Good Morning All, I'm so sad. I found out yesterday that my favorite SIL has tongue cancer. She is the one who helped us get started with the phone business. We will have test results back this next week so hopefully they removed all of it. Seems as though we're slowing down so others are starting to post. I hope they continue. I need to be able to come here and relax. Anj, That is awesome your DD made the team. We'll have to jump in and help support your early mornings from here. Repear after me I know I can, I know I can.LOL I'm sure you'll get alot of enjoyment being able to watch her excell. Maybe you can try to go to bed early the nights you have to get up earlier. Luvs, I know what you mean by getting rid of clothes. You should take and donate them to charity and write them off on your taxes. Here in MT we can write off $1500 a year. We have Goodwill, Twice But Nice and others. I personally like to donate to the 2nd hand church store. There is 9? area churches that share the profits. The ladies all volunteer their working time. I have a steam machine box that is full of turtle necks from previous years and haven't even looked at them, but I have 20 new ones this year. Not funny! One of my closets has clothes for DS, DD and DG. I told them I would be boxing them up and they could keep 2-3 outfits in there and no more!!! Think that will happen? When the kids was in high school we didn't have any debts so we went to the mall shopping every weekend and to this day they still love to shop. I created shopoholics! DS dresses bette than most women. That closet is going to have more of my Christmas and crafts in it, if I follow through. Yeah Belle, FYI. DH has an industrial Delta scroll saw and has had good luck with it. He also has a Sears that he cuts some with. We have gone through quite a few saws through the years and the Delta has been the longest performer so far. I love to camp. We have a toy hauler and also a cabin so I've camped for years. We always felt it was family time when camping. We would go fishing or ride the 4 wheelers to our friends cabins and visit. Some times we would have pot luck up in the woods in the evenings. It was so nice to not have to hear the phone ringing. We have dish up there and don't even watch it. Just kick back and enjoy once the weather is nice. Have a good book so you can sit by the fire and read, if nothing else. Here's my project that turned out ugly. Maybe I'll find someone who likes it a little and give it to them.

Amy, Congrats on the turnips and I think the parsnips will be fine. With all the cloudy days we tend to have at this time of the year, even if the parsnips leaves sunburn a little in the first couple of days after you harvested the turnips, I'd think that new growth will appear and the plants themselves will be fine. Turnips grown in the fall can turn woody too if the gardener leaves them in the ground too long. I know people who are stuck in that bigger is better mentality (with which I strongly disagree) and they leave their turnips in the ground until they are huge and woody and not fit to eat. Bon, If you were out in the wind and cold pulling weeds yesterday, I'm fearing you're crossing over to the dark side. The wind here was gusting in the upper 40s and lower 50s and I stayed indoors as much as possible as did Tim, the dogs and the cats. The chickens didn't like the wind either and spent a lot of time huddled under the shrubs and even came up onto the porch and huddled up close to the exterior of the wall to stay out of the wind. Augustus the turkey spent most of his day huddled underneath the gigantic Burford hollies on the south side of the porch, gobbling away. That wind was strong and cold. I hate ivy and all kinds of it try to invade from the northwest corner of the garden. I have some smilax, poison ivy and Virginia creeper vines to pull out of the corner of the garden this week, as well as some unknown ivy-looking creeping and crawling vines that I don't want there either. Where does all this crap come from? I blame the wild birds. I think they sit on the fence and plant things. Dawn

Hi Val, I'm not technically a GW newbie but haven't used it since I lived in Kentucky a decade ago. I live in Minnesota now and I just moved from a house/garden I worked on for several years to a new home with nothing but a compacted yard, a few scraggly hostas and Lilly of the Valley, and 3 struggling hydrangeas, ack! Unfortunately the sale and move happened so fast I wasn't able to bring any of my plants with me so I'm starting from scratch again. Would be grateful for a starter package of seeds to get a jumpstart on the scope of work I have ahead of me! Not picky, a mix of flowers and veggies, or anything for z4 would be so helpful! Once I get some plants established, I'd be happy to donate back for the next gardener in need! TIA - Angela

That would torque me off, too, Bkay. I don't like vagueness or dishonesty at all, but especially not then it comes to charity. I know there's an old saying that whatever you give away it's no longer your concern what happens to it but I think this case is different. Since they did tell you it was donated as they saw fit, there's not much that you can do except to let them know how you feel about it and if they continue to put out a sign that it would go to the Linus Project I wouldn't use them to do the donation, I'd contact someone else who is trustworthy. I would also tell anyone I knew what happened and I would let the shop know about it, too. I just wouldn't tell anyone that I suspected that the person took it for herself, that could set you up for a liability since you can't really prove it. I've gotten to the point that I don't give to charity too much. The last time I was really steamed was when a long-time family friend since he was just a kid of 12 wound up in the hospital with heart problems and pneumonia, almost died. His mom told me that his girlfriend had started one of those go fund me deals. So my whole family donated what we could and in fact we were the only ones who did except for a couple of others. Never did any of us ever get so much as a hint of a thank you for it. And we all gave quite a good amount. I never brought it up with the person who was ill because they broke up and anyway I don't feel like he was in a situation where he even knew what was going on much less thank anyone. I do wonder if he ever saw any of that money go to his bills or household needs though.