Oh, oh, oh!!! I just moved my 'Tidewater' to a prime spot, after having to dig it up with nems, year before last. It came back last year in it's pot with no evidence of those buggers. I'm so glad to see how it will finally turn out as it's only about a medium size right now--3 eyes! Thank you for your pix! I hope you'll post more pix, espec. of 'Superbowl' as it progresses!

Thank you for the follow-up, Becky. Still, I'm inspired to come up w/ a roasted chicken pasta bake since you mentioned the dish up thread. I've come up w/ a pasta & veggies bake that the family loves and I'm thinking that I can incorporate chicken (maybe chkn tenders) to move it from just a side dish to being an entree. I've been lightly steaming broccoli & carrots and mixing the veggies w/ cooked rotini. Pasta & veggies go into a glass baking dish & gets drizzled w/ olive oil & seasoned w/ grated romano, fresh garlic & liberally doused w/ that no salt seasoning (house brand stuff from Big Lots, of all places!) Pop into the oven for 30 minutes or so. Maybe I could lightly saute some breast tenders and top the pasta dish w/ the tenders & finish in the oven? I doubt I would have thought to expand on the dish w/o your having mentioned the recipe you were going to try. Ci

If your team continues to lose year after year to the Patriots in the run up to the Superbowl then you tend to not be that enthusiastic about them. That does not mean that you "hate" them. Just because you dis them and are not a fan does not mean you hate them. That's sports. I root for my alma mater in college sports and might trash talk other teams but I really don't care enough to hate them, and my indifference to a team could turn to love depending on how the game goes. I tend to like teams that have some kind of Cinderella story behind them and I also have certain teams that I know people affiliated with so I like them. Indifference, boredom or lack of rooting for a team does not equal hate. You can admire and respect the talents of a team but still wish your team had beat them!

I bought a whole chicken to cook this week. Usually, it provides 2 meals and a few jars of broth. The ones we bought from our friends are gone, so had to buy one at Natural Grocers. I like our friends' chickens better, but we can only get them when they process and IF they have too many for their freezers. I rarely eat poultry--maybe 3 or 4 times a year. I used to never eat it. Normally I'll roast it and then the guys pick off what they want to eat. I put the extra in the refrigerator to make either soup or chicken and rice the next day. Then drop the entire carcass and scraps into the crockpot to make the broth. If Tom would do the "harvesting", I would prepare them for the freezer. Thing is, I don't care a bit about eating it, but people in my family like meat and chicken. It's possible another friend and Tom could do this in the future. They raised pigs a couple of years ago. The meat lasted us about a year. There's still a few ham steaks in the freezer because I can't figure out how to cook them so that they like them. Maybe drop them in a pot of beans???? They also did a lamb a couple of months ago. I've made meatballs with it, but that's all I've done. Chickens could be a future endeavor. Speaking of chickens, mine are laying but not great. Maybe 4 eggs a day. Maybe it's the feed? Maybe it's my aging flock? They get lots of "free range" time and scraps to supplement their diet. Hwy, the greenstalk leaf is on sale right now. I'm considering buying one. I really wanted the original for strawberries, but would get the leaf one for greens and lettuce. I'm torn. Our patio gets lots of sun right now. There's currently very little shade. I just don't know how plants would do with so much sun. If we continue to live here, We want cover the patio. Don't want to spend the money on covering it IF the OTA runs us off. They are proceeding with their plan on our part of the turnpike--the east/west connector. It is just hard to know what to do. How much to invest in our property. The greenstalk COULD go with us wherever we go, tho. I do want to make this property (or our next) a bit different. I know that I would put a fast growing tree (Maybe a Globe Willow) on the far west side to provide shade if we were to move. I would also have our kitchen garden basically in our backyard for ease of quick harvest on things like cherry tomatoes, lunchbox peppers and herbs. It think the Vego beds are attractive for that purpose. Trying to decide what to do with the rest of the day....