WinterCat, Thanks for the poem! I've never run across that one before, and it's beautiful as well as botanical. I'm moderately interested in the history of rose hybridization, and plant discovery and development in general, but the lives of the people who happened to get roses named after them as a rule leave me cold. I've never cared for celebrity gossip. And, perhaps because of a minimalist element in my aesthetic composition, I don't collect plant-themed objects, or anything else, except for the plants themselves, and books. But my goal, or dream, is a very large, very complex garden filled with a tremendous variety of plants all in the place that's right for them. Much as I love both literature and gardening, I don't find a great deal of connection between them. Maybe it's like, oh, kittens: they're absolutely delightful in real life, but perhaps too charming to make good subjects for artistic interpretation. For years I've had a vague idea in the back of my mind of a garden poem, long, full, complex, rich, beautiful, like the garden of my dreams. I'm not going to write the poem, as I'm not a poet, and I haven't found that anyone else has written it, though I don't read much poetry, either. I don't believe that Dickens, that pre-eminently urban author, is commonly regarded as a notable writer of landscape description, but have recently become conscious of his sensitivity to the beauty of the countryside and his ability to describe it. From Nicholas Nickleby: [after a night of drinking and riot, ending in a quarrel] "They...emerged upon the open road,... Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, everything looked very beautiful; the young man scarcely seemed to have noticed them before, though he had passed the same objects a thousand times. There was a peace and serenity upon them all strangely at variance with the bewilderment and confusion of his own half-sobered thoughts, and yet impressive and welcome." And from Bleak House: [on a trip to visit a friend in the country] "It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind blowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! [and the friend's garden] But indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled about among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and winking in the sun, there were such heaps of drooping pods, and marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighboring meadows where the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay." Melissa, with the help of Charles Dickens

I slept late today ;-) Last night was a "rest" - after DD and I got home from parade, she changed and the whole family went to pick up our jars and ribbons, then we met my parents at pizza place for dinner, picked up a cake and ice cream and went back to their house to celebrate my birthday 2 weeks late (we've been so busy have had no time to go to dinner - and now anniversary is coming up, I've got no idea when/how we're going to celebrate that b/c rest of the month looks busy too, with DS's awards - see my brag post - my mom visiting my sister's family for niece's b-days, and then coming back right before my dad has surgery). Anyway, I haven't made the apple-jalapeno (or any pepper jellies except Gold) for a couple years, I can't find the recipe I used, it was mostly apple juice or homemade apple pectin not vinegar so I don't remember how many jalapenos I used, how much lemon juice. There are a few tomato jam recipes on this forum if you search, I've used the Food in Jars no-pectin recipe successfully with cherry tomatoes (lots of skin and not so much juice as heirlooms, don't try it with really juicy tomatoes). The red-ribbon winner was Orange Minsk tomatoes peeled and sugared per Joy of Jams Tomato-Pineapple preserves recipe, but instead of fresh pineapple I used 1C (drained) of canned crushed pineapple, since that has already been cooked it didn't have the enzyme that hinders the set. I peeled (raw, not blanched so lost a little flesh) 3 huge Orange Minsk tomatoes for 2.25 lbs. 2C of sugar, let stand all day, lots of liquid but very ripe tomatoes were falling apart once I started cooking them. Added 4 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 Tbsp lime juice, 4 Tbsp OJ, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2tsp coriander and 1 Tbsp whole dried birdseye (Thai) peppers. Bring to a boil, add 1/2 a can (drained) crushed pineapple (about 1C). Boil until set. The next time I made this, I put the pineapple (not drained) in the pan first with the syrup from the sugared tomatoes, the lemon and lime juice (skipped the OJ), and brought that to a "hard simmer" and crushed the pineapple with a potato masher b/c I had bought 6 cans of pineapple chunks (in juice, not syrup) from BJ's and that's what DD used in her jam first. The pineapple chunks were a lot harder/bigger than the crushed - tidbits might work best, the crushed was really shredded and I was *trying* for a preserve with chunks of pineapple and whole yellow cherry tomatoes, but the tomatoes keep falling apart on me and I used the immersion blender on the whole pot, pulled out the skins. A food mill would have worked better. Same spices, skipped the hot peppers in that one. A 3rd batch used the Orange Minsk again, with crushed pineapple, same juices (incl. OJ) and spices, so it was jam consistency, but instead of whole birdseye peppers which were really spicy (to me and DS) when you bit into one, I added 1Tbsp of crushed red pepper flakes. But that hadn't set up as well by the time of the fair so I didn't enter that. I'll let you know how that goes. I've still got to work out the tomato preserves, but I think I need to use really firm just-ripe cherry tomatoes and it's the end of the season, I don't have any more. I've also been working on a savory "just tomato" spread using no-sugar pectin but am having a hard time getting a set with the juicy heirlooms I've tried this year.

I've gotta tell you about our 1922 beach cottage made of spit and bubblegum. PO's? There must have been a PO for every year of the house's life. It seems that we are the first owners who planned to stay a while, without renting it out. It has gorgeous views, a beautiful beach and is in a very desirable second home and rental home beach community. So po's buy it, rent it for big bucks, never put a dime into it, and sell it-they then buy their 'real' second home. It was the cheapest, shabbiest, and only affordable house on Lake Shore Drive, so we bought it. 1. It's on a dune, and still sits on a two foot tall iffy crawl space. The walls of the foundation have holes. We found brand new boxes of floor jacks (to hold up the floors) in the crawl sp. Pre-sale, the inspector could not inspect the contents of the crawl because it was jammed with 80 years of stuff, deliberately. 2. Crawl contains the plenum (thingy which distributes heat and a/c to the various rooms), lying on its side and connected to the furnace in the first floor util room. Two of the four second floor bedrooms are unheated and un a/c'ed because the plenum is too far from the rooms. There are no chases, no ducts going to these bedrooms. I'm afraid room air conditioners will blow the knob and tube upstairs wiring. 3. There is no real drywall or plaster, just wallpaper smoothed out over paneling. Only thin paneling over random studs. 4. The floor under the second floor toilet was rotted, a common occurence I've been told. The metal linen cabinets in the solo upstairs bath were rusted, dented, disgusting. The shower was uh, kind of blue and rust colored. It was worse than fourth world countries' bathroom facilities. We gutted to the random studs, searched for elec in the most unexpected places, and remodeled into a beautiful room. 5. Bedrooms measured 7X9, 8X9, 9X9 and the master is 9X15 with a sloped ceiling, from 6.5' to 7' high. No upstairs ceiling is taller than 6.5'+. Painted paneling with many, many holes. Had to remove closet doors:they were gerryrigged and never fit. 6. Oh, yes, the popcorn ceiling panels collapsed in two bedrooms. Fixed it once and after the second collapse, we installed new drywall ceilings upstairs. 7. Instead of having regular can ceiling lights in the bedrooms, they had shower lights, which gave off, oh, 10 watts of dim. 8. The walls bow a bit, here and there. 9. The floors have holes but I covered every square inch with inexpensive laminate which looks great and has a few bouncy spots. A marble rolls on the floor from one end of the house to the other in a split second! 10. We have fixed most of the major things and it is now a cute cottage, but The afterthought utility room which holds the furnace, some water pipes and the water heater has a 13" wide door. However, the diameter of the water heater is 18". This may be the year when we create a new door from the wall of the util room to the outside of the house, to replace the water heater, whenever, not if. Still, 6 years later, some money, lots of effort, it's delightful and in great demand by family and friends. Oh, btw, dh and I went there for N.Y. Eve and a big snowstorm hit and we had to evacuate quickly, because, among other reasons, the only way to get down and out, would be like sliding down an olympic luge, aka known as high flights of stairs, unevenly spaced stairs. We went to the casino hotel and had a great time! Bev

Thanks for the support everyone. I'm deducting the cost of the mirror from my payment to the builder. It just feels so violating. I went over yesterday (Sunday) to install a shower curtain bar and found that the thief has been at it again. The builder had cleaned out my garage, which looks great (sealed floors = shiny and not covered in debris anymore). There are a few extra pieces of random tiles that have been collected into a corner out there. I *know* (because I was thinking of returning it to the supplier) that there was an entire box of Ann Sacks Lucien metallics tile out there. Now there are only 8 pieces. I can't return the tile anymore because partial case. I'll probably just keep the pieces in case something happens to the backsplash but who in the world steals 4 pieces of tile? That doesn't even make sense! What is anyone going to do with 4 6" arabesque tiles? I mean, that is not really a financial loss to me but with everything else being locked up I feel like this thief is thinking he's just NOT going to walk away empty handed and takes the only thing he can get his hands on... Whatever. I just want my house to be locked because the keys are in MY hands. Then this nonsense can end. And security system, pronto. In other news, the house is really gorgeous. I only made one design decision I don't totally love and it's just paint so I'm in good spirits over most of it. No occupancy, continued delays due to frozen ground with getting our landscaping in which is preventing occupancy.