The season has started.

[David Hare-Scott]

Here you go:

recipes for snacks, mains and dessert.

Please advise on any that you try.

D

[Terry Coombs]

I think I'd rather feed the 'hoppers to the chickens and eat *them* ...

[Billy]

I'm not sure what's on our squirrels menu, but with 70 F days they are acting as if it were spring, when a young squirrels fancy turns to, well, you know. We are on the side of a hill, with our bedroom window looking int the canopy of an oak forest. Seems there is always a squirrel in pursuit of another squirrel, ah, to be young again.

Sadly our library doesn't have the Firefox book on distilling. If you can make booze, everything else will flow to you.

Some of the herbs are pushing already. THe "mothers wort" is up. I wouldn't be surprised to see bud break on the grape vines in February. There are still a lot of unpruned vineyards waiting for the shears.

The big news is that there is a 50% chance of showers on thur. Keeping my fingers crossed. I'd like one more garden from here. I think by Fall we will have moved on.

You heard of grafted tomatoes?

Unveiled last year in limited release by Log House Plants in Cottage Grove, the first crop of grafted tomatoes took off like a caped crusader. Portland Nursery, one of only four garden centers in the country to carry them, sold out quickly. As soon agraftcloseup.jpgView full sizeCourtesy of Greg Lee/Log House Plants Log House Plants did extensive research in the exacting art of grafting vegetables such as tomato, pepper and eggplant. The scion (the top part of the plant) must be the same size as the rootstock (the bottom part of the plant) and the two stems must meet perfectly.

as people hear about the altogether-different tomatoes, they line up at the checkout counter. Who doesn't want the promise of a plant that produces more fruit for a longer season on a disease- and pest-resistant, vigorous plant that needs less water and fertilizer and adapts to poor soils?

SOURCES Garden centers throughout the Northwest supplied by Log House Plants. Store locator on website.

Territorial Seed Co., 2 1/2-inch plants for $6.95

GardenLife, 4-inch plants for $11.95

TIme to go toes up now. Gotta get up early. I don't quite understand it, but when we should be winding down the lab work, I find myself doing 40 hour weeks. What's up with that?

[songbird]

Billy wrote: ...

:) the same squirrel was back the next day going after those berries again. no running around with the others yet, i think it is still survival times, and hard pressed with this cold being so prolonged and the snows being fairly deep.

or you will be so pickled you won't care.

hope the rains come through for you there.

any plants you'll take with you as favorites or are things generally native and best left alone?

... yeah, we'll see what they do, perhaps they'll endrun the GMO debate and then become popular and common enough to be cost effective. i suspect anything that does not get the beefsteak type name Ma will ignore. she's kinda stuck on them. i should have a good population of feral tomato plants next year. we'll see what happens. that's pretty much going to be my motto for the next 30-40 yrs.

you've become useful and dependable. poor sod. :)

cheers and happy snoozing,

songbird

[Billy]

I know I'm repeating myself, but how about a bird feeder next to your beans?