Patti, think of it this way....the dark green stems are left on to protect the tender part from damage and dessication. I've heard some TV cooks remark about freezing those stems for use when making stock. I've not done that but it sounds like a good idea. I save shrimp shells for stock! I love plums and always look forward to seeing them in the markets. I agree that this 'lemon plum ' is special. Plums don't have a very long shelf life, sadly, and bruise so easily. They shouldn't be picked when they are still little hard because they don't continue to get sweet once picked. They'll soften up but taste mealy and bland. They are picked much too early to withstand the rigours of the commercial market. I haven't gone exploring in the right grocery stores (lately) to find something new to me. I taught a college course one year about exotic, tropical, and world foods and for a fun assignnent challenged the class to find, research, and prepare for eating something that fullfilled the assignnent. It was a night class, so conducive to sharing a little meal. What fun! I had never tasted starfruit until that night....delicious. Students sleuthed out really neat grains, spices, fruits and vegetables. Luckily, our little city was multi-cultural....and larger cities very close by.

Very nice thread; what a great piece of furniture you've inherited. Lovely that it dovetails so well with your style. Nothing makes me happier than to use something from someone I love. As a kid and young adult, I remember regularly trying to replace my mom's 'old' things. She never said anything, and always thanked me for the new items, but as an adult, I can now much better understand why she may have been attached to the older ones. OT - What do you use for a camera? My brother, who's a timber framer by trade (and who photographs the amazing homes he builds) gave me some great advice - set your camera to AV and play with the F Stop. I have a Canon G12; also recommend the G11 highly. Also, get some sort of camera stand. You have a wonderful palette in your home, think you'd have a lot of fun getting the best shot (know I have!). Best, oldbat2be

Hi. So my new condo has an ancient thing I've been told is a, "one ton McQuay vertical water source heat pump." It needs to be replaced, pronto. I'd like to replace it with something new, modern, high-tech, but above all uber-reliable, and I'd LOVE to incorporate some kind of excellent humidifier (it's DRY in Denver!) A cursory search on the 'net doesn't turn up much. Local HVAC guy recommends something called a "Versatec water furnace," but I can't find a lot of info about it. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of device? This is my first time out with a heat pump (by the way, this is a secondary unit. The apartment has a primary heat pump [also a McQuay] that's still operational.) Thanks!!

Thanks so much for the info on these amazing beneficial herbs Strawberry Hill, I will definitely plant all of them for my cat friends. I will cover the catnip with a small cage contraption so that they'll only be able to get to the new growth... :-) That is such great news - that after so much rain still no BS on your potted roses. We also had mega liters of constant rain for 2 days and I decided not to use the corn flour dusting, and there is not one BS leaf on any rose....just as you said, the soil is the key....I also gave the BS prone roses an extra teaspoon of Gypsum as you advised (along with the Potassium Sulfate) ...just before the rain started falling. I watered in in very quickly with alkaline tap water, the rain did the rest. I think that's another great idea - to keep feeding them Gypsum and Potassium Sulfate to keep them BS-free during winter - until our next spring. many thanks :-) I won't give any Nitrogen either, seeing that they stop blooming anyway during winter. Carol, maybe you can try wrapping just a tiny piece of any citrus fruit peel around the area where the aphids are worst? I did that over here and the aphids jumped of like flies... but the Hydrogen Peroxide sounds like a great treatment for the aphids plus it adds oxygen, I think that is the best solution, as advised by Strawberry Hill...I will also try that...I think clay can do with some oxygen.... thanks for liking the Nguni cows, yes they are so beautiful...and quite docile... we have another breed here called 'Afrikaner'-cattle...they are quite strong as well but not so docile...used in the beef industry. They are also much bigger than Nguni's. I hope you enjoy your snowy winter wonderlands, I hope you, Jim, and Strawberry Hill will post winter photo's. Today it is 96.8 F and a strong warm berg (mountain)- wind is blowing. really magical. I decided to look up the definition of a berg wind: Berg wind (from Afrikaans berg "mountain" + wind "wind", i.e. a mountain wind) is the South African name for a katabatic wind: a hot dry wind blowing down the Great Escarpment from the high central plateau to the coast. When the air that has been heated on the extensive central plateau flows down the escarpment to the coast it undergoes further warming by adiabatic processes. This accounts for the hot and dry properties of these off-shore winds, wherever they occur along South Africa's coastline.[1][2] Although berg winds are often called a Föhn winds, this is probably a misnomer, as Föhn winds are rain shadow winds that result from air moving over a mountain range, resulting in precipitation on the windward side. This releases latent heat into the atmosphere which is then warmed still further as the air descends on the leeward side (e.g., the Chinook or the original Föhn).[2][3] Berg winds do not originate in precipitation, but in the mostly dry, often arid central plateau of Southern Africa. On the other hand, katabatic winds are technically drainage winds, that carry high density, usually cold air from a high elevation down a slope under the force of gravity.[3] These are thus "fall winds", which occur most typically down the coastal ice slopes of Antarctica and Greenland. Berg winds blow off the African escarpment in response to large scale weather systems in the South Atlantic Ocean, the African interior, and the Southern Indian Ocean.