Good to have labels on the tree for a quick glance, also good for your kids and friends visiting / picking fruits. Also good when cutting scions. Those Leevalley labels would be too small for me, I want them large so you can read from a distance! Fast and easy is a must for me,..stamping would make it too slow, I can write larger, [or smaller] and faster right out by the tree free hand with a cordless engraver. I just take a bunch of cut labels and wires out to the garden. Double up the wire holes, so labels don't spin in the wind and facing always to you for the ease of reading.

About Summer Wine. I bought it from Heirloom about 7 years ago. It is one wonderful rose! The bush is healthy and grows fast. The blossoms are among my earliest and then the blooming time goes on for a long time. Their fragrance is mild but pleasant. It has the most gorgeous big orange hips on it all winter until a hard freeze. Mine was badly damaged last year when the winds of 80 mph blew the copper tellis with it over. I had to cut away most of the rose to get the trellis back up. Well, it bounced back like a rubber ball and was covered with roses this year, and is even now sprawling out and over the other shrubs. I may cut it way back once the hips blacken, because that does not seem to phase the plant at all! And oh yes, there is one late rose blooming on the tip of a vine that is hanging in the exact center of my office window. Over the past few days I have watched it unfurl and bloom in a brilliant raspberry orange. Summer's light and heat turn it to a lovely soft pink with buttery yellow, but I like the early and late flowers best with their more intense colors. This is one of the most disease free roses I have. It is also one of the first I would plant again if I ever had to move. Do give it a strong trellis though. There is nothing wimpy about it!

Soultan -- Like you, I end up with excess produce, and am not interested in dragging it around to sell to a variety of places, so I take it all to our local "food bank". Do you have any food banks nearby? We have one called Second Harvest, and it's for poor people who are struggling to feed their families. Most people donate canned and dry goods. When I walk in with a load of fresh vegetables, they LOVE me, and they take everything I have. The people who run Second Harvest say that my produce is always gone in less than a day, and that makes me feel good, because I know it is going to people who otherwise would not be able to afford fresh produce. Anyway, that one thought. Also, before I moved here, I used to give all of my excess produce to a Women's shelter, and again, they always took everything and were very grateful. Maybe there's a place near you that gives away food or prepares food for the poor that would benefit from your excess produce, and you could drop it off at your convenience, and only make one stop. Jodik -- I would ADORE having more animals! You are one LUCKY LADY! We only have two puppies at the moment, and even though I love them, I was thinking more along the lines of some chickens, and perhaps a few goats or sheep. We have plenty of land for it -- 20 acres smack in the middle of farm country, so no one would lift an eyebrow if I did get more animals. Unfortunately, my work requires me to travel a fair bit, and while it is simple to board a dog or two, it's not easy to get someone to take care of farm animals. (My husband also travels, and sometimes we travel together because we own a business together.) Sigh! Well, maybe when we retire? On the other hand, with all of these farmers around, all I have to do is pick up the phone and I can get all of the manure, straw, topsoil -- you name it! -- that I want. The farmer next door "hays" our big field which keeps the thistles and unwanted trees under control (and he keeps the hay for his trouble, so it's a win-win). We raised chickens, ducks and goats on a "farm-ette" all the while I was growing up, which is why I know so much about using natural fertilizer (manure), and growing things --we had a HUGE garden -- grew enough potatoes and carrots to feed a family of 6 for an entire winter -- and we stored them in the "root cellar". Most young people today don't even know what a root cellar is! Or how to bury winter squash and other things in a mound in the ground to keep them until you want them in the winter. Or how to can tomatoes, for that matter. Or most of the truly wonderful things you can learn while growing up on a farm. Which is why we bought this land. I was so "hungry" to get back to the land. Our last house was on 5 acres, and I thought I had big gardens there -- and did -- but also had loud complaints from my suburban neighbors. ("It looks like a farm over there!" Well, duh, I'm planting a ton of vegetables in the back yard -- but vegetable weren't welcome, because they weren't "decorative enough" and besides that, my vegetable bed was "too big" -- the landscaping committee told me I had to make it smaller so it would "fit in" -- which is one of the main reasons we moved -- not because I had to make the bed smaller, but to escape things like "landscaping committees". We've been here 4 years now, and they'll be taking me out of here feet first, and that's the truth (hopefully when I'm in my 90's like the rest of my family!) Anyway, nice talking with both of you. All the Best! MacThayer

LOL i agree with you EG and when i look at tabor, alot of times yes, don't get me wrong, i don't complain, that boy is my pride and joy!! i am so very proud of him, but sometimes i get very grumpy with the fact that he'd rather just ask and not try to figure out how to do something, its not the asking, mind you, its the him wanting to get me to do it for him, but if its for his grandparents, he's all over it. and he'll do his very best, no asking, in fact he'll go ahead and put his best foot forward. other times, that boy will do the same here. but it's getting his but in gear!! LOL i think he developed add from me!! LOL IMHO parents don't make their kids do their chores like in our day's. befor we even could go and play with anyone or they could come to our house, chores HAD to be done, nowadays, who's doing the chores? if the parents aren't its the "help" if your in the good bracket. here i make mine do their chores. although i'm not that good on the great end of better get it done, i'm a wimp. **sigh** they have me wrapped at times, its those brown eyes, or their smiles. LOL but we don't do the tv thing and the game thing, its a no go here. although they do like to watch movies, i like the scary ones, but only so much of them. (movies) if its hot out or rainy and such. angela, i think why you do that is the same reason i used to keep my kids in, the same "thing" we have in common. we watch our kids like hawks!! but i've learned to let them know how to judge a little. i knew to judge, my mom just NEVER listened to me. talla is a great judge of character. she just don't like adults very much!! LOL ummm i can't really blame her. (sorry) i don't either. i like either young kids, or older adults. i guess you could say, almost in a childs mind, safe people. but as we all know they're are no "safe" people. onto another subject. LOL today was the fair day. kids all over. people grilling. people roasting hogs, turkey's LOL it was neat. i even got out to meet a few people. i don't usually do that that much. the heat was a little overwhelming. its now dark out and tabor is still out there, although with his one friend and i'm getting a little freaked. hubs just left for work and has called me to see if tabor is back yet. we both are the same with the kids. we had taco salad suprems. yummy. and tabor took his bread down to the fair building last night and he won 1st place. it looked awesome. so next year we are taking our tomato/potato down and talla can take her flowers down. she grows pretty flowers. so they BOTH will have something in. ~Medo