I dunno, Joe. I tend to think that her's are producing because they are stressed as described above, but that is just a guess from what I have read. I can certainly understand the frustration, but you have some tomato cages to let them grow in and perhaps you will need all the support you can get to handle yours when they load up. A number of things can affect those things, sun might be one of the most obvious if yours are shaded or something. If you have not fertilized, just used compost, I surely would not think that they have enough nitrogen to cause a problem. In my garden, I laid the compost and composted horse manure on heavy. Some plants are loaded and some do not yet have a tomato set on the vines. Even some of the same variety are not consistent, and that puzzles me. One of those new Burpee's Porterhouse looks like and has . Another Portherhouse looks like and only has a couple of small tomatoes on the vine. The seed were started on the same day, and treatment has been about equal, other than the bigger one is in a container of compost and composted horse manure and gets more sun, while the other is in the ground and gets more shade. Patience is a virtue, a watched pot never boils and all them other other cliches. Bill P.

Made another batch today....dismal failure. Again. Here is the recipe I tried: Pecan Supremes Mrs. Fields Cookie Book 2 c AP flour 1 tsp soda 1/4 tsp salt 3/4 c quick oats 3/4 c dark brown sugar (packed) 3/4 c white sugar 1 c salted butter, softened 2 large eggs 2 tsp vanilla 1 c chopped pecans 1 c semisweet chocolate morsels Preheat oven to 300F, In a medium bowl combine flour, soda, salt & oats, mix well with whisk and set aside. In large bowl, blend sugars with electric mixer at medium speed, Add butter and mix to form a grainy paste. Scrape down sides of bowl, then add eggs and vanilla. Beat at medium speed until fully combined. Add the flour mixture, pecans and chocolate chips, blend at low speed until combined. Do not overmix. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets. bake 18-20 minutes. Immediately transfr cookies with a spatula to a cool, flat surface. I experimented a bit. Made 6 cookies on an airbake sheet and 6 cookies on a heavy aluminum sheet. No difference...I ended up with a big, run\-together blob of thin cookie. Chilled the rest of the dough for 6 hours. Baked a dozen cookies. No difference...I ended up with a big, run\-together blob of thin cookie. Each time I let them cool a bit on the sheets and I practically needed a jack hammer to remove the. it was a mess. I was going to take a picture, but found my camera battery is dead. I still have half the dough in the fridge rolled into a log and wrapped in plastic. I am afraid to try baking more! Linda

You guys are too much :-). And I'm shocked at how much a 2 year old's attitude resembles that of a belligerent teen! The refusing to answer when spoken to, the ignoring of direct instructions, the odd eating habits... No wait lists for any of the hotels but I did manage to find a room via Travelocity. The funny thing is that when I specified the town as "Mansfield" the hotel came up as available but changed to unavailable when I tried to book rooms. A call to the hotel itself confirmed that, no available rooms. But when I changed the town to "ashland" (about 20 miles away) the exact same hotel came up as available & allowed me to book rooms. So I did. Printed up my confirmation so I have proof. Now I'm even toying with the idea of flying out & renting a car. What with the cost of gas in my area it wouldn't be all that much more money! But I'm liking the thought of camping more & more & maybe later in the season we can get away for a few days to just camp. bring the little guy & the dog & play wild slumber party in the tent. Both the little guy & the dog would love it. Thankfully we have a big tent! Melanie, I'm beating myself up because I know better. I consciously left this until the last minute. It's a bad, bad habit of mine. I insist that I work better under pressure :-). Yes, Bill, how far west are you heading? And since you're in Maine have you ever done the trip east to Nova Scotia? Now that's a spectacular holiday! Nina

It depends on ho0w hot your fire is....and how thick your steaks are. And remember for years and years, we didn't grill in a charcoal or gas flamed oven. When you have a flame grilled steak at a fine restaurant, it's done on an open grill. Don't worry about loosing heat when you open the grill. I never grill a steak that is thinner than 1 1/2 inches....or if I do I am very cautious. I grill for 30 seconds on each side then turn the center burner off...I grill about 4 to 5 minutes for an 1 1/2 inch steak rare to medium rare. You really can't give a time grilled meat, so much depends on the size of the meat, how hot your grill is, how close to the flame, how cold or warm the meat was when you put it on, the out side temperature....and likely more.