I have several seed books, and this is the best for native seed culture "Growing and Propigating Wildflowers" by Harry R. Phillips. You can buy it at Easyliving Wild Flowers, and other places. Remember that many perennial native plants need a cold period to germinate, so this might be a nice Christmas gift. Easyliving WIld FLowers is also one of the best places to buy native seed. GGG

I think the digital photo album would be nice. What is this person going to do after retirement? Is he going to travel, volunteer, play golf or any other hobbies? I think a gift relating to his post retirement would be good too.

Are you paying for your dinner? At all the retirement parties I have attended and run there was a cost to attend and part of that went toward the gift. These parties were held in restaurants., If you are not paying to attend , like if it is in someone's home, I think a gift is appropriate. If you KNOW the lady would use a spa certificate, it is a great idea. If you aren't sure, a gift certificate is nice. I recently catered a party for a friend. She paid for the ingredients, but I did all the cooking and made the centerpieces. In the thank you note was a gift card from say, American Express, which could be used anywhere..a lovely gesture.

Hi Guys! Let me tell you we had a blast! However it seems the the master technician did something, or didn't do something, with the camera and the pictures he took are on the internal memory vs the SD card ( this is being dictated to me ,I have no flippin' idea what it means) anyhow the upshot is no pics until we get home!!!! Himseklf didn't bring some sort of cable!!! As for the border crossing. The guards were very friendy, professional and kind but.....seems that our picnic lunch contained 6 oranges and violated import laws so....they pulled us over. I told them to take the oranges but I guess orange smugglers are high risk because we had to pull over, go inside and be interviwed by an agricultural expert...nice guy who I could tell would rather be dealing with something else. Anyhow they had to search the car for more contraband, they took the oranges and we were on our way....in just a bit nore than an hour! They truly were kind and nice and just doing their job but.....the worst part was werbeing in this smallish space with all the others that needed checking....I was sanitizing my hands, face, feet et all ! LOL Today we enjoyed a leisurely drive to Chicago and an lovely afternoon in nthis fabulous city. It's gorgeous! Tomoorw we have some things we want to see and do and then it's off to drinks and dinner with nPeppi! Woo Hoo! Oh to keep this food related, I had a Chicago style Hot Dog for lunch....could , should had two...excellent! More later