My biggest beef is our disgusting lawn. When people walk around the garden to look at roses, I fear for their lives. Awful pot holes and sinkage and tree roots sticking up. We built our house fron scratch and carved it out of a damp forest. When we prepared the back and sowed seed for the large lawn, we had it levelled nicely, and it looked wonderful, though we had a bit of a grade. But it has deteriorated quickly over the years It is now like the surface of the moon with huge pot holes. Springs have re-surfaces, even though my husband trenched and diverted with rocks and Big O beneath......and we have squelchy boggy areas. It has turned out very poorly and moss and weed ridden. It will take a fortune to fix it. So I try and ignore it and tend to the roses. Anything else, especially now we do not have deer in the back is negligable. Pauline.

Those are good links. Thanks. I good get lost looking at some of those photos. Talk about gorgeous and in many cases so, so different from what we see available now. I love the brownish colored ones! Kato - You're correct. The price does seem almost cheap when you think of what you're getting and the history. I have to do some more reading about these, but I'm already suspecting a lot of these tulips might be way more "perennial" than were used to buying. Perhaps they even multiply? Still, my biggest fear are those %^$& blasted squirrels we have around here. I don't worry about them digging up bulbs, but very often they go on a tulip rampage when they bloom - chewing off all the flowers just as they begin to open. It would be a bummer to invest in some of these and never see them bloom. I guess there's always cages of chicken wire around each one, but that doesn't seem like it would be all that attractive. Kevin

Only way I can do it is, keep them moving all the time. Pre heat pan on high heat, dump dry nuts in the pan, after 1 minute you will smell a faint odor of toasting nut, start flipping them and don't stop. That motion you see chefs do, where they jerk the pan and the food flies up and back, works - but so does a spatula. When nuts are toasted, dump into a large bowl, toss with very tiny amount of oil and the salt. If I don't do it this way, I get distracted, walk away - and burn the nuts. Sometimes I do it in the toaster oven, but only set to 1 minute and keep checking and turning and pushing the button. Otherwise - I burn the nuts. I used to be impatient and use the broiler. And - I burned the nuts.

I keep the extra jars of natural peanut butter in my pantry turned upside down. Then when it's time to break open a new jar, I turn it right side up for a few hours. I usually stir it with the long end of a sturdy wooden spoon, but I like Lars' idea of using a knife honing steel. I'm going to have to give that a try. To me, the most important thing is to make sure to bring up the harder & drier gobs from the bottom and incorporate them well into the rest of the peanut butter. Otherwise you run into those dry gobs later when you try to spread the stuff. I usually start slowly, poking the spoon end down to the bottom of the jar and moving it slightly to the center to let the oil can go down. Then I repeat that action until I've gone completely around the bottom of the jar. Eventually I get to the point where I start bringing up the bottom stuff and incorporating it with the rest of the peanut butter. The oil is what makes the peanut butter soft and spreadable. Without it, the peanut butter is more like peanut clay. It takes a while, but the results are worth it. The natural peanut butter gets as creamy as it's going to get and is perfectly blended. I store it in the fridge, and it stays blended until we finish the jar. I only buy 1 lb. jars, though. I tried doing it with the larger jars, and it was more difficult. I much prefer the taste and texture of natural peanut butter. The super creamy stuff like Jif or Skippy taste strange to me, and I don't like their texture either. I feel like I'm eating sweetened, peanut-flavored shortening.