You and I both have our pears come in about the same time, which seems to be earlier than other folks. Here's what I put up, and you might want to try some of these. Canned pear halves, also did quarters and diced for other batches. Pear Honey (So Easy To Preserve, page 225) Pear Sauce (Ball Blue Book), page 22 I could live without this, but I don't eat a lot of apple sauce, either. Pear leather (after I realized I didn't care all that much for pear sauce, I used the pulp in my excalibur dehydrator and made some good tasting fruit leather. I roll & cut into tootsie-roll size chunks and wrap in parchment paper. As good as candy. Pear Jelly (Ball Complete, page 111) Very, very good. Tastes like apple jelly. Made two batches of this. Linda Lou's Apple Pie Jam Pear Juice (Ball Blue Book, page 21) for drinking...and adding to iced tea Pear Preserves (So Easy to preserve, page 40), two batches Pear Mincemeat (Ball Blue Book, page 21) based on licking the spoon afterwards, will make really great pies, tarts, etc. More canned pears... And...for the piece de resistance... Upside-down Gingerbread pear cake. Wow, yummy! Still on my list...more canned pears (I had no idea I'd like these so much since I don't care all that much for store-bought canned pears), ginger pear preserves, brandied pears (the Spirited Pears recipe in the Ball Complete book), and probably some more pear honey and pear jam and/or preserves. I'm guessing I still have about 120-150 lbs of pears left to process. All picked and waiting on me. I'm pretty tired. I have also given away a few boxes of pears. BTW...I found out my pear tree is the Pineapple Pear variety, which is an old-timer cooking pear often found on old homesteads and farms. I live on the family homestead and this pear tree has been here for a very long time. Your pear looks just like mine. I beat the squirrels this year, yay! Jill

Sounds like some kid whose school cannot afford to teach them about computers, or he would have known where the money is. So sorry this happened to you. What a mess. As Annie said, it is the violation of your personal space as much or even more than the loss of stuff. Of course, if the stuff has personal meaning and is irreplaceable, that is a horrible feeling, too. I had a ring stolen from my house that had been my great aunt's, and I feel sick about it to this day. Good idea to put the bars up, distasteful as they are. We've had a lot of house burglaries around here,including one on my street. Ick.

Wow, how lucky are you to have that kind of view and gorgeous sunsets. Great photos, love the silhouettes with the "fire" of the setting sun in the background.

The yellow stuff is PINE pollen Socks...it's so big that it's not supposed to bother peeps meaning it can't get up your nose...but it does...I was outside most of the day on Tuesday and felt soooo gritty when I came in...It's like working in a dust field and you know that can't be good for ya! This morning the count was 5695...it rained just enough to make a yellow mud mess...COME ON RAIN...We need some more to wash this stuff outta the air!!