Jay, You understand me too well. Of course, I immediately had the urge to start rototilling up land for another 100 tomato plants, but I poured myself a tall glass of tea and mowed some of the grass instead. Since it rained, the bermuda grass has just gone nuts. Now, I have to warn you....if you hear a knock at your door one day, and you open it and there is a short blond-haired woman standing there with her William Woys Weaver book (and you know which book I mean!)....and she is waving it enticingly in the air...and saying "How many seeds will you trade me for this book....?" Well, that wild-eyed woman who is lusting after all those tomato varieties would be me. IF that were to occur, just call Tim and tell him "she's lost control...." and he'll come get me. (You don't have to worry. I wouldn't really show up at your house, but you should be grateful you live so far away that I can't do this, otherwise, I might! LOL) You garden in the sky sounds heavenly! And it's so funny that she wondered if you were trying to get out of growing tomatoes....as if anyone would deliberately quit! Carol, I haven't sent Jay an e-mail yet, but he knows that I will as soon as I figure out how to break the news to Tim that I need a bigger garden and it is all Jay's fault! Time does seem to fly by so quickly the older we get. I remember when I was a kid that summer seemed to last forever, and now it flies by so fast and I find myself saying the same thing every year: "Where did summer go? The kids are getting ready for back-to-school already? How time flies!" I know the house has kept you busy. The first few years that we were here, it seemed like all we did was work on getting everything in and around the house "just so". The last few years the garden and yard have had a disporportionate amount of the attention. We really need to paint the exterior of the house and make a few minor repairs. A new house sure doesn't stay new for long! I still don't know how you do all you do...the house, the sewing project, all the summer visitors, the garden, etc. I have noticed you write a lot late at night. I should try that. The house, of course, is really quieter then. I hate for the heat to come back too. It is miserable here with the temps in the 90s and the humidity exceptionally high, and I think every day for this coming week we're going to have each day get slightly hotter than the day before. I hope we get some more cold fronts soon! I don't even care if they bring rain as long as they drop the temperatures a bit. Oh, well, September is only a month away. Carol, it sounds like the peppers and beans are going to keep you busy picking in a few weeks. Yea! The melon sounds like it is doing great. Now, keep your fingers crossed that moisture won't fall and water down the flavor as it ripens up. I'm glad it is doing so well. I know we keep talking about what a hard year it has been, but honestly our garden is mostly having a great year now. In early June, I wouldn't have thought that possible. The onions were small after waterlogging, but are storing well. The tomatoes were late, but are producing very, very heavily. I am almost at the "sick of tomatoes" stage. Luckily, if I can free myself from the kitchen and not have to cook, freeze or dehydrate any for a couple of days, I get "well" very quickly. The corn was so-so, but that was the fault of the raccoons. The peppers are the best crop ever here. The melons are about the same. Broccoli was the best crop ever in Oklahoma and rivals the best year I ever had in Texas. Potatoes are so-so, but I expected that since they froze once and drowned twice. The squash has produced heavily. The okra has gone bonkers. I don't know if it has ever produced as many pods per plant and quickly as it is this year. So, I feel like I have very little to complain about and only hope the fall garden does as well and that the first fall frost is late and not early. I need to pick tomatoes again tomorrow since I haven't picked in 3 days. It is amazing how they stay green for so long and then all start ripening about the same time. I think it is a conspiracy. And, here's some local Lake Murray news for Carol: Mom and Pop's Grocery Store/Restaurant on the east side of Lake Murray burned down last week on, I believe, early Tuesday morning around 3 a.m. I don't know if you ever went there, but it was the only store at that end of the lake and the local residents are quite upset at the loss of their convenience store and gathering place. They think it was an electrical fire. Every time there is a medical call at that end of the lake, or a fire call, the dispatcher's directions always say "Turn south...or west...or east....or north at Mom and Pop's and go......". Tim and I are wondering what they'll say now? Turn east where Mom and Pop's used to be? No word on whether the current owners plan to rebuild. From listening to them talk on the news, I don't think they had insurance. Dawn

Bella, Almost all onions are daylength sensitive, which means that they start bulbing up when they start receiving a certain number of hours of daylight per day. For onions planted in Feb. or Mar., the daylength starts hitting the right number of hours in May or June, depending on the onion variety. Short daylength onions start bulbing when the plants start getting about 10-12 hours of sunlight per day. Intermediate daylength types start bulbing when the plants are getting 12-14 hours of sunlight per day. Long-day onions need 14-16 hours of sunlight per day, so they generally only bulb up in the northern portions of the USA. One reason we plant our onions as early as we do in our climate is to give them the maximum numbers of days in the ground to grow before the daylength reaches the right number of hours for bulbing. Since you get one 'ring' or 'layer' of onion for each green leaf on the plant, you want lots of green leaves in spring before the initiation of bulbing so that you'll get larger onions. So, I guess my concern is that your fall onions likely won't get that number of days of growing before cold nights arrive, and the daylength will be increasingly shorter, or the opposite of what they need. If you start seed now, your plants will be growing in increasingly shorter amounts of daylight as summer turns into fall, etc. It is unlikely that your onions will bulb up, although you can use them as green onions of course. So, if you go ahead with your plans, just be aware you may not get the desired results. I am not sure how the few daylength neutral varieties bulb up--in terms of what conditions initiate bulbing--but they might be your best chance for fall onions. Dawn

Well, of course I like the Mariner's compass. I was just seeing what everyone else thought! Yes, I actually made the mariner's compass. I fussy cut the printed triangles to get the kaleidescope affect. The cream & drk brown triangle sections are paper pieced, and the green was cut with a tempate. A lot of inset seams...I'm better at them now than I was before! I will need to applique a small circle (probably brown) to the center...the points barely meet and will fray during the wash. It doesn't need to be larger than a nickel. MRG~ This is all regular paper pieced...sewn pieces to paper. English paper piecing is hand pieced around a stiff template and then the template is removed. Still lots to do with it, but I'm thrilled! And keep going downstairs to stare at it! LOL

I hate to sound pessimistic, but when it's raining isn't the right time to think about buying a tank. You will need to prepare the site, so that it is flat and level and packed tight so there won't be any sinkage once your tank is full of water. In our case that required hiring a bob cat to level the site, getting in a truck load of sand and having someone come in with a whacker to pack it down tight. We bit the bullent and bought a large poly tank. They delivered it, but as the site wasn't prepared, they left it lying on it's side. Moving it into position wasn't a problem but it took 8 men (we picked the ones with the most muscle from our programming team - LOL). and some beers for the muscle men. Then the waiting began. As we were building on a double story to our house and reroofing, it was another 3 months before the guttering and downpipes were done, and it could be connected up and start catching rain. You shouldn't have that long a wait, but you MAY need to alter the guttering on your roof, so that it flows in the right direction. You may have to get a roofing plumber to do that, and if they are like Vic plumbers, they are booked up for weeks ahead. You can simply run an overhead pipe to your tank if it is close to the house, but you may need to get a ditch witch in to dig a trench, and run a downpipe into the trench, along to your tank, and up the side of the tank. I guess what I am saying is there isn't really an easy way, and if you are going to all that trouble, even if you are doing it yourself, or with the help of friends, then you may as well buy a good tank to start with, and not one someone is selling cheap. (you would have to ask yourself why someone would be selling a good tank these days?) It still has to be set up to catch the rain, whatever you get, and it aint easy.