Elvas is safely home and resting on the kitchen counter while I rest with my email, then off we will go to pot him up! I set to work on my photos last night and on getting them on photo bucket so I can post them here. Maybe something to work on while I am recuperating. My PT this morning told me all about knee surgery...she is the one who referred me to this Dr as she says his patients all do the best of any she takes care of. He does the quad sparing surgery and the minimal incisions...we are going to try to get me sent to rehab afterwards until I Can walk on my own. I am only 61 but inherited the bad knees from my dad, so have have been having trouble with them for about 15 years now, Just learned to ignore the pain and keep on trucking to do what I wanted to. I just know I will do far better now with the new ones. I was waiting until they would last longer then 10 years and I hear they are up to about 25 yrs now. I figure a couple of sets of those should see me through, LOL. Gee, maybe I will need a whole new set of Bulbs to keep me entertained through the healing process! I hope to hear from the Dr tomorrow or Friday, which are his paperwork days. Lets see how many AMaryllis I remember that I have growing from this years orders.... Black Pearl, Angelique, Lilac Wonder, Furore, Honeymoon, Rembrant Von Rijn, Exotica, Apricot Beauty, Royal Velvet, Pink Surprise and a fairly healthy looking La Paz and Papillio from last year. Just got an answer from Amerillis Bulb Company that they had never received an order from me, so have redone my order to include: Pasadena $11.00 $30.00 (- $3.00) DR Double Record $11.00 $20.00 (- $2.00) BOS Orange Sovereign $9.50 $25.50 (- $3.00) CYRM Cybister Ruby Meyer $14.00 $12.00 (- $2.00) GIR Girafe $13.00 $26.00 LL Lemon-Lime $14.00 $36.00 (- $6.00) THat would be 3 each of all the first orders, but fewer as noted here. So guess these will be the ones to cheer my recovery! I also have some from last year that have lost their names but need the bulb to go into rehab along with me, LOL. As to my greenhouse, During the winter I use my garage workroom, and about March I use a cheap collapsable plastic "flowerhouse". That is where I set out my started garden seeds in about March to harden off. This is my second one of those and a great improvement over the first one, where the screening all rotted out, as did the stitching on the zipper.

Here's the recipe for cottage cheese daughter has! She got it from the program 'Good Eats'! She and her two boys, ages 4 and 5 love that show! They tape them and the boys beg her to play them over and over. They've really gotten interested in cooking, themselves and even use play dough to reinact the shows! She's letting them help her alot now! Quick Cottage Cheese 1 gallon pasteurized skim milk 3/4 cup white vinegar 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 1/2 cup half-and half-or heavy cream Pour the skim milk into a large saucepan and place over medium heat. Heat to 120 degrees F. Remove from the heat and gently pour in the vinegar. Stir slowly for 1 to 2 minutes. The curd will separate from the whey. Cover and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Pour the mixture into a colander lined with a tea towel and allow to sit and drain for 5 minutes. Gather up the edges of the cloth and rinse under cold water for 3 to 5 minutes or until the curd is completely cooled, squeezing and moving the mixture the whole time. Once cooled, squeeze as dry as possible and transfer to a mixing bowl. Add the salt and stir to combine, breaking up the curd into bite-size pieces as you go. If ready to serve immediately, stir in the half-and-half or heavy cream. If not, transfer to a sealable container and place in the refrigerator. Add the half and half or heavy cream just prior to serving. Oh, and her hubby (our SIL) is here with the boys right now, having watched Ohio State and Illinois (boo hoo--OSU lost) and he says it's really good and not gritty at all, when she makes it!

Ohiorganic You are exactly right. Sept, Oct, and Nov are great months for selling at market. It is, after all, all about planning. We do two markets. One in an urban area that in the past peaked Labor Day weekend. It went fairly strong until it closed the weekend before Thanksgiving this season. The demand for cutflowers was there until the end. The other market we do is along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. This market has a shorter season for us with vacationers, or people who have cottages in the area. This market finishes up the last Saturday in October. We usually end there a couple weeks after Labor Day. The locals don't support the market as well. The market is highly advertised; and, we have no complaints. It's in a beautiful setting as well. We enjoy meeting people vacationing from all the other states. And, we really LOVE people from Illinois. Anyway, I wish you much luck Heidi. Just remember: if you think you have made a mistake by growing perhaps the wrong flower, etc., it isn't really a mistake at all. It's call a learning experience. We always hope not to have all the learning experiences in one growing season though!! We love what we are doing. It's a passion with us.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. I love all of your gardens, they have inspired me, and made me believe I could do this, they are just wonderful. That was my first shade bed, down in my Gully, I have several more beds now, but the first one that had any plants of decent size. hopefully this year I will have better pics. The White Rock, is manmade, I made it using old blocks, pieces of concrete I needed to get rid of anyway, so I wanted a rock, my husband is sick & cannot help me, so I looked online, got some ideals, and I built it, it looks better in person than in pics for some reason, you really can not tell I made it, I made one more to help hold a bank, I will find that pic, this is all a work in progress, and has taken a lot longer than I ever imagined. Since I made the rock, I found huge rock over in another gully so I have just been moving them around with my husband's truck and a crow bar, but I have dug enough rock up off this hill to rock my dry stream that is used when we get lots of rain. The great thing I have found about working down in the gully is the shade is there all day. lol