i am touched ... wait.. lets not go there ... i had a neighbor at the old house.. that had one of the undulatas under a black walnut.. like 12 inches from the trunk .. and they did just fine... they didnt water like a hosta gardener would.. so they werent gigantic or anything... thats my knowledge base about such welcome back... ken PS; just plant them .. they arent going to disappear overnight ... you will know if they struggle next spring ...

I read this yesterday. Today, I put on a pair of nitrile gloves and started seeding buckets full of hot peppers - red jalapenos and the like - to start a mash for fermenting. I'm doing this outside, face up wind in the breeze, having learned my lessons over the years. So after an hour of this, the cell phone rings, so I dig it out of my pocket with the dripping wet gloves, answer it, then return the phone to pocket, thoroughly coating the phone with hot pepper membrane juice, and keep going. Phone dries off, I finish up the peppers, two hours later,. You can see where this is going........

I lurk here, a lot. I don't usually have much to say, although I do enjoy your posts. I posted on GJ for a long time, but that was a long time ago. Things evolve, a bunch of new ones join up, and the forum changes. It is the way it is supposed to be, I think. I am coming out of lurkdom to tell you that I do have some of those tires in my garden. They are painted all sorts of garish colors, and I actually grow vegetables in them. My DH cut them for me, and spent time turning them inside-out for me, and I am not going to hurt his feelings now by not using them. Besides, we have the most unbelievable black gumbo soil here. None of this nice sandy loam for us. God gave us soil that has absolutely no air in it, slick as boiled okra when it is wet, adobe when it is dried. So, we grow in raised beds, and these cute little beds are perfect. Fill them with good topsoil, good compost, and we can grow anything. A tire will grow 2 or 3 nice tomato plants, a couple of peppers, a package of lettuce seeds, or beets, or carrots, or maybe an eggplant or a couple of zuchini plants. I can weedeat the pathways to keep them neat. The tires do hold up very well to the punishment of the weed whacker, and they will last longer than all of us will. I guess I could paint them all green so they wouldn't stand out so much, but it's just a vegetable garden. And my grandkids love them. They each have a little salad garden in their own tire! LOL Janie

Oh, that gave me a good chuckle! I'm glad you didn't kill him! I love to quilt with others, talk quilting with others, but I honestly am too stuborn to want their suggestions (unless it is on a technique.) I had one quilt that I was trying to do quickly, and had the idea of eagle's wings spread out - as seen from the back. Because of quick, I used square quilt block to make the wings, after all it was to represent wings, not be the exact image of wings. Then I added a lamb (done in the colors of the quilt) laying down under each wing. It ended up being really wide and not very long, so I cut it down the middle and made it into two so each quilt was a mirror of the other. My family said they just couldn't see the wing - so I showed them my diagrams and pointed it out in the fabric version. They just shook their heads and then told me it looked more like Godzilla was about to eat the lamb! I gave the quilts to a mother and daughter who are going through a rough time, and I never told them what was on the quilt - I figured they could just call it abstract!