Many Asian cukes are long and some are vary shades of white. Not many OP's come to the US tho. Kitazawa which vend Japanese seed here carry mostly hybrids. There are two Korean Cucumbers available in the USA (Evergreen seed) that look like your photo. White Sun and Silver Green ( both however are hybrids)

At 64 yrs old I can fondly remember pounding the keys on an old Remington Manual Typewriter in the hopes of passing the required 60wpm speed test to complete the course. The base of that desk, minus the hutch top is identical to the typing desks that we used in school. The small fold up table leaf on the right side of the desk is to provide a place to stand a top bound "stenographers pad" or in some cases a vertical metal document holder so you could easily see the original document that you were typing. I do not believe that to be a stenographers desk because it lacks the amenities required by a stenographer, by example, where is the drawer to hold pencils and spare steno pads for taking dictation? I suspect what you have is a much more specialized desk, a "typing pool desk." One clue would be to check the back of the hutch top to see if its plain wood or is it finished? If its plain wood it was most likely intended to be placed against a wall in the manner that you have it now, but if the back is finished it was designed to be a free standing piece where both the front and back would be visible while in use. Typewriters were relatively noisy so in larger offices where the noise of a number of typewriters might interfere with normal business they generally had a separate room called the "Typing Pool". A secretary or stenographer would go into the office and take dictation, then the notes were taken to the typing pool to be transcribed onto final hard copy. In the typing pool the typing desks were aligned in rows like seats in a class room. Note that your desk has small compartments on each side of the typewriter platform that are sized for envelopes while the hutch top would allow ample space for different varieties, sizes and grades of bond paper, and/or the necessary company forms and letterheads. In some cases they had a person who was known as the office devil, who was responsible for stocking each desk with the appropriate envelopes, paper and forms. In those days "Time was money". By automating the desk in the manner you describe a typist could come in, lift the lid and voila, the typewriter slid out, the paper compartments opened and she was ready to sit down and get to business in seconds. The top hutch also serves another function in an office of that period. When seated at the desk you could not see the person ahead of you, and if you turned around you could not see the person behind you, therefore it helped reduce time lost to trivial gossip between desks, and of course there was a supervisor constantly walking up and down the aisles to insure you weren't leaning across the aisle to disturb your neighbor. Also note that there was no place to put your favorite potted plant, the pictures of your kids and your coffee cup, sorry folks, your hear to type, not set up housekeeping....LOL.

Gardenspice, sorry this is so late, but I never saw your post! We had a "friend" who was going through a rough patch with his wife and he had just lost his job. They only had one vehicle and I offered to loan him my green '97 Sebring Convertible to use whenever he wanted,we have three cars for the two of us, so it wouldn't be a hardship to us. After about a year I offered to sell it to him for $2500, we drew up a promissory note and we both signed it in April of '09. I gave him two years to pay it off, $100/month for 25 months. In October of that year he hadn't paid a dime and I filed an addendum to the original Promissory note because he hadn't paid per the contract. He skipped town and moved to Indiana with my car without making a single payment. I found out where he worked and had him served at his work with legal papers for the money. While the filing was happening, I called several shows, Judge Alex was the first to call on a Tuesday, the show was taping on Thursday! But when they got us there within days (which is why a lot of people aren't prepared when they come to court). I totally thought it was a joke until I went to the courthouse and they confirmed that a guy had been in a few days earlier to look for my file. I was called on a Tuesday and flew out Thursday morning. They flew me to the FOX studios and had a meet and greet with my handler and given $35 cash for spending money for the night. They also provided a hotel room. They flew me in but not Jim, who really wanted to be there, drove the 6 hours or so to meet me there. The next day they were taping and did my hair and makeup and fed me about 6 Red Bulls to get my emotions rolling, but I don't get upset easily, so the script they wanted me to say I flubbed up so bad it was left on the cutting room floor. How these court shows work is that the people really ARE real, and Judge Alex dismissed my case without predjudice, which means I can resue him when the two year Promissory note was cleared. We were each given $150 for our appearances and up to your state law for the car (mine happened to be $2500. Now, at least on JA's show, the money comes from the the network and goes to the winner and the defendant would have to pay nothing to me. But could he keep his big, fat mouth shut he would have gotten off scott-free and would no longer be required to pay me anything. But the dumbass waved the Addendum to the judge and screwed himself out of $2500. The two years went by and voila! There was a cashiers check from the weasel. I am glad it is all over, but I miss my Green Machine, I hated to see it go.

Nancy, Welcome home! How tragic that accident must have been. I'm glad you made it home safely and can just picture Titan going all out to welcome you home. I'm glad GDW, you, Tom and Jerry survived Titan's enthusiasm. I hope the animals will leave you alone and let you sleep tonight. They might not want to let you out of their sight. The combination of heat/humidity has been awful, especially up there in the northeastern quarter of the state. Jennifer, Winter's harshness can depend somewhat on whether El Nino develops or not, and they usually don't really know if it is truly going to develop until almost December even though they can see changes in the Sea Surface Temperatures months before that. The problem is that sometimes SST changes signal that an El Nino (or a La Nina) is going to develop, and then something happens and it never develops or it develops and is very weak or it just fizzles out before it really can develop. And, its impacts vary a lot and can range from minor to major and everything in between, so who can say, really? They cannot even get our forecast right a week in advance, so I don't put a whole lot of faith in long-term forecasts that have lots of moving parts. I think that we'll know by February 2019 if we're going to have a bad winter or not. (grin) Rebecca, Nice plants! Are the squirrels leaving things alone now? Jacob, Start it in flats indoors if that is how you prefer to start seeds. As soon as it sprouts, move it outdoors into the sun so you won't have to spend time hardening off plants raised indoors. Or, direct sow it into a prepared bed outdoors, cover with maybe 1/4" soil patted down gently on top of the seeds, water lightly. Keep an eye on it and water lightly every day just to keep the soil surface moist until it sprouts, which at the temperatures we're having now should take a week or less. I don't start basil indoors any more because it has reseeded all over my garden. This year I thought there were not many reseeding volunteers in the garden, but that was because they popped up late---in May and even in early June. Now I have basil growing in the middle of my Laura Bush petunias and my catnip, and they're all just slugging it out and fighting for control. Amy, I don't know how you get anything done with a grandkid climbing all over you. Nancy, Mortgage Lifter is a late variety, so it isn't a huge concern that it hasn't set much yet. In my garden, they tend to start late but set almost all summer even after other large-fruited tomatoes have stopped setting, so I consider their lateness a good thing---it keeps you in tomatoes late in the season. Jennifer, That is what I'd expect with a pumpkin plant. I think I was able to grow pumpkins and squash like crazy---more than a dozen varieties of each of them each year for the first 6 or 7 years we lived here. Then the squash bugs and SVBs found us and the squash and pumpkin party was over. I've never grown as many since, and mostly only C. moschatas because they can survive the SVBs and can outgrow the damage and diseases carried by squash bugs. In our climate, squash bugs and SVBs are just everywhere and are highly mobile and can travel long distances searching for food. It is just our cross to bear in this region, I guess. Jacob, And that is one of the reasons I've never even wanted to try the Florida Weave---I doubt I could keep up with it during the peak part of the growing season. I prefer cages because once I set them up and stake them, that's it, they're done and I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the season. So, y'all, today we had hornworms in our garden. Not tomato hornworms. Not tobacco hornworms. Nope. We had the hornworms of the White-lined Sphinx moth (probably the sphinx moth that is most abundant here in our area), which even is my favorite sphinx moth that I see flying around. I like them because they have a splash of pink on them. These were not the first White-lined Sphinx moth caterpillars we have had in the garden this year. There's been a couple before this. So, let's say that all this season, I've seen two of them in the garden and I relocated them outside the garden. Then, today, I looked across the garden and spotted a bat-faced cuphea plant that had been devoured. Just devoured. I walked across the garden to it and found 3 5th-instar hornworms on it. That was just the beginning. We found 13 hornworms on the cuphea plants, and Tim relocated them to the Back 40 behind the barn. Then tonight I found a 14th one. It was getting pretty dark so I relocated it to the ground beneath my shoe. Ooops. Were these creatures on the dozens of four o'clocks and daturas that we grow just for them? Nope. They were on one of my favorite little flowers that I raised indoors in flats under lights to ensure we'd have those flowers this summer. In all, we found seven of them on that first mutilated plant that I had noticed from the other side of the garden. I'll watch for more tomorrow. Y'all know I am usually very hornworm-tolerant, but I have to say that finding 14 in one day did not make me very happy. That's a lot of damage occurring at once. If the plants are too heavily devoured, they really lack the strength to bounce back. So, I'll be watching more closely for them now. I think they are a bit easier to spot than the tobacco and tomato hornworms because of the color of their spots, which stand out a bit more. Worried after finding those first 13 that there might be more, I tried to quickly check tomato plants for them. I didn't find any on them, but found a ton of stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs on the tomato plants, especially on the SunGolds. I guess I'll work on that problem tomorrow. Tim and I went to Spanish Fort, TX, today to the cemetery where my paternal great-grandparents, grandparents and my oldest uncle (I think he was the oldest) and his wife are buried. They all died before I was born but we used to go with my parents, aunts and uncles to visit their graves and tidy them up every June. So, today, Tim and I went back for the first time in a very long time and hardly recognized the place. It is a very old cemetery, and one that never had a perpetual care plan in place, so whatever care it gets is from folks who have family buried there. The grass has largely been replaced over time by Mother Nature with wildflowers. It is so much more beautiful with all the wildflowers than it ever was with just the grass. Someone has cut down all the tall, very old cedar trees, and I used those cedar trees in the past to find the family graves, so it was harder to find them this time. Luckily, as I eventually discovered, the lone cedar tree left in that cemetery still shades some of my relatives' final resting place. The oak trees that grow along the cemetery fencelines are twice as tall as I remember. Tim thinks it has been about 30 years since we last were there, but I think we went once about 15 years ago. Since the cemetery was full of wildflowers, it was full of bees. Tons and tons of bees. Spanish Fort is a virtual ghost town now, but the cemetery, the wildflowers and and the bees remain. It was a great reminder to me that Mother Nature does as she wishes and plants her flowers and other plants where she wants them, especially when there's no one around really fighting her wishes in that regard. And all those bees----while we gardeners may worry and fret about where all the bees have gone, I can tell you where thousands of them are....they are buzzing around the wildflowers in a tiny little old country cemetery that has been in use since at least the mid-1800s. Not many people have been buried in that cemetery in this century....most of the more recent burials are in the New Cemetery, established in 1939, but I didn't see many wildflowers and bees in that one, just a lot of short, clipped grass. If there is a shortage of bees anywhere in that county, it is just because there's not enough flowers elsewhere to lure them away from the old cemetery's wildflowers. I liked that cemetery with its flowers and bees. All cemeteries should be filled with wildflowers like that. It was just such a peaceful place, quiet except for the buzzing of the bees. Dawn