Thank you Gandle, I surely will. I can only imagine the bastions army forts provided when settlers started moving into that territory, with its vast expanses of wild lands. What a wonderful place for gathering. What a wonderful thing it's maintained for such and preserved, instead of flattened and forgotten. So many of the old forts and bases have been, and I have shot records to prove it. They seem to be fodder for elimination every budget cut. I am just into my sixth decade, but being one of the youngest of cousins in this generation on my father's side have already said the last good-byes to cousins and am beginning to appreciate what my parents (who lived into their 8th and ninth decades) must have felt like as they crossed names off their address book. I gather them mentally in my heart on holidays, as the Christmas cards come in. I also now understand the urgency in my father's voice when he urged us not to miss a family reunion and bring our grown children and their children. Sometimes young adults will try to excuse themselves of attending by saying "But I don't even KNOW these people" and that's when I counter with "that's why you need to go".

It surprises me that it took me so long to think of anything since I pay close attention to this. These synchronicities are an exciting and uplifting part of life. What I realized is a big one for me is the way I met my friend who was just here visitng from California. After my 1st husband and I had been living in Germany for about a year and a half he came home one day and said he'd had a call from an old friend. She was actually his first girlfriend from years before. She and her husband were at the same army base in Germany. She was working at the base and had been filing those old IBM cards - one for every soldier on base. This one card kept poping up with only the name showing. It seemed impossible to her that it would be the person she knew so she pushed it down. The next time she looked it was higher than all the rest once again. She pushed it down again. The third time she phoned him. Of course we got together with she and her husband. The two men looked enough alike to be twin brothers! We had about 6 months over there getting to know each other and we all got along great. We came back to Calif. and she divorced and remarried as did I but she and I have remained best of friends all these years. We figured we needed those husbands to get us to meet each other! We don't see each other very often (17 years this time) but when we do get together the similarites in our lives are striking.

What strange coincidents! I have one too. Many years ago my sister gave our son a set of cars that included firetrucks and police cars. They were battery operated and would "speak" when a button was pushed. He eventually out grew it and it was put in an "old toys" box in the basement. One night many years later DH and I both woke up thinking we heard far away voices somewhere in the house. We thought at first that it was the kids, but they were sound asleep. As we went downstairs we realized that it was coming from the basement, and that it sounded mechanical. It was one of the cars in the toy box that kept repeating "emergency...emergency, over and over. We found it and turned it off. DH said he had moved that box a couple of days earlier, and thought he must have jostled it and somehow something had settled and pushed the button. We were amazed that the battery still worked so many years later. We went back to bed, but after a while DH got up again saying something didn't smell right. He went back down to the basement, and quickly came back up, saying we needed to get the kids out to the car. (it was winter) He said the smell was stronger in the basement and might be something wrong with the furnace. We had not noticed that when we were down there earlier. We got everyone out, and woke the neighbors to call the fire department. No cellphones back then. They found that the level of carbon monoxide was very high! This was before carbon monoxide detectors were common. DH had turned off the furnace when he went down there, and they opened all the windows in the house to air it out. The next morning we discovered that the furnace chimney was blocked by a big bird that had fallen in. The fire people said that often happens when birds sit there to warm themselves and then pass out from the fumes. Having screened caps on chimneys is very important! Anyway...if that toy hadn't activated itself and woken us up...... Elisabeth

Thanks Nik for your thoughts. "1. Early maturity. Trees become productive fast" I would say air layers will do that the fastest. You can even air layer with fruits on it. "2. Not all stocks are good in all and the same conditions" For containers it should not matter that much - would it? I thought it would matter for in-ground plants. Many desired varieties are weak on their own roots and it would make sense to graft. But grafted sour orange, calamondin, etc makes less sense to me in a container. "3, Bulk propagation from buds. Hundreds of trees can be produced from one mature mother plant each season." No argument with that. I stated the same.