Not only is that seed too old to be useful (especially if it's been stored in the garage), but there has been a lot of progress made in TTTF breeding in the past 20 years. Today's TTTF is much finer bladed, disease resistant, and dark green. If you are in CA, now isn't a good time unless you have a moderate climate. Where are you located?

Jonny, I am sure you remembered the Sports Illustrated swim suit shoot for its great dialog, as well as its gorgeous examples. Ah, Jon-Boy, you left yourself open for that one. ...... ....but I know what you mean. These days, my hands shake more. Not so easy to hold steady. There comes a breeze just at the wrong time, and the scapes wiggle on me. My back gets a twitch in it. I suddenly forget everything I knew about operating my camera, for some reason. Guess I should try reading the manual again. I have three things I take pictures with, depending on where I am. My smarty phone is Atrix 4g, which I use in a pinch--I can upload direct and immediately to Flickr from its WiFi connection to my account at Flickr. The ASUS TF201 Android tablet takes pictures nicely, but I have a hard time composing the picture since the brightness function with daylight sort of fades out the screen and what I'm focused on. I regard it as a point and shoot camera. Then my Nikon Coolpix or whatever it is, does fine, but I don't know how to stop it from turning spots of sunlight into burnt out spots in the photo. I have broken shade in my Back40 hosta area, and waiting for a cloudy overcast day could take a long time. I take my shots when I can get em, for better or worse. In the month of May, I took over 1200 garden shots, mostly of the hosta. I mean EVERYTHING was picture worthy in my eyes. In June so far, 2/3 over with, I've taken 800 garden shots. Averaging 400 shots every 10 days it seems. Could not begin to do that (or afford to do that) if it were a film camera. I'm more likely to keep less of the shots that are bad though. Although uploading direct from the cameras is a good thing, it can also lead to out of focus and blurry images if not reviewed before uploading. And shooting in the rain can lead to unexpected problems. I took a lot of pictures and they looked fine normal size. But when I viewed them in slideshow full screen, I saw that there was a spot of dirty water or something similar, in the same spot on a series of photos. Oh boy. That was irritating. Someone mentioned a little before this happened, be sure to clean your camera lens. And the lesson came home to me, loud and clear. Those spots on the lens can ruin all your beautiful photos, and flowers and leaves do not stay the same for very long. It might be the only chance you get to shoot a fantastic plant.

NOTE: In two nearby cities for which I have good data, the mean temperature RISE over the last 40 years is +2.4 to +2.5 deg F (not even including the hot years of 2007-2008). Â Â Lawrence, CA (slope +0.0916 deg/year) Â Â Fresno, CA Â Â Â (slope +0.0635 deg F/year) From the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) dataset, posted (wry chuckle) on CO2science.org, a web site that tries to show that global warming is a myth. PS. It's a great web site! I've used their fine graphs from the USHCN temperature dataset to demonstrate just the opposite to a science class, in a unit on global warming. .... but it is pushing me to build a house that's tight, energy-efficient, CO2 minimal,... and sized for the likely much longer, hotter heat waves in the next decade(s). Here is a link that might be useful: CO2Science.org USHCN Trend Calculations -- California

Those are very nice bills to pay-- and you have the rates from h*** too! I had a wood stove in Idaho that I used and I sure miss it. Can't really burn wood around here anymore. When you want to --like when it's cold-- it's not allowed because of pollution standards. However, if it's your only source of heat, then it's ok. I noticed when working in Aberdeen earlier this week when the flooding killed the power to most of Gray Harbor County, that many folk were using wood burning stoves/fireplaces to stay warm. I should get my power bill tomorrow to see if adjusting the balance points on the HP helped. Only got about a shy three weeks on the settings but it was cold for here. Probably will need to track everything for a year to get a good idea. I figured out my KW useage for the new house is .38 kw per square foot vs. .70kw per square foot in the 20-year-old rambler I sold. I'm using between 80 and 100KW less power each month in the new place vs. the old place...and I've got 1,200 more square feet. Insulating is the same, windows, too. HP is better so we'll see how the winter fares. Have a great holiday, Gary.