Hi everyone hope you had a Happy Easter! I have received one block from Linda. I have not received blocks from Christy and Cindy yet. I got to go view a large display of handmade quilts near Forest Hill, Louisiana, I think it might have been called Longleaf, Louisiana? yesterday - any way they had a beautiful display of quilts in preparation for the Heritage Festival this coming Saturday. So wish I had not forgotten my camera. Gave me lots of great ideas for future quilts. They had a beautiful pink and creme/white log cabin quilt - these were all large quilts, they had one with lighthouse blocks like 2ft x 3 ft blocks, and my favorite was one with flower baskets made of triangles and with flowers appliques coming out of the baskets - one even had a blue shrimp plant in bloom - was just too cool! And they were all local quilts. Is nice to know there are other quilters in central Louisiana. I have not met anyone in my small community who quilts. They have a quilting guild several towns away, but have not had time to go, maybe one of these days. Are any of you in quilting guilds? Best to you, Sandra

I received my goodies from Nancy for this swap and the Homegrown Recipes swap. :) Wow!!! For Recipes Nancy sent these from her own collection: Grilled Shrimp with Feta and Tomatoes (I love SHRIMP on the grill!) Zuppa di Scarola e Fagioli (Shcarole and Beans soup, YUMM!) Chicken Posole (Can't wait to try this. :D Whole Wheat Pastry Flower Waffles and Carrot Cake (YUMM) White Out Mexican chicken recipe Feather Rolls (Who told her I was a carb-aholic?!?! lol) Penne with Zucchini and Ricotta (Divine!) Sweet Orange Salmon (I could eat it like this for sure!) Pumpkin Bread Fried Green Tomatoes(Another of my favorites but different recipe. Can't wait to try this one too) Straciacella Alla Romano (AKA Torn to Rags) This one sounds excellent too! For Extras Nancy sent: A Salad spinner! I was looking at these the other day! LOL It also has a bonus Knife and Veggie Peeler. Celestial Seasonings Raspberry Zinger tea (One of my favs!) Chocolate Chip cake (OMG, this will not make it till tomorrow here! hehehe) Raspberry Vinaigrette (YUMM!) Caramel Apple Butter (Someone was spying one me! :D) Cooking Christmas Lima Beans with a Yummy recipe on the back for Creamy Christmas Lima Beans. She also sent me plants for Teddy Bear Sunflower and Ambrosia Cantelope! (Both from my wishlist) :) These are going straight into the garden when it cools down this evening. Dove milk chocolates. These are being savored as I type! LOL (They didn't melt. :D For seeds Nancy sent: Marconi Red Peppers (From my list) Strawberry Popcorn (From my list) Golden Bantam Improved Corn(From my list) Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash (From my list) Winter Savory (From my list) Purple De Milpa Tomatillo Dr. Wyche's Yellow Tomatillo Tiger's Eye Bean (From my list) Brockton Bean Sunberry (Last berry on my list! LOL) Cherokee Trail of Tears Bean (From my list) Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon (Thought this was on my list?! lol) Golden Hubbard Winter Squash Lazy Housewife Bean (From my list) Missouri Love Apple (I wanted this one soooo BAD!) Fish Pepper (From my list) Blue Podded Peas (I thought my chances for this one was over cause everyone I've checked is out of them already.) Golden Treasure Pepper (from my list) Blacktail Mountain Watermelon Mexican Sour Gherkin (thought this was on my list too?!) Crystal Apple Cukes (from my list) Limon Hot Pepper (from my list) Joe's Round Pepper (from my list) WOW! I can't believe how many you found from my list, and how you knew just what to get. I'm so very happy with everything Nancy, you have truly outdone yourself. :D I can't wait to use the salad spinner, what a neat kitchen gadget this is. :)

Great idea with the chicken wire, Bonnie. :) These days our dog keeps the cats out of the gardening space, but before we had a dog, cats used to be a problem. Nice bean salad recipe, Becky(booberry)! Looks tasty. We might try that one next time fresh beans become available. Good question about how our heirloom gardens are doing, Bonnie. :) Garden is going well. Several WinterSown things are now out in the patio. Moved some rainbow swiss chard, Osaka purple mustard, Mantovana chicory, Cicoria Catalogna Rossa, and mizuna seedlings over the weekend. Still have more things to sow, though, including 'Red Welsh' bunching onions! Should get to that today, along with removing compost from vermicompost bin and adding more scraps for worms to eat. One of the things I do with my vermicompost is use it as seed starting mix! Divided a sage plant and gave rooted offsets to a gardening pal who lives nearby; he was very happy to get them. The lemongrass and ginger really need to be divided too. A good time will be later today while my hands are still dirty from processing the worm bin. :) Harvested almost a bushel of collard greens and komatsuna greens recently. Didn't need that much, so we shared with a neighbor whose husband is unemployed. They were delighted, and surprised to see so much food from a 10'x 10' patio. :) The heirloom bok choy "Tai Sai" has a few hundred seedpods on it. Will collect and dry in a paper bag very soon, otherwise the pods will split open and scatter the seeds everywhere. Wouldn't want that to happen, LOL!! And the 'Rotonda Bianca Sfumata di Rosa' eggplant has several baby eggplants forming on it. :) Blooming outside right now are a large flowered heirloom zinnia "cut and come again", double flowered magenta Pentas, rose colored gerbera daisy, and portulaca "Giant Bicolor Radiance." Portulaca is edible but I haven't gotten up the guts to try eating it yet. Young Zinnia sprouts are edible, and I have eaten a few when thinning them out- they seem to taste similar to sunflower sprouts. :) A lightly fragrant bicolor dianthus, from seeds Medontdo sent me- bloomed last week, and we ate a bunch of its flowers as edible garnish. Left a few flowers on, in hopes of saving some seeds. If it doesn't set seed we may try to keep it going by root divisions. About the only thing in my garden that isn't looking happy lately is my water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica). Not sure why, but despite plenty of water it has gotten wilty all of a sudden. Maybe it is rootbound and needs to be divided and potted up in fresh soil. Our Vietnamese coriander (Persicaria odorata) is growing like gangbusters and needs to be pruned back. Time to make salsa and black bean soup with the trimmings! Might also experiment with drying some leaves for later. :)

Amy, again, thanks for the great fun this month. You did a super job. I went from needing 8 words two days ago to needing only two for Bingo. With all the words that have been posted today, someone has to be lucky and have Bingo. It's been pretty warm here this past week but I am not complaining. It is hard for me to garden in the heat so I wait til after dinner and spend a couple hours a night outside completed needed tasks. Got the tomato and cucumber plants in today. I still need to weed and clean out so many gardens but I am keeping myself from getting overwhelmed by doing one project each night. So far, so good. We could use some rain so the weeding could be a little easier. Margo