All righty then . . looks like I will be hosting GardenWeb's Fall Swap this year. I don't want to make any promises, but there is a good chance that this will be the best fall swap ever!!! It is sure to something that you will be telling your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren about for generations to come . . "kids gather around - let me tell you about the great 2009 fall swap that I attended . . . " Anyways, I suppose first things first - we must pick a date for this grand daddy of an event. Here are some options: Saturday, Sept. 19 (I have a wedding that day, but I will not have to leave until approx. 3:15 p.m. So, we would have enough time for the swap in the morning and early afternoon); Sunday, Sept. 27th; Sunday, October 4th; Saturday, October 3rd could possibly work. I am currently planning on running a 10k that day. However, if that day works for the most people, I would have a good excuse not to run. Please let me know what date works best for everyone. I will weigh all date suggestions unequally, with bias and prejudice . . . there is no formal appeals process for the date that I choose. However, I do accept bribes. For those of you who know me, that is just my attempt at humor. The majority will prevail. For anyone who may still be unfamiliar with GW's plant swaps, please see Julie's description of the same earlier today at the posting "GW Fall Swap??" (which was initially created on August 27th). Let me know your preferred dates. Thank you. (I am posting this in both the MN discussion forum and exchange forum) - Adam

How many people are coming, for sure? I do not have enough parking for more than about five people at my house, across the lake from Black Hill Park, but there is enough parking in a lot (unused on weekends) about 30 yards away for 19 or 20 cars. People could use the bathroom at my house (within limits :-) -- we're on septic), and we could have lunch in the back yard, with or without Kim's table. I'm not sure what the advantage of this would be over Black Hill Park, except that I wouldn't have to drive :-).

Here's a 'dusk' kinda lousey shot of them. The coloring is just yellow, with a little deeper yellow throat (kinda like when you color lightly with a yellow crayon then color so hard that the crayon makes a thick, waxy, coating on the paper, but it's the same color crayon). Yeah, I stink at description, too.

Thirteen days till the swap! We still need a couple more people to volunteer to bring some kind of a beverage, and with this many people we need two or three people to bring tables for the food. Also, if you dont want to sit on the ground, we need more people to bring some chairs. With 31 people planning to come, and a bunch of guests, surely there must be some people who can help with these things! Heres the current list of whos bringing what. Please post if you can bring any of the things we still need. ~ Beverage lemonade, iced tea, something else? [Need some more names here!] MstyWoods LindseyinEvergreen - Thai iced tea ~ Styrofoam cups TreeBarb ~ Paper plates MstyWoods ~ Napkins Skybird ~ Plastic silverware Jennifer/jclepine ~ Ice Angel ~ Chairs: 4 treebarb [30 - 40 people and four chairs! We need more folks!] ~ Tables: [Need 2 or 3 people bringing tables to be sure we have enough for the food!] If you still havent gotten the email from Angel with her address, shes posted HER address just above, so email YOUR email address to her. BE SURE to include your screen name so she knows who you are! If you dont send your email address to her, you WILL NOT get her address for the swap! (And if you sent your address already but didnt get the email from her, send it again!) Heres the list of people who are, or hope to be coming as I have it right now! Im once again posting locations for the people whos locations I know that are out of the immediate Metro Denver area so if anyone wants to arrange to carpool, theyll know whos near them. [And I once again encourage all those who havent yet done it to ENABLE PERSONAL MESSAGING on your GW account! Aside from posting a message on the swap thread and hoping the person sees it, PMing is the only way to contact somebody should the need come up! Enabling personal messaging DOES NOT make your email address public! There are a LOT of you who still dont have PMing enabled, and there is absolutely no way to contact you should something come up!] If youre not on the list but should be, post or post again that youre comingbut even more importantly, send Angel your email address! Im keeping an unofficial list of attendees, but I am not keeping a list of email addresses this time, so Angel is the one you need to get your email address to! AlmondStriations - Erie AngelinaGarden - Angel AutoDidact Azura - (with son and possibly guest) Bekajoi (has a van for possible car pooling from COS) Bexay6211 [may not be able to come Bexay, hows your knee?] BindweedBenders ButterCup 2010 Cyndigo (Boulder) GinnyTrcka (and friend) GJMancini (and sister) GreenBean08 - Amy (Falcon, NE of COS) GreenShark (COS) H Geist HighAltTransplant - Bonnie (Silt!) JCLepine - Jennifer (and significant other?) (Nederland) KarengGrow - (Black Forest, willing to bring others from the Colorado Springs area) KvenKat (and maybe husband) Laura42 (Ft, Collins) LindsyinEvergreen (Evergreen) LuckyBottom - (Kersey, east of Greeley) MayberryGardener MstyWoods PolygonumTinctorium (near Monument Hill) PowerMuffin (+ 1 or maybe 2) (Longmont guess you dont need to carpool! ;-) ) ProvoGirl SerpentMoon Sherri09 (Boulder) Skybird TequilaGirl (Castle Rock) TreeBarb (near Ft. Lupton) If somebody is finding this for the first time, its not too late to decide to come! As long at theres still time to send your email address to Angel and get a reply from her, its not too late! So even the day before the swap should work, but by the actual day of the swap everybody is going to be too busy to be responding to anybody! In the past we havent done this, but Angel has said that she has a grill (two actually, one gas, one charcoal) that we can use, so if anybody wants to bring something to be grilled, that works too this time. Just be sure its something that wouldnt take too long to heat since eating is the first thing we do! ~~~ HERE, AGAIN, IS ALL THE BASIC INFORMATION! ~~~ The swap is on Sunday, May 23rd at 11:00, at Angels in Longmont! ~~ When you arrive there will be an area designated to put the plants youve brought, with a separate place to put the plants you have earmarked for someoneand, of course, there will be somewhere to put the food! \[Just a hint for those of you who have earmarked plants! Ive found it works well to write the screen name of the person on a paper bag and put the plants in the bag. If theres more than one bag for someone I just write "1 of 2" on it to be sure nothing gets missed! It makes it easy for everyone to find the ones that are for them, and its easier to carry the bags than to carry a bunch of separate pots. Small boxes would work too!\] ~~ There will be a table with a sign in sheet, and its fun to keep track of who actually showed up, so please be sure you sign in! There will also be name tags on the sign in table, so please make a name tag for yourself (and your guests) which includes your RMG screen nameso we know who you are! \[Put YOUR screen name on your guests tags tooso we know who they belong to!!!\] ~~ We start the swap with the pot luck! Your dish can be absolutely anything! Hot dishes, cold dishes, appetizers/finger foods, salads, sweetsanything you think others would enjoy! Homemade dishes, if you have time, are always good! Please bring a serving spoon if it will be needed for your dish, and also please make some provision for it to be covereda lid if its that type of dish, or plastic wrap, or whatever. One other request! I love sweets, so I definitely dont want to put too much of a damper on the dessert type things, but at a couple of the swaps we seemed to wind up with mostly sweets, so if youre trying to decide between that or something else, lean toward the something else! ~~ After eating and talking while we eatand perusing the plants that are availablewe have everybody who has plants earmarked for others make sure the plants get to the right people. This also happens to some extent during the arriving/eating/talking/perusing part! ~~~ Then we do the actual swapping! Before we start picking plants, well once again have everybody who brought plants briefly tell what they brought so everyone knows whats available to help them decide what theyd like to have. Then everyone draws a number for the first and second rounds of picking plantsthat way everyone has a pretty good chance to get the one or two things they want the most. Then we open it up to just walking around and picking out whatever anyone wantsthe free\-for\-all part! ~~ Please be sure the plants you bring are labeled one way or another! Either stick a tag in the pot, or staple a piece of paper with the name onto the pot, or just write the name of the plant on the pot with a marker or crayonat past swaps some people have made up adhesive labels with the plant name and basic information and stuck them on the potsI make up little strips of paper on the computer with the info and include one with each plant. Anything to ensure the person getting the plant will know what they have when they get home. Its easy to think youre gonna remember the names of the things you take homeand even easier to forget them by the time you do get home!!! ~~ ANDour primary RMG plant swap rule! Nobody needs to have any plants to be welcome at the swap! There are always plenty of plants to go around (I have just over 200 myself!), and we get together as much to swap gardening talk and friendship as to swap plantsso come regardless of how much you do or don't have to bring! ~~~ Please plan to thoroughly water the plants youre bringing the DAY BEFORE the swap so theyll have time to drain well enough to be easy to transport, yet be wet enough to not be wilting at the swap or while people are taking them home! One more thing! Its a really good idea to bring a box/tray or two to carry your booty back home in! If the plants youre bringing are in something, dont let anybody else snag it, and you can use that to refill with the new goodies! If there are any questions, NOW is the time to be asking them! Pray for good weatherand NO wind! See you all soon, Skybird