Janna, when I read that you don't want the scarecrow to get her clothes blown off, I thought of one created to look like Marilyn Monroe in a white dress getting blown up LOL. Seriously though, the wind will definitely be a big factor in deciding how to build yours, but I'm sure you'll create a great one! Please share photos when you're finished with it! That's another project on my "to do" list. Good to cya! ~tenderlee

Andie--I have a weakness for those float pens too. I even have a couple of those cheesy pin-up ones. (You know---bathing suit up, bathing suit down...) Mostly I gather pretty random stuff, though I guess I tend to come back with locally packaged food items. Last trip I went on, I stayed down the street from the stinky Pafco tuna cannery, so I left packing a can or two of the local product. There was also a soda I liked that had a somewhat indecent name, but it was impractical to pack. I congratulate myself that I've never opened any of the remaining packs of Cleopatra-brand cigarettes left over from a duty-free carton distributed to still-smoking friends. I always trusted that they would be dreadful--now they would be terribly old and dreadful. We like sea souvenirs. Last trip, I found an intact nautilus shell along a beach during a bike ride. And we're always going to great pains to carefully transport egg-fragile sea urchin shells home. My husband has a penchant for indigenous weapons. If the local population makes something that, during the past 100 years, has been used to clobber someone over the head, he wants it. Oh. And then there are seeds. It's fun to be able to grow, say, basil that came from in front of a pharoah's palace, or a tomato that reminds you of lunch in some sun-drenched place, or even a hyacinth bean from one's favorite Southern city.

I wore hats quite often in the 80's... haven't worn much in the way of hats in a while. DH thinks I look silly in most of them. He's a baseball cap kinda guy, so I do have a few of those (like the pink one with Wine Diva written in sparkly-beads), but I think I look sillier in them than in the "ladies hats" I used to wear! I'd love to see more hats out there. Fedora, Panama, Indiana Jones... For myself, I'd love to sport a nice conservative cloche... maybe I'll see if I can knit/felt one... hmmmmmmmm Here is a link that might be useful: Cloche

Ken - LOL - it looks like you're the one who has the urgent need to know what it is :-) I have just e-mailed the lady who gave us the tour and asked if she could tell me the botanical name of that tree.... I'm sure she's left for the day by now so I doubt I'll hear from her until next week sometime - if she replies at all! If I get an answer, I'll post it here. I didn't look very closely at the tree and my point-and-shoot picture is not very good. DH took some pictures I think and I'll see if any of them would provide the detail you are looking for - he has a wicked lens on the camera (he's a 'birder' and gets incredible detail and resolution that allows for VERY close zooming/cropping of pictures....) From my somewhat vague recollection of the tree, I agree that your pictures look very much like it. I'm afraid I'm not a big fan of conifers so didn't look very close, other than to say 'pretty blue; neat cones, and 'I'd bet Ken would like this one!' I grew up on the east coast of Canada on an old farm carved out of a spruce and fir forest. I had my fill of spruce and fir then and have no desire to add and to the garden here, however pretty some of the unusual ones look - on someone else's property! Where I grew up (50 years ago this view would have had 3 houses, the fields around the yellow pin, some fields on the north side of the lake, and all the rest dense spruce and fir forest, with a few burned out areas! The interesting vegetation - to me - was the stuff that was NOT spruce or fir.) :