Lots of times!! I made my DS's 1st birthday cake & it ended up with plastic train on it. I was glad it was only family seeing it!! I took lessons on cake decorating & got so I made all the cakes for weddings, showers etc at church. Crafting or decorating is learning how & having a good eye & sometimes even that doesn't work. If you have some 20 or 24 gauge wire & some beads(old necklace that broke etc) you could put about 8 wires with beads every inch with a loop on both sides of bead going across leave center area plain& wire on heart thereby filling in the heart kind of like a spider web but nicer,where wires all meet in center of heart add a couple of 1/2 marbles 1 to each side, Put a wire on top & hang in the wind for a sun catcher!! I was given some afghans to finish by GF's husband after she died. Well, she was right handed & I'm left, normally not a problem only I was supposed to start where I usually end. I had to find friends to make them up & they did & used them. If I had refused them, her hubby would have thrown them away. My crochet looks different but I wasn't going to throw them out. They were more than 1/2 done with the rest of yarn to match. Now they all remember Lora Mae every time they cuddle up in winter. I got some other things I could use & did. So it turned out well. You can use any color on the wires, about 4 beads to each wire, 2 before center(leave free for the 1/2 marble to be glued on) 2 going to far side of heart. About 32 beads total!! Good luck in whatever you do with it! Jan

Tree planting, next phase: Along with two of my sisters, I traveled earlier this month in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. We did not make it to Suzy Verrier's nursery but that is at the top of my list for the next trip. While we were a bit too early for the fall leaf season, we did see trees, lots of gorgeous trees. Now all but one of the trees I planted this past January survived, but I do still see a few empty spaces remaining. I have ordered three more trees for planting this fall, one Pinus edulis (two-needled pinyon pine) and two Pinus brutia eldarica (Afghan pine). Both of these species can get by on our average 15" of rain per year once established, though they need to be watered for the first year or two. I may add a couple more pinyon pines if the first one does well. I like the idea of the pine nuts, and you need more than one to get them, kind of like apples. I have been wanting more conifers in the landscape. We do have a some, mostly redwoods and cedars. The pine native to my area is Pinus sabiniana, (gray pine and other names) were long ago completely removed. I keep thinking of planting one. Who knows? Perhaps one day I will. There is still room for one. Rosefolly This post was edited by rosefolly on Thu, Sep 26, 13 at 17:16

Sure chicken stock can support growth of botulism. Any low acid food can, and meat and meat broths are low acid. I think everyone goes through that 'scared' to eat it phase. Especially so if they haven't watched an experienced canner a few times do a certain product. The first time I made saurkraut, and the fermentation started I freaked out. Nothing smelling that bad could surely be edible. I talked it over with a couple of experienced kraut makers, and even had one go down and inspect my 'work in progress' and guess what, when it was done.......it was so good. Try to keep things in perspective. If you use a method you know is current and safe, and you followed directions, and the product sealed well you are probably just fine. If you have any doubts whatsoever when it comes time to eat it, follow common sense. If it smells off, doesn't look right, is growing something, or the lid pops off like an explosion when you open it, for pity's sake don't even smell it. Dispose of it safely. If it looks fine and you still have doubts, heat it to the boiling point for twenty minutes. That will kill the bacteria and break down the toxins. I have read the stats on botulism poisoning each year at the CDC websites. If you disregard the cases of infant botulism and wound botulism there are relatively few cases of it from food consumption considering the amount of food preserved annually in this country. That's not going to help you if you are one of the cases, though, is it? In my case the only time I was concerned was when I canned up a huge surplus of potatoes in a good gardening year. Even commercially canned spuds will sometimes get cloudy liquid from the potatoes disintegrating in the heating process.......but it turned me off. I think I pitched them, and am really sure in retrospect they were probably wonderful and safe. I followed the directions to the T.

I do quite a bit of woodburning, but only for gifts. I don't have pictures, because I have no camera....I do enjoy the woodburning work! I use a little wood stain here and there to "highlight" the design that I have burned. When I am finished, I seal the item with sanding sealer, which I scrub down with 0000 steel wool, and then I paste wax and buff. At Christmas I made a set of wooden TV tables and then woodburned my boss' cattle brand into the tops. He loved the gift...even wrote me a personal thank you note!! (usually his wife acknowledges any gifts) My DH made cutting boards for all of the kids, and I woodburned their family initial into them using a Gothic font. They were quite pretty. Here is a link that might be useful: font type here