Thank you, Elizabeth. I, too, know it is going to be a great year! Those are my wishes for you. Re hybridizing, the ovaries of the flowers which I pollenized are decidedly swelling, which I take to mean that they will produce seeds. Of course all the rest still has to happen. It's a lot of fun. mac

Happy New Year! Best wishes for 2013, only good things ahead!

Pammyfay -- Thanks for your good wishes. I *knew* there was nothing, but got bullied by MD's (yet again). I'm just tired of being the well-insured, generally healthy 'patient' for these procedures. It's been going on since I was 25; I'm 71. We've owned our little condo on Maui for 12 years. A month or two is *plenty*. I doubt we'd ever want to live full time in Hawaii. Because we rent it when we aren't there, there is always maintenance and refurbishing to do -- not 100% 'vacationing'.

Good morning everyone! :) . Slowly starting to have all my "tools" back in place on my PC. It's really a pain in the butt to have to try and remember what you have to restore. Every 2 minutes I try to do something and realize I'm missing a program I used to have. But hey, enough of my first world problem, y'all :) . Glad everyone seems to be doing ok. Limequeen, Yay! on the key limes! :) You have more willpower than I, I would have made a pitcher of lemonade or something, even with just 2 limes :) . John, that's amazing! just think people are going to enjoy your lemons on the other side of the world :))) . Barb, that description of your Gold Nugget mandarin is really mouthwatering. I know what to look for if I want to extend my citrus family, LOL :) . Here are a few pics of my trees, the big one just keeps on plowing forward, not much to tell about it. A few leaves are a bit pale here and there, but I saw no pests, and, well, it's been a long winter, so I try not to worry too much about it. . Here is my dining room while I was doing my Neem oil application, lol. . And now a few pics of the trees: . The big one: . The small one must be reaching his teenage years, because he's a pain in the butt, always trying to do things differently than his big brother, LOL. He's in full frikkin bloom right now. Couldn't get a single bud on him all summer, but hey, middle of the winter, why not, right? It's not like there's no sun, no fertilizer in sight, or you're locked up inside, with not much light because did I mention ITS WINTER with not much SUN? Sigh. That tree is really driving me crazy, lol. . On top of it all, I wanted to prune it this year, in order to have it make some branches in the middle. It's pretty gangly. I didn't want to prune anything while it was still inside, I figured it needed all its leaves to suck up as much window light as possible... But now that it decided to go all bloomy on me, I don't know when I'll be able to prune it, lol. . Pics of the small one. Every single branch is sporting buds: . And here are the few lemons I pinched :) That's it for today :) . Please post pics as well, y'all! I'm curious how your trees are doing, too :) . Thanks for stopping by, and God Bless! . Atheen