Hello everyone... I haven't had much time to spend online lately. Carol is right, my beloved Bob passed away yesterday afternoon at 1:00 pm. Two weeks from tomorrow, he fell while trying to put his jeans on while s tanding up instead of using the bench.. and broke his left hip.. He got through the surgery great, but then when he was transferred to the rehab center, he suffered a heart attack, an pneumonia, so they transported him back to the hospital, where they found he had a high fever, and his kidneys were shutting down.... One thing led to another and he passed away yeaterday.... I am still in a state of total shock and it hurts worse than I ever thought I could hurt. I am honored that you like my recipe for the honey wheat bread... I love to play with my food and that includes baking bread... nevah know what you will make that you just don't want to live without... Enjoy everyone. xoxo Carolyn

I think I'll call them Annie's Crack Cookies from now on. LOL You guys should've been here as Erin was writing her reply above. Numerous attempts and misspellings made her grumpy and she'd yell at me about how to spell something. My favorite part - "And I sat down in the chair and stretched for a few minutes and I watched TV for another few minutes and I stretched again and I watched TV again so anyways my mom and I just wanted to tell you how delicious the cookies were." Apparently stretching & watching TV are an integral part of eating good cookies in my household. At least for a 9-year-old girl they are, LOL!

Rye bread.... Here's a recipe I love....sorry for the form, but I saved it from an email I sent someone. Here's the Rye bread I promised. Makes 6 loaves. Cook 4 medium potatoes (peeled), drain saving the water and put through a sieve (or mash) proof 2 pkts of yeast (or 3 1/2 teaspoons) in 1/2 cup warm water with a t. of sugar. Mix 4 c. of buttermilk, 3/4 c. dark molasses, 1/4 cup of shortening (she used Crisco, I use butter) and 1 t. baking soda and 1T.salt. Add 3/4 c. brown sugar and 3/4 c, of the potato water. Add enough rye flour to make a dough ( still able to be stirred, but getting pretty stiff).Add the yeast mixture and mix well Add enough white bread flour to (as Mrs. Faust said)work it up, That is until it is stiff enough to knead. knead about 6 to 8 minutes, let rise till double, punch it down and shape into loaves. this works best in bread pans due to the long cooking time--if you don't have 6 bread pans, just "free form" the rest and maybe take it out of the oven a little sooner. Butter top of loaves and raise until it almost cracks on top (this is a very heavy bread!) Bake 350 for 1 1/4 hours. Mrs Faust used to divide the dough in half and add about a t. of anise seed to -one half of the dough--I like it--almost like a tea bread.. Good Luck--I'm getting hungry just reading the recipe--it's really a fabulous bread!

Hi Bart: Fantastic idea you have !! I agree: I would put cracked corn below the bark-chips, to prevent birds & animals from digging that up. Then I put wood-ash on-top last. To prevent cracked corn from sprouting, put bagged cracked corn in your freezer for 1 week before using. Hubby bought me a large bag of cracked corn last fall, and it stored in my cold garage (below freezing) for 3 months. In the spring I used it, and zero corn sprouting. However, the new bag of cracked corn bought in spring: it sprouted corn-plants all over !! Wood-ash is very good for roses. My Mom used that for 30 years and I had never seen fungal growth on her roses: no mildew, no black spots, no rust. She had a 5-acre garden and never water her roses. I re-post the composition of red-lava rock compared to wood-ash, and you'll see wood-ash is far superior in anti-fungal agents: pH of woodash is 10.4 compared to pH of 9.9 for limestone, and pH of 8.2 for red-lava-rock. Woodash has 20% calcium, plus high in potassium, zinc, and boron. Woodash is most effective since it's faster release, due to smaller particles. Below values are in p.p.m (parts per million, as in water contains 1 ppm of fluoride). Wood Ash Calcium 15 Potassium 2.6 Aluminum 1.6 Magnesium 1.0 Iron 0.84 Phosphorus 0.53 Manganese 0.41 Sodium 0.19 Nitrogen 0.15 Microelements Concentration in mg/kg for Wood Ash Arsenic 6 Boron 123 Cadmium 3 Chromium 57 Copper 70 Lead 65 Mercury 1.9 Molybdenum 19 Nickel 20 Selenium 0.9 Zinc 233 CaCO3 (calcium carbonate equivalent 43% (woodash) 100% for limestone) Let's compared wood ash to red-lava-rock, has less zinc than wood-ash. Zinc, copper, calcium, boron plus potassium are anti-fungal agents. For red lava rock, in p.p.m, it has 6 phosphorus, 59 potassium (way-more than wood-ash), but only 6 in zinc. Red-lava-rock advantage is high iron at 10, copper at 5 (compared to 70 for wood ash), magnesium of 2, and boron of 10 (compared to 123 for wood ash). The highest compositions in red-lava-rock are: calcium at 1.3 mg/100, manganese at 0.6, and sodium at 0.5 mg/100. For anti-fungal agents, wood ash is number one. For potassium and iron, red-lava rock excels. Below are my 1st-year gallon-size, own-root Austin roses planted in topsoil which has peatmoss (pH 4) to balance out wood ash (pH 10.4). Lots of blooms, and no black spots nor rust for years afterwards. But notice just a touch of mildew, since I topped that with salty horse manure, plus salty high nitrogen-chemicall, plus sulfur. I stopped those foolish experiments and mildew went away ... they are clean for the past 4 years. Picture taken at above 80 degree in hot & dry summer: