Our broccoli and collards look great. They stand up to freezes well. Last year I planted spigarello lisca broccoli. It doesn't make heads like broccoli, but it made wonderful greens that didn't mind our summer and laughed at bugs. I need to remember to plant it next year. Nancy, I've frozen mushrooms like that, but I thought you bought them frozen, LOL. Funny Rick I know the terms slave cylinder and master cylinder from a truck that sat in our front yard for a long time. Ron kept replacing parts on the clutch. He finally sold the truck. If I remember correctly Totally Tomatoes was a good company that was sold. Not so good since then. Seeds n Such has beefmaster. I think the owner used to own totally tomatoes. (I think this was a Đawn story.) I have purchased from Seeds n such. They're ok, and I think when someone had problems with germination they were quick to resolve the issue. We do buy canned soup, makes a quick lunch. I prefer Progresso brand. They have great tomato Basil soup. And every now and then I like old fashioned Campbell's tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. That brings back memories. (I am very nostalgic today). Moni, native Ginger and what comes from the store are different. I tried to grow grocery store Ginger without success. I did grow it with a start from Companion Plants .https://www.companionplants.com/catalog/ Also turmeric. Turmeric is a beautiful plant. I even had it bloom. I don't know where Danny got his, which I believe he said was native wild ginger. Re: holidays...I've never been much of a Baker. Occasional cookies. But I realized when Travis was 2 he didn't understand the book with cookies coming out of the oven because he'd never seen it. I always felt overwhelmed taking care of kids and house, so Christmas added to my stress. I don't have those stresses now, but memories make me less then than enthusiastic. Of course Christmas morning is good, just not the lead up. Ok, this was done in "colornote" and the keyboard behaved. In Houzz I would type something and it would jump over to before the last letter of the previous word and type the next word there. Sometimes it skipped letters, usually vowels. It did the same when I changed keyboard apps. I changed to Firefox because chrome gave me trouble with Houzz. I suspect it is houzz, but I don't know where to go now. I don't have room for another app. Also, today FB won't let me paste. Instead of the paste option it says auto complete. If I press that, it asks for a password. In a comment. WTF? Enjoy your weekend.

I don't think it's a matter of being an excellent cook or a poor one, rather a issue of what gets put on the table and what ingredients are used. One of my daughters in law is poor cook but a wonderful mother. Her own mother is exactly the same. This particular set of grandkids eats only wholesome and mostly organic foods, made with simple but flavorful preparations. I once took them to one of the salad bar restaurants that were common here pre-pandemic. I took each in turn through the salad bar line and then we sat down to eat. The then 8 and 6 year-old kids told me what they wanted and then happily sat down with a plate of broccoli and cauliflower florets, beets, olives, cherry tomatoes, carrots, cucumber slices, garbanzo beans, etc with no salad dressing. They chose no mac salad, chocolate or tapioca pudding nor any of the other extraneous things that were available. They also each got one slice of pizza. Three different adults stopped at our table when they walked by, asking some form of "how do you get them to eat like that?" To which I replied something to the effect of "credit their mother, these are the foods they eat regularly and it's what they prefer".

MadGallica - here's a link to John Scheepers - my favorite scilla. Spring Beauty Scilla and one of my favorite crocus that I still have in my Vinca bed...these are large crocus 'Jeanne d'Arc' Crocus My snowdrops do spread and reseed but I had some areas across the other side of the yard where I wanted to establish a patch last year. So I am hoping they reseeded for next spring. Actually, some of the bulbs from my vinca bed, reseed into my front full sun bed just across the driveway. Those particular crocus all get the flowers bitten off and then the foliage keeps getting eaten back to the ground. It's interesting that the squirrels like to eat the bulbs. The crocus in that vinca bed...wow. I can't see how any animal would be able to dig anything up in the vinca bed. First of all it's under a large mature Maple and then the root system on the vinca is very very dense. I tried digging in it a few weeks ago and I was impressed. I'm thinking that's why the crocus have disappeared from every bed except that one.

Very nice to hear from you. I have thought of trailrunner a lot, but thought she might have posted something and that I might have forgotten. I was afraid to bring it up and have people tell me that she had posted.......She did pop in every so often but hasn' for a long time. Now I will worry. As I have mentioned, i don't retain too many of the screen names but when you all mention them I do remember them......Trailrunner I absolutely remember and miss.