I too am slightly embarassed to admit that I still have about 35 WS seedlings in small nursery pots sitting in the pot ghetto. Well, in mid-summer it was over 100, so that's an improvement. That's one of the problems with winter-sowing - too many seedlings! :) We have had unusually mild and drizzly weather lately, so it's perfect for transplanting. Two days ago, I planted out 12 seedlings of Polemonium reptans (Jacob's Ladder). These are easy to start from seed, and I already lost most of the first wave of transplants during the summer - slugs! So, I'm pushing the envelop and planting stuff to see if it will make it through the winter. What's to lose? I've got about a dozen seedlings of native perennial vines - Campsis radicans (trumpet vine), Clematis virginiana, and Aristolochia - still sitting in those little pots. I don't have trellises ready for them, so they are going to have to be sunk into the ground in a veggie area for the winter. There are also a few warm-season grasses in little pots. They are dormant now, but I'm thinking of planting a few just to see if they'll make it. They too are very easy to start from seed.

The sausage place was wonderful. The person who helped us was very knowledgable. No lard or pork belly available today. Bought 20 german bratwurst. Went to a nearby Wegmans that is more "international" than the Wegmans that I usually go to. After way too much time standing in Wegmans trying to make a decision.... I purchased Morrell Snow cap lard. It does say "with hydrogenated lard bht and bha added to help protect flavor". I'm going to try it with the idea of going back to the sausage place to get pure lard when they have it available. For this weekend, If the crullers don't come out with the Morrel lard I will use crisco. I will try them again with pure lard when I get it. Many of you make rendering lard look easy but I need to make sure I don't run out of time with hosting two parties this weekend. Thank you all for the help! On a side note, I dropped off my grandmothers cookbook at a binding repair shop. The cover is completely off. They are going to put on a new cover trying to make it look as much as the original as possible. Kinda of sad to replace the original cover but its the only way to make the book usable.

Roundup can pass through a connected system. But despite Henry's repeated quotes of various scientific articles (usually related to edible annual herbaceous plants unrelated to roses or seedling growth in farmland) there is no real evidence that any transfer from roots to soil to roots in the sort of application we're talking about, can really harm an adjacent hardwood bush like a rose, not to mention a huge established shrub like the one we are discussing. People have been 'surgically' removing garden plants using roundup for ever. Most of it is bound rapidly to the soil (to the extent that cutting a stub and powdering with a little dirt before 'rounduping' greatly diminishes the efficacy of the herbicide) and what little may or may not end up in the rizosphere from where some may or may not be absorbed by adjacent roots has not shown any harmful effects under field conditions. Now we have discussed this repeatedly before and I'm sure Henry will come up with yet a few obliquely related articles stating that traces of roundup or the results of its decomposition in the soil have mean identified in adjacent plants (and I have no reason not to believe this) but the field experience of millions of gardeners and farmers shows you can roundup a bush with the cut and apply method with no noticeable harmful effects to the adjacent ones. If there was a problem we would know about it through collective knowledge and word of mouth even if we didn't undestand the mechanics of it. I don't challenge what the linked articles are describing, I'm challenging Henry's crude interpetation and his arbitrary chain linking of them, which is grossly exaggerating to say the least. I'm sure Henry understands very well what he's reading but when someone is on a mission anything goes. There, I have vented off. PS I have never ever sprayed roundup or any other herbicide in my garden for weed control and I don't intend to, but I have used roundup on cut stems and stubs of small bushes and large trees repeatedly when it was the only viable solution to get rid of the plant for whatever reason. PS2 In the above I don't mean to recommend the roundup method for the particular RRV suspicion problem at hand. Firstly I have no knowledge or experience of RR disease and secondly I wouldn't do it myself out of fear of passing the herbicide through a possibly connected root system which, even if it doesn't kill the mother plant, it may cause symptoms similar to RRD which, for obvious reasons, would defeat the purpose of the original effort to save the mother plant..... I just commented on the use of roundup to kill individual plants.

Recently I bought pork fat at the farmer's market. I intend to render it into lard for cooking. I'd only cook with lard if I got it from a reputable non commercial source. Although i know I consume less optimal lard at Mexican restaurants, which I don't visit all that often being as most New England Mexican restaurants are not that good to begin with. If I make bacon, I may use drippings for fried eggs, or maybe to add to other foods later that same day. I don't reserve it for future dates. When I have bought organic farmers market duck (not often, due to price), I reserve the duck fat for up to a month, to cook with. I am one of those whose health profile improved when I modified the fats I ate (to olive oil and avocado oil, and butter and the occasional duck or bacon fat), and when I markedly reduced junk sugars and grains in my food plan. I also eat eggs about 5 times a week. So, high fat, low carb, lotsa veggies, and watching food sources works for me.