What a coincidence! Just last night, I was reading Diane Ackerman's "Natural History of the Senses." It has a giddy couple of pages about roses, including the following: "In Damascus and Persia, people used to bury jars of unopened rosebuds in the garden, dig them up on special occasions to use in cooking - the flowers would open dramatically on the plates." Seemed unlikely to me, but now I wonder.... I'm only about forty pages into this book, but enjoying it. Plan to keep it on my shelves just for the rose trivia it has. Anita

Some sources say to chop the whole thing back to about 6 or 8 inches high. I would do that now, if I chose to go the more drastic haircut route, because to do so in the wintertime or even fall could run the risk of new shoots getting freezer burnt. Especially as you are in Z5. The other method for really old thick lilacs is to chop off one-third (or in your case, one or two) of the really thick old growth this year, then another one next year and so forth. This preseves more option of continuous bloom, if any. Personally I would use the former method. Also, lilacs like sweet soil, so a bit of lime or wood ash might be in order if your soil is acidy.

I brought back truffle oil, garden seeds, olive oil and wine. Italian seed packets are huge. Also, they add nothing to the weight and bulk of your luggage. The olive oil and wine were from a vineyard/olive grove tour. Four bottles were packaged for travel. Bologna is the main objective for my next trip to Italy. From what I've learned, it has the food I would most enjoy in all of Italy. That should be quite wonderful, since all the food I ate on my trip to the region around Florence was wonderful. For a month after that trip, I tried to duplicate those dishes on a daily basis. I did quite well for a while but now the memory needs refreshing. I need another trip. Mementos to bring home would be a low priority for me. The live experience is what's important -- the meals, the wine, the sights, the creature comforts which are abundant and essential to Italian life. They can't be packaged. The glass and pottery are beautiful though. I would probably shop for one of those serving bowls. Also, Italian shoes are the finest. Have a great trip. Jim

IdaClaire, such interesting photos. I'm glad to hear you're preserving them. I've scanned a lot of photos, some very old, negatives, slides and tin types. Plus all of our family photos taken over the years. Boxes and boxes, most not yet scanned. I had to ser that project aside for a while, but found it very rewarding. I just had a simple HP flatbed scanner and Photoshop. For people doing a lot of scans, there is equipment that will do batches and much faster. with Photoshop, I could crop, adjust the hue, contrast, saturation and remove or fix some of the artifacts (like your dots). Mold can create "foxing" and many album materials like plastic can leave marks, encourage mold, cause the photos to adhere to the plastic. Cellophane tape leaves brown marks. Inks can flow and transfer to other photos and leak to the image. Nowadays there are special archival quality materials that are kind, but in years past, these were not likely to be (readily) available. You might want to look into a preservationist as well as a scanning service, especially for any photos that are rare. The third photo down looks like a "Rough Rider". My grandfather was a Rough Rider, joining when he was 16 yo (fibbed to join). I have a bunch of photo from that era -- some showing all the tents where they trained (Florida). The men wore various types of "uniforms" -- apparently cobbled together from former campaigns. The uniform on the last chap does look like it belongs in a marching band; or possibly a conductor or circus performer. You might want to run that past an historian, or theatre production person. Someone at your towns historical society might be a good resource. When I was scanning a lot of old black and white family prints from those little booklets the photo shop used to put the 120 prints in, I got a huge kick out of enlarging them on my display screen. A regular wool skirt came alive with memories when I zoomed on it. I could see the flecks of colored wool dots amid the charcoal and found that I could remember that skirt of my mothers in detail and with that came a flood of memories and associations I was not informed of by just viewing the 3x3 inch gray toned glossy print. Now I want to post some of my photos and ask questions! So interesting.