here is a down n dirty bridge Here is a link that might be useful:

We're still very, very busy in my garden as I always try to do too much. The pear and apple trees are loaded with fruit despite the fact they have shared fire blight. Mr. Man had to cut back some of the limbs that were breaking due to the heavy weight of the pears. He also cut back the limbs most affected by the fire blight. The grapefruit and Meyer lemon have lots of fruit for the first year. Yesterday we ate the three peaches that were on the peach tree. When we bit in they were so juicy that the juice shot out all over our faces, hands and shirts. Aahhh, to have to wait another year for more of these delicious peaches. Lost 5 citrus trees that were leafing out this spring. Just planted them in the fall. Had a late 32 degree night. Didn't cover them with a frost blanket as I had during the winter thinking it wasn't going to be cold enough to hurt them. Wrong. The kumquat is just beginning to set fruit and it looks like it is going to be a bumper year for this tree. If I can just keep my grands from picking them this year. I can always tell which grand picks this tree as to how high from the ground the fruit is gone. The pecan trees actually have pecans...the first time in 3-4 years. Again, thanks to the hurricanes. The Concord grape vines are absolutely loaded with grapes despite the fact that the County Extension agent says Concord grapes will not grow under any circumstances in our area. I'm not going to tell the grapes this as this is their 8th year and third transplant later. (Note to Self: Take a pic and pick some grapes to put on his desk as soon as they are ripe.) The tomato plants look downright pityful. Guess didn't get enough water when they needed it, bless their hearts. The hyacinth beans are getting large enough that Christian and the grands are going to help me make their teepee today with the vines. Tiny, tiny frogs are jumping all over the rocks around the pond. Still quite a few tadpoles in the pond. Cleaned out the kid's swimming pool for the second time this summer as the pump went out and had to find a new one that fit. There must have been a gazillion large tadpoles in the pool squiggling and wiggling all around Mr. Man's feet while he was cleaning it out. Thank God for this man...don't know that I could have done it. Missed the time to trim back my roses before their first big burst of bloom. Just trimmed them back. Hopefully, this won't harm them too much. Almost finished with my new daylily bed a friend has been helping me design and plant. This has been a major project as we killed all grass and weeds this spring, put down an irrigation system, put down four layers of newspaper, cut open 280 brown paper bags I purchased fromt the local grocery and put over the newspaper, and then put down 32 bails of pinestraw, in hopes of controlling the weeds and water conservation. We are now on 'phase 3'...putting in the walkway. This has been planned since before Katrina and is FINALLY coming to life. Friends all over have been giving me daylilies for this bed and all but about a dozen have been planted. The clome volunteers are now about 3-4 feet high in this bed and look so pretty. I just love this little plants...like the Everready battery, they just keep going and going. Have transplanted some herbs from the destroyed herb bed (thanks Katrina) to the new Fairy Garden that we made last fall around the little pond. Now need to mow down the herbs that I'm not going to transplant. Now, need to start concentrating on getting the other countless plants-in-pots in the ground.

WinterSown: The Musical. Well, there have many more bizarre on Broadway, so anything is possible ;-) Hmmm...it could also be done as a Tschaikowsky-like ballet or an Ice Capades event with Circ du Soleil producing the show ;-) (way cool) There is a solution to "the book". It must be collaborative work because I only set the ball rolling--it is winter sowers who expanded and propelled the method forwards, it must be downloadable in pdf, it must be online as webpages. The concept of WS has always been "doing it your way". I would like to build on that and designate a webpage per FAQ. The FAQ text and illustration will be used, but a WSer or WST (Winter Sower Team) will show the technique and their own variations using their own words and pictures (pictures; not everyone has a camera, but some people can draw or illustrate and scan an image to disk). For many obvious reasons this cannot be worked on in a public venue; I will have to set up a wiki and I've set up a chatroom for now. To use the chatroom you click on the link. Where it says: NickName ~ Put your name in the box (I suggest you use your gw name so we can all reocgnize each other.) Server ~ Do not change this info. Channel ~ #wintersown (no caps) T Here is a link that might be useful: #wintersown

Outside, I enjoy those books too--- my late FIL went to school with Ferrol Sams and we love his novels. I hadn't realized he wrote essays as well. "When attending art shows, I swear off coffee table books but I am weak." We share that weakness, lol. Seems I am "always" never going to buy another huge book... Beagles, that room is fantastic, and I do see your pile of books peeking out from under that chair to the left :-) I'm with you on the kindle, but every now and then I like to hold a real book. Even though I find myself pushing the edge of the page instead of turning it (hanging head). No screen can reproduce the heft and color of those prints in large books, there is something about a good quality art print that is somehow more convincing than an image on a screen. Sloe gin, over the past decade or so I've seen many people putting lovely shelving in their dining rooms to combine functions or simply bring books into a room that doesn't often see them. I love that look, of a literary dining room! And your basket sounds eminently practical, we use our shagreen boxes and ceramic bowls for the same purpose--- the "stuff" has got to be corralled somehow. I have seen that Circus book, Robo, and the Atomic Ranch book also, they are both marvelous! It's clear that our collective enjoyment of these tomes is at least partly for the esthetic quality of the books themselves in addition to the content. I suppose that's what makes them "useful" decor :-) In some cases they might function purely as decor, as the leather books you've used, tinam. Have you seen the book purses that are so popular in some circles? Kate Spade has or had a few, and there's quite a cottage industry on Etsy making real old books into small handbags. They aren't a tenth big enough for me, but I love looking at them!