My first crop of Blue Lake beans are done. Put the 2nd crop in the ground Saturday. Garden plot is 8 ft x 8 ft maybe. Got 70 pints of canned beans out of it. I am single & only eat the beans on weekends with a steak or if I have a girlfriend over so the pint jars work really well for me. The Silver Queen corn I planted on April 11th is almost done. The ground may have been a little too cold when I planted it. Took FOREVER to come out it seemed. Was rearing to go because it was warming up & I go bonkers in warm weather when there is dirt outside with nothing in it growing! My maters ( Big Boy ) are starting to produce. The plants are over 7 feet tall & bunches of green ones are waiting to turn red. Bell Peppers are smaller than the maters. They have been shielded from the sun by the sheer size of the tomatoes growing near them but I do see a few on the branches. I would REALLY like to try to grow some Hickory King corn in the patch where the Silver Queen is growing ( After it`s done ) this year but I don`t think I have time. Sad. Never grew it before but would LOVE to see how tall that stuff gets! :) I have seen pics of Shots patch & I drool when looking at what he has grown! When the next beans come in, I am going to stick turnips in the ground. That should be about mid October. Gardening for me is like I drug I can`t get enough of. Wish I could bottle the feeling of joy & happiness I have from it & sell it. I would be a millionaire! Hehehe!

Ok! I have to make my point more clear: _ Pick the cuke as normally you do. -- cut about 1 inch from stem end of it. Now you have two pieces, the long one and the other very short -- Rub the cut faces of them together, in a sort of orbital motion. Apply little force while doint it so there is no air between them. That circular rubbing motion will work like a sucktion pump, bringign out the oily/creamy stuff that contains bitterness. You have to do this with fresh cukes not 10 days old(Grin!) By the way, that creamy stuff that comes out is the best skin lotion there is. So do not through it away. Another point about bitterness; There is a thing called"Bitterness Principal", which says that when edible fruits/vegies are bitter they stimulate the liver/vile(?spelling) to inject some more of the stuff, to help digest food better. So, a little bitterness is not all that bad. Look at the Asians; They cook and it someting called "Bitter Melon" which actually is like a cucumber (same family of cucurbitas). And it does not bother them at all and they enjoy it too. Cyrus

This is all just semantics. Don't get so hung up on labels and terms as it only confuses the issue. Canning isn't a world of purists when it comes to labels. In the case of pickle recipes they are just cucumbers fermenting/soaking/sitting in some sort of liquid with various ingredients. There are "brines" made of just salt and water, there are "brines" made of water and vinegar, and there are "brines" made of all three plus all sorts of spices and herbs. I've seen recipes calling for brining the cukes for up to 24 hours in salt water (no vinegar) and then draining, That isn't "brined" just pre-soaking to draw water out of the cukes. Sure you may never have seen many "brined" pickles recipes - recipes where cucumbers are soaked in a cool environment for days or even weeks or months in a mixed brine of vinegar, salt, and water. But they do exist, lots of them. Old country store barrel pickles are a good example. The old giant jar of pickles on the deli counter is another. Many of the old "brined pickle" recipes are no longer considered safe due to listeria research but they still exist. Some of them evolved into what are now called "refrigerator pickles", some of them became what are now called "quick-pack" pickles, and some of them went more to the "fermentation" method with higher levels of salt and none or only a tablespoon or so of vinegar to slow (it doesn't stop) bacteria development. Dave

The S40 is based on the Mazda3 platform as both are owned by Ford. Volvo used to have a reputation for longevity but that was when other cars were scrap at 50,000 miles and the Volvo went to 150,000. I believed the reputation and bought an '88 740 GLE. It died at 192,000 miles! Today Volvo has no different a reliability reputation than any other car. So if you like the Mazda3, good, because the S40 is essentially the same car. Just a different engine and drivetrain.