are upset about this. If you prefer to email me privately and help me understand it, I would be pleased with that and please do! Perhaps there are aspects and issues with this that I'm not readily seeing and should consider. I don't want to keep the thread off track by my question becoming a debate here. Perhaps there can be some adjustments of dates if this swap happens in the late summer or again next winter, but for this year it is as it is and personally, I'm really enjoying it! Nancy, I hope you don't decide to drop out, because I know that I should have at least a couple of things from your list, perhaps more. But I'll respect your choice and be your Garden Buddy either way :) Fran, you have a real job ahead of you and I don't know how those like you and Patty do it! Leave me hosting my "pair em up and let em go" or true RR type swaps! I think those of you that host this kind of swap are awesome! Angela, you have been a wonderful help to Fran and all of us in this swap! I know the time it can take to code pages like that, though updates are easier once the initial work is done, and I want to say THANK YOU for the time and work you are putting in on this swap for everyone's benefit! Kathy~ heading off to stuff more little baggies and envelopes.

All right class, this discussion has degenerated into composting bodies, so now you all have to sit up straight in your seats and listen to the tale of Miss V. and the Mystery Hole. Once upon a time last summer, I had a neighbor down the road who ran a puppy mill, let his dogs run wild, beat his girlfriend and entertained the local motorcycle gang. One day I came home to find the dogs in my yard, and for no good logical reason I chased after them. The dogs (six of them) headed into the woods down a path that we keep mowed. (Curving path for those who must know.) After a bit they disappeared, largely due to the fact that they were a lot more used to running than I was. I turned down a short spur off the main path to see if they had headed that way, thinking as I did so that I didn't remember this side path being there before. When I got to the end of that little path, I didn't find any dogs but found something far more interesting. Someone had come along and cut squares into a clearing in the forest floor. The area that was marked off into these aquares measured over six feet long and at least three feet wide. My mind immediately went into newsprint mode, and I could almost see the words in front of me: "The homeowner discovered what apppeared to be a shallow grave..." I headed back to the house and phoned my husband and son to be sure that this was not something they had done. I also checked with the neighboring Boy Scout camp to see if this had anything to do with a new scouting badge. Negative responses all around. My husband advised me to call the sheriff. The first young man who came out backed out of the woods pretty quickly. He decided it definitely had to be kicked upstairs to a higher authority. The next day, I had three plainclothes detectives show up. They asked me to grab some shovels and they headed back into the woods with me. When we got to the spot, they looked down at their suits and dress shoes, then at my jeans and sneakers, and voted me the best candidate to begin digging. I positioned the shovel along one of the lines of the squares, poised my foot on the edge of the shovel and gave it a good, hard shove. THUNK! I hit wood. At that point, I turned away and spent a few minutes contemplating the wisdom of having just eaten an Asiago cheese bagel moments before the detectives arrived. Once the brave men were assured that I was ready to go on digging, we found out it really wasn't very hard to dig. Someone had used a sod cutter to cut the squares into the ground and they were very easy to lift off the wood with a pitchfork, uncovering a four foot by eight foot sheet of plywood. At that point, I decided that I really shouldn't deprive these gentlemen of being the first to see what was under the plywood. They slowly pried it up to reveal . . . an empty hole. But what an empty hole it was! It definitely was large enough to hold a body, and it had been reinforced with two-by-fours so that a deer or other critter crossing over it would not collapse it. It had been dug at least three feet deep through solid clay. The interesting thing was that there was no dirt pile anywhere around the hole; someone had bothered to haul away all the spoils. In the end, the best theory was that someone was poaching deer in the woods and was using the hole to stash the carcass until they could come back unobserved with an ATV to haul out the meat. I still wonder about this, as someone went to a lot of trouble to build this hole. They hauled in a sodcutter, a sheet of plywood, various other pieces of wood and possibly a chainsaw or other brush cutting equiment to clear the path. They hauled out about three cubic yards of dirt, most of which was heavy clay. All of this trouble for a deer? A couple of weeks later, the neighbor shot his girlfriend's cat, was hauled off to jail and his father sold the house. I see far less of the sheriff than I used to and have found no other unexplained graves, um, holes, ever since. The ex-girlfriend ended up in a Wisconsin jail on a parole violation, a new address that just may have saved her life if you ask me. Miss V.

My name is Elana W. My site is in my front yard next to my neighbor's driveway. The site gets full sun. A downspout from my house is pointed in the general direction of the site, and a downspout on my neighbor's house also directs water to the area. The site slopes ever so slightly, to form a subtle depression. Miss dig came out to flag underground wires for a different reason, and now we know where they are for our garden too!