I'm sorry you had such bad experiences. I have been trading hard and fast here for years! Out of the 100's of trades I've done, I've been stiffed about 15 times. I learned to trade my most precious plants only to people I know and have traded with before. I also learned that if I give something for postage, get the postage FIRST, then send the plants. Many people who request something for postage often fail to follow thru. I have a paypal account, so if they want immediate shipment, they can send an instant payment by paypal. Oh gosh, you wouldn't believe what all I've gotten in trades. I've received tons of wonderful new plants to fill my gardens, scrapbooking supplies, a set of Time/Life Garden encyclopedias, other garden books, DVDs, painting books, videos and supplies, ink cartridges for my printer, magazine subscriptions, Round up and Preen, birdhouses, and so much more. People who do in-person trades with me have brought wooden headboards and footboards which I'll use to make garden benches, manure, sawdust, mulch, bamboo canes, etc. Really, I've found the scammers to be few and far between. I'm pretty active on several of the conversation forums here, and I like to trade with people who talk about themselves. You get to know what kind of people they are from their posts. And like I said, I don't trade my rarer plants to just anyone. If I do, I ask that they send their end to me first. Once I get it, I'll send my plants to them. But I rarely do it that way. Do you ever do in-person trades or go to group plant swaps? They can be a lot of fun too. I've hosted two of them myself.

Unfortunately this scam does work, or the scammers wouldn't continue to do it. I see it mentioned in the newspapers sometimes, but I think there should be more alerts to call attention to it. Computer users are probably more aware of it, so I would be curious to know if those who do fall for it are those who don't have/use computers, and that is probably the older generation. I think no matter what name you give the caller, he will say that is his name, and if you ask for his name, no doubt he will not give you his real name. I had a similar call several months ago, so when this one came I was ready for him, and played along until I had him on the hook. I posted about it as a Memory Refresher, and hope all of you will mention this scam to any older people you know. Spread the word! Sue

I had a recurring dream in my teens, that happened half a dozen times a year, until a 'grand finale' dream finally ended it's recurrence. I dreamt I was babysitting my younger siblings one night and had put them to bed. I notice a light from my parents bedroom, so went in to shut it off. But I see the lid of the cedar chest at the foot of their bed is open, so I sit down on the bed. Inside it they kept (same in real life) my father's police marksmanship trophies, and containers of loose family photos that weren't yet put into albums. I pick up a container and start taking out photos, one at a time. The first photos I pull out are the latest ones taken, so they are in colour. As I continue taking them out, the colour begins to fade on each successive photo, until they are simply black and white, as they are now depicting (real) events/family from before I was born. The dream ends with me picking up a photo by the back, and starting to turn it over to see the actual picture. I never get to turn the photo around, before I either wake up, or simply morph into a different dream. It became very annoying, having this same dream for almost 14 years, and never getting to see what was on the front side of that dang photo! The good news is, when I was almost 30, and pregnant with my first child, I had the dream one night and finally got to turn over the photo and see what was on it! The bad news is, it made no difference. The photo was only a picture of me, starting to turn over a photo! I'm about 16 in the pic, which is the same age I was when I first started having this dream, and I am in my parents' old bedroom, pulling the photo out of their open cedar chest. I have never had that dream again, so I guess my subconscious considered the dream 'concluded' just because I got to turn over the photo. But it still annoys me that I never got to see the actual picture, lol!

About a year and a half. I never remember being without electricity when I was a child in Ontario: I don't know when electricity first came to our home. Grandpa had bought our farm near London, on a major highway about a mile and a quarter from a village, in 1917 and Dad and Mom took over the farm some time after their marriage in 1925. I was born in 1929 and I remember us getting a small table radio about 1940. Dad had bronchial trouble and was concerned that he was on the way to becoming asthmatic, and moved to Saskatchewan just after World War II, in 1946. He sharecropped a farm about 10 miles from the capital, Regina, owned by a man whom Grandpa had helped get an education around 1900, who moved to the prairies with his brother as young men. We arrived in the spring of 1946, we three boys drove four miles to school and I stayed home for a week or so later in the spring to help put in the crops. I was the only student in Grade 11 and I think that the principal (operating Grades 9 - 12) in the one-room high school, spent more than usual time with me to get me up to speed. I should perhaps be embarrassed to report hat my average in that school year was higher than the next, my final year, when I was there for the full year. The power line was a mile and a half from the house where we lived and our landlord hadn't chosen to install a connection to it ... but he did, a few years later, after Dad had bought a farm, when the landlord retired and moved from the city out to that farmhouse. A year and almost a half after our move, I went to university in Saskatchewan's second largest city, Saskatoon ... there's a bush berry beloved of people in that part of the prairies that bears its name. After my first year, I returned to the farm so lived without electricity from May till September of that year, as well. We had an oil-fired cookstove, a battery radio and kerosene-powered lamps and lanterns that pushed kerosene under pressure up a tube by a conical mesh where it was vapourized and then burned as the vapour hit the mesh, to provide light that was quite bright - and warmth, as well (which was appreciated in winter). By the way ... my first encounter with a bathroom, which requires water under pressure, in my place of residence was when I went to university and lived in a dorm, in the fall of 1947, when I was 18. ole joyfuelled