Wow....what an amazing list of people.... too many of them no longer with us or active here. It is nice to remember some of their names and their struggles that we shared. Thanks for the memories.

I grew up in the "boonies" and I grew up poor. Our usual snack if we were hungry between meals was a cold boiled potato, well salted. If there was fruit on the trees, then it was an apple or pear or a handful of gooseberries from Grandpa's bush, although he guarded those jealously for jam. A big treat was a cold pancake with butter and sugar, similar to my Mother's childhood snack of a piece of bread with lard and sugar. Supper was often whatever my brother could shoot, so we ate everything from porcupine to venison, plus whatever we could get from the garden or forage, like wild blackberries. Desserts were not common, and when we got them they were usually fruit based, like dumplings with those wild blackberries, or pie from the apples. Grandma would occasionally make molasses cookies, that was a huge treat and I still love them today. I don't remember anything forbidden, we just didn't have them. I remember Mother buying Root Beer fizzies for a special treat, but we seldom had anything other than milk or water. I also remember Grandma buying Big K pop at Kroger's and splitting a can between the three of us kids, LOL. I didn't have pizza until I was a teenager and there were no fast food places. I was in my 20s and living on my own before I ever had snack cakes or pastry that wasn't home baked, although I do remember Grandma buying a spice cake kind of thing at the local A&P for "special occasions". I wouldn't eat it, but I did peel off the white frosting, I think it was probably pure sugar and lard. We did splurge sometimes, when the strawberries were ripe we would have strawberry shortcake for supper and nothing else. Same thing when the first sweet corn was ready, just a big meal of sweet corn without having to eat anything else. Grandma did bake all our bread and I remember just wanting the squishy white WonderBread like the other kids got. Now I look back and shake my head at my foolishness. Then again, she also made fruitcake at Christmas and I still won't touch the stuff! Annie

The West coast has a very different climate from the East coast. Mild winters but it tends to be hot and dry during the summer half of the year when deciduous plants still have their leaves. The rain doesn't start until the end of October to December (depending how far south along the coast you are). By then it's starting to get cold, so disease and insects are not as much of a problem. The biggest difficulty growing cherry trees in California is probably that they need supplemental irrigation during the summer and the leaves can get baked and dry out.

I spent yesterday having a fire outside. Sunny all day and no wind. Merry Christmas to all you guys or happy holidays depending on what you celebrate. The gfs has almost turned cold a couple times but today it’s back to a warm pattern. near or above avg for a week and the first week of Jan looks very warm. The gem wants us 20-25f above avg like yesterday. I think we are going to skip the cold this winter. We are having the opposite forecast of all the Canadian weather sites. Currently 6c or 12f above avg in December.