Would that be perennial sweet pea, which I turned down when my sister offered me seedlings last year? Bummer! It looks great. Meanwhile, I was looking all over for a plant I got at one of last year's swaps, Cryptotaenia japonica f. atropurpurea. The label was kind of hard to decipher, but the little plants are up and, man, are they cute, so I googled the part of the name I could read and... voila! Dusky reddish foliage - with a silvery cast, my favorite leaf color. I have it in a shady woodland garden, probably a little drier than what it likes. On the website Perry's Plant Picks (at UVM) it says that it will get to be 24" tall. Can anyone tell me if that's accurate? It's about 1" at this point, having just resprouted. This photo is from PPP: It's apparently edible, so I'll plan to try a few leaves in a salad as soon as I think the plants have any to spare. Whoever gave me this plant, thank you again. I think I may be in love (admittedly, not for the first time!). Here is a link that might be useful: PPP: Mitsuba

Hey, I get those memory moments all the time. They tell me it goes with the aging. Anyway.............. Pop your CD in the drawer, there is a window appears that might help but I instantly ignore it. Open Windows Explorer, click the plus sign beside your CD/DVD player which will be D:\ if you only have one hard drive. The contents will now appear underneath and also in the right side of the screen. Click on the first item listed on the right side, hold down the Shift button then tap the End button (next to the Delete button) Right click on the highlighted entries, click Copy. Now back to the left side and click the plus sign beside your C:\ drive, right click on My pictures if that is where you want them and click Paste. Done. When you copy these back to the hard drive they will be set to 'Read only' so any photo editing or altering you do will require it saved as another name.

While I really want marble for our kitchen, we have 2 small sons and I am worried they will mess it up. We have wavered back and forth whether to go for it, but dh saw a Corian counter, Rain Cloud, in IKEA the other day and fell in love. I would normally never pay more for a manmade product, but IKEA has a 40% off counters special this month if you buy your kitchen there, so that makes it also more affordable. Since I have made virtually every other choice (I ask for his input, but his usual response is "I don't care", which translates to "whatever makes you happy" but also "if there is a screw-up, it is not mine", not to mention "you choose because I don't want to do the legwork"), I think I will "give" him this one, lol. It has a softer/warmer feel than stone and makes less noise if you clink against it. I am not 100% convinced, but am getting close. I may have to contact the PA yard about the quartzite and get a price, because that is seriously pretty too..... We can do our full kitchen with the Corian, including upcharges and customizations, installed, for less than $2k. That is going to be hard to beat. Our kitchen is not small, btw... I also forgot that if I apply for an IKEA credit card when buying, I'll get an additional 10% off and have 0% financing for 24 months. Corian Rain Cloud:

I just did that with some freshly shelled horticultural beans. I'd not do it with dried beans, but thought I'd be OK with fresh beans. I was wrong. Well, kind of. I added the tomato paste, the molasses, mustard, brown sugar, etc. Usually the fresh beans cook in an hour, two at the most. These cooked for 6 hours. Still hard. Cooked 4 more hours. Softer, but not ready yet. 2 more hours and they were finally soft enough to be edible. I never soak beans, I just dump them into the crock pot, add water, onion, carrot, celery, maybe ham bone or smoked pork hock. Cook them for 9 or 10 hours on high and they're perfect for me. I guess if I'm making baked beans from 'scratch', I'm going to have to soak/pre-cook the beans, or use leftover beans like Grandma always did. In retrospect, that's probably why she always made "extra" beans for baked beans a couple of days later, and I always thought it was just because I loved baked beans. :-) I just canned my own baked beans with those fresh horticultural beans, a 2 minute boil, 45 minute soak and then add the sauce, pressure can for 65 minutes and they are perfect... Annie