Once again, Garden Web friends shine thru to brighten each other's day. I've just received very pretty homemade jewelry from Jodi -Mngardener, wow, thank you again, hope we make many more trades. Hi SJack and Plant, welcome and hope you enjoy. I've just gotten inside, doing the basics, often watering twice a day and of course drying flowers. Rushing at the moment, had to check the posts, I do have extra seeds thanks mostly to Joseph-Callaloo1, just got his seeds too- Thank you again Joseph-we've planned another trade long enough. He's the Salvia and Japanese Morning Glory King, sent me some other really nice seeds - mostly glad about Rebecca's Marigolds as mine never returned, lots of Basil -Sweet Italian, both from this year, will divide and send out asap...along with other seeds I find and recieve. Just send me email so I can send you my address. best wishes, Bea

I have sent you an email! :0) I also wanted to let you know that I somehow figured out how to separate the blanket flower seeds without chaffe in my fingers! I have a lot, so have become a pro at sepeation, I guess! I like to give them as "extras" with my trades because they are so bright - I have "Dazzler".

Scott, I just just logged on and saw your post. We have been so crazy busy with clean-up, the kids, and just daily life that I haven't checked back in. This story has a HAPPY ending! Or, at least, not a bad one. :) Our insurance deductible is $2,000. The claim was just over $4,000 in damages per the adjuster. He gave us a couple of hundred for debris removal, $2,000 for the fence repair, a little bit for the attic leak which just requires some water seal, and around $2000 for the depreciated value of the play set and grill. Nothing for the large tree or fruit trees, as they did not hit any structures. So we have $2,000 for repairs. The city of Jenks hauled away all of our small limbs free of charge. I listed the play set for parts on CL (swings, slide, rock climbing wall, ladder. etc) for $80. A very nice man came and bought the parts, then insisted he haul away the scrap wood too. He has 20 acres somewhere and said he would rather burn it, so we didn't have to pay to get it hauled off! He is a carpenter, and said that now he can build his grandchildren a play set for minimal cost. Win-win for both of us. I helped him load it, and I thought I was gonna die. Some of the items were huge and heavy (the roof, the tunnel)...He brought a pickup truck and a 16 foot trailer, and they were both piled high when he drove off. My neighbors' landscapers asked if they could have the grill for scrap metal, so I gave it to them. Dave fixed most of the damaged fence with a few new rails, some leftover stain, and some quickcrete. That cost under $50. So now, we actually have around $2,000 to replace the play set and grill (which is about what they will cost). We pretty much broke even :) The big tree is mostly gone, and many of my small fruit trees were undamaged. One was on its side, and we replanted and staked it. A couple are snapped off. They may regrow. I do still have a large stump and a few feet of the base of my tree laying in the garden, Dave has been hacking away at it. But Scott, if you are ever in the area and the offer still stands, I'd love to take you up on it. Don't make a special trip, and I'd insist on paying you something for your time and effort. I'm not sure how long you are going away for, but I don't think Dave is going to get this thing chopped up any time soon. :) Jo

oh my, that pie looks wonderful! We're retired so our weekends are busy with the folks who are still working and can only get together on Sat or Sun, LOL. Last weekend we were up in Sonoma County indulging in our love of good restaurants; we went up on a Thursday and our younger friends joined us for Sat & Sun. We stayed an extra day to avoid Mon a.m. rush hour. Traffic is a serious issue in the San Francisco Bay Area. This weekend: Sat night we have a going away dinner for a long-time neighbor. The rise in RE worked out very well for her and she sold her house so fast it shocked her. It's a big emotional adjustment for her, but her son and DIL are happy in the Phoenix area so she will be finding something to buy near them. We'll miss her but are very happy things worked out so well for her. The house sale will give her that added cushion that always helps one's peace of mind. Sun afternoon we have a high tea scheduled at the Pardee Home Museum. The Pardees were a prominent local family in old Oakland society and they decided to leave their home as a "lifestyle museum". The last Pardee daughter died in 1981 and the home is EXACTLY as she left it. Instead of lavish expensive objets d'art, it's a lovely but modest Italianate crammed with the collections of a family who collected what interested them. Pretty little river rocks picked up by the children are piled next to a magnificent Chinese jade carving. There's a Chinese export porcelain umbrella vase stuffed with a collection of South Pacific arrows, a samurai sword (produced for export), and a dozen men's walking sticks (an important part of a man's wardrobe at one time!). Mrs. Pardee was possibly the one who collected teapots for a while: there is a modest but exquisite collection of 19th century Yixing clay teapots crammed into a hallway curio cabinet. Most of the cabinets aren't lighted; this is our second time around and we're bringing flashlights with us! The Pardee volunteers do the tea and of all the teas our group has been to, theirs is the best food, hands-down. The volunteers are very competitive about what they produce, so we get to 'reap the benefits'. This is our group's second visit. Our first was in 2012 and we were all wowed, both by the food and the museum itself. We found out that Yelp (which everyone uses out here) only listed Pardee under "Museums", so people searching for a wonderful tea never saw it. My niece and I petitioned Yelp to add Pardee to the category of tea shops, and the museum had to start booking more than four months in advance soon after our 5-star ratings appeared! We were very happy to have brought them into public notice, although it meant that scheduling tomorrow's tea was WORK. The volunteers only work two half-days a week on administration, and it took three emails and five phone calls before I could get confirmation on a date/time! For those who are interested, the website for the museum has a history of the family, a small photo gallery of the interior, and a few photos of their amazing teas: http://www.pardeehome.org/ Below: a photo of one of the plates from a friend who went in 2015 to Pardee for her birthday, and came back raving about it: