I just did a search for P. pinea & ended up here..........any of you still around? I live in South Australia & have been around P.pinea all my life. We have one planted when I was a kid & it is now a big tree which dominates the skyline from a distance off. We get no nuts anymore as the cockatoos eat them all before they ripen. In about 2004-5 a friend & I gathered 10 gal of nuts from under a tree in the Adelaide plains & have been eating & germinating them ever since. I last germinated some from this hoard about 5 years ago. I am going to plant a couple of pounds of them this season to see if they'll still germinate.....will be amazing if they do as not many conifers will stay viable for that long. The nuts still taste fine & the embryo is still white & not dry & brittle....we'll see. P.pinea is an amazing species. I have grafted many species on it & all grew well. I have put P.mazimartinezii on potted plants & P.torreyana & P.sabiniana on 10' tall trees in the ground which healed smoothly & made strong sound unions. This is more amazing as P. pinea is supposed to be the most 'unrelated' species to any other pines. Here is a picture of about 2 gall of them:

Parsley with green seed pods? Maybe it's just a vocabulary issue but parsley really doesn't have pods per se. The seeds are formed where the umbrel (meaning umbrella-like) flower head was. If you know what dill seed heads look like, that is what the parsley seed heads should look similar to. I found a picture of parsley blooming for you: http://earlysnowdrop.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html The dry seeds are collected directly from the plant. Dill and the other flower/seed umbrel plants are some of the easiest ones to harvest seeds from. Save the seeds and plant them next spring. As far as the annuals, let them grow until they give up the ghost. Sometimes it is surprising how long they can hang on. If you are a new herb gardener, go to your local book store and look at the books they have on growing herbs. Find a book that resonates with you. It will help you immensely in planning, harvesting, and growing the plants in your garden. FataMorgana

OOh, this reminds me we still have to go to our lawyer to sign an amended will. We switched guardians for out two youngest from my bil to my oldest son. I should do that before I open the box. Would it be a good idea to have the dog sniff it out first? Should I worry about the mail carrier, after all she is a nice lady. Oh, what to do, what to do. Maybe have a fresh raw steak handy and ready to throw in another direction while I run with the plants.

I wish I'd seen this thread before posting mine! Yes, you can use a pressure cooker on the propane stove. I had a pressure cooker in my RV (and plan to put it in the camping equipment for this summer's trip). I have also used it on the white-gas stove (older Coleman model), when we were renovating the kitchen at home. We looked at those 12-volt refrigerators. My husband was annoyed that he got rid of his after leaving the trucking industry. Well, how could we know! Thanks for the tips on the newer ones. As far as camping reservations go: from experience, the national park campgrounds fill fast. Many of them are on the reservation system, and others (like in Arches) will require you to start trolling through the CG at daybreak, looking for departing campers. Our trip is about the same length as yours, though we are staying in motels and with friends and family instead of tent-camping. From experience with long trip tent camping, though, you'll want to get a motel room or find a truck stop with reasonably priced showers (bring shower shoes) every 3-4 days. Your trip sounds like a lot of fun -- we're heading from CA to ME via Orlando, FL, and back through MO (daughter, son-IL and new granddaughter live there). So we're going opposite of you, grin. I've placed a link to a great resource for road-trip planners. It's one of my favorite Internet sites. Donna Here is a link that might be useful: Road Trip America