Okay guys here ya go. First experiment is a pic of the house that is already seasoned and lookin' good. But TW the only thing I saw was "" on your post. I have no idea what bpgreen saw. And since I don't know where to paste it I am pasting here and the Optional Link URL and the Name of Link. Hope you guys can see this.... http://nfinit.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Landscaping/518159_jubCB#21331199_f7o5C Here is a link that might be useful: http://nfinit.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Landscaping/518159_jubCB#21331199_f7o5C

You can count me in too Ken. I've been an ACS member for several years and always wanted to attend a National meeting. With the added benefit of touring your garden, and meeting you and so many of the other great folks on this forum, looks like 2012 is going to be the year. Sounds like you've committed yourself to a major garden tour in July. Of course, we'll all need to bring our own favorite cold beverages to enjoy while visiting your garden. Looking forward to it!! Kim

So guess what? I've now been to Ann Arbor for the first time in my life! Loved the town! Had some fabulous food there, and just found the entire Main. St. area to be very authentic, very lively on a summer Wed. afternoon, fabulous farmers market going on till 2, just perfect. After traipsing around Main St. for a bit, we drove to the Chain of Lakes area which was just about the perfect distance away, 30 minutes or so from the Main St., and an easy drive. As we drove on, I fell more and more in love with the landscape, which got more and more rural and beautiful as we approached the lake area. We first went to Portage Lake, and then to Baseline Lake. My first glimpse of Portage was perfect. Really liked the size, the setting, everything. It's a little difficult to GPS your way around a lake because I didn't have a specific address, just wanted to explore. The main part we saw had houses much too close together for my liking, though I loved many of the styles of homes. Similar feeling about Baseline. The overall problem was that my mom and sister are not good explorers. They are real homebodies, and don't get out to explore much on their own, so they were completely panicked about finding our way back, driving willy-nilly down roads that suddenly popped up etc. Once I realized I just wasn't going to be able to explore the way DH and I would, I just gave up on truly exploring the area. I did sneak down to the water's edge by trespassing at a house that looked somewhat vacated. The water seemed fairly clear, but there was definitely some algae at the shore. Not sure if that is a once every ten years kind of issue, or ongoing. At least I got to see the area, and assuming we could find a somewhat private waterfront home, it would definitely be in the running. On the other hand, 2 1/2 hours drive time from my sister's home to a lakehouse might prove to be too much adventure for mom and sis.... We're still hoping to get to Sleeping Bear at the end of Sept. so we'll have something to compare to. Thank you all so much for your help getting me there!

I've eaten horse, during the PBB scandal when all the cattle were poisoned and dropping over from PBBs in the cattle feed. LindaC, I bought Pocky at my local Meijer's and sent it to dishesdone, they had a chocolate and a strawberry version. Ashley says she's gotten it at WalMart right next to the college, it's a cookie shaped long and thin, not as big around as a pencil and dipped in chocolate or strawberry fudge. I have eaten crocodile AND alligator, and black pudding which Grandma used to call blood sausage. Nettle tea tastes icky and "green" but is supposed to be a diuretic and make your hair shiny, I can't figure out what the heck those two things have to do with each other, but I've tasted it because it's also supposed to be helpful for anemia. I didn't see that it helped. I had chicken tiki masala at a restaurant in Ann Arbor with Elery. It was basically a chicken dish with a curry kind of sauce over rice. Eh. I'm not a huge fan of curry. Paneer? Elery likes cheese. A lot. So we tried this, it kind of reminded me of the homemade yogurt cheese I make by putting yogurt in a strainer and letting it drain for several hours. Criollo chocolate is just a variety of cocoa bean. It's expensive and I found it to be very mild, I wasn't all that impressed with THAT either. I think I bought it at Fresh Market, and everything there is expensive so maybe that's just why it cost more. Tom Yum is just soup. I think it had coconut milk in it and it kind of reminded me of Chinese hot and sour. Annie