Power out for 12+ hours yesterday thanks to a cheap neighbor who could have been responsible for a death when that severely leaning 4 ft diameter tree finally fell on the lines and the road. 18 trucks, red, white and yellow, on our tiny road and we were not allowed out until 8PM. I called the power company and told them I would be happy to file affadavit that this was entirely avoidable. Most of us work from home here so much money lost on account of these cheap home owners in addition to the (my estimate) minimum 30K spent by power company and highway department to clean up the mess, replace 2 poles and wire on entire street to get utilities back in here. There are burn marks and holes in the street and the power company was here all day too. Grumble grumble. Just so completely avoidable! Chelone, nope, greys are very prone to osteosarcoma but don't have ACL troubles. I think I've read some ACL problems are caused by weight, and greys don't have weight problems. Others caused by gymnastics the dogs bodies aren't built for. Greys just run, they don't tumble or wrestle. Kathy, you must be a pro at implants by now :) I had 3 a few years ago and 1000mg ibuprofren and a good nights sleep got me through them one at a time. But then I do have a tendency not to remember pain. Katie's cart came today. She hates it. I've never seen Ms. Confidence tuck her tail and it was practically under her chin. She wouldn't move even for a hot dog. We'll try again tomorrow and maybe I'll coat the thing in peanut butter. Time for doggie supper and then I need to find something to eat too.

Linda and LunR, Great advice, everyone! Linda, Thanks for clarifying about the light! bulbs. I've decided to get light fixtures for plants I want to display in my living room. I will probably look on line at the places you suggest. The Tokyo trip must have been fantastic!! Thanks for the tip about cinnamon, as I am getting ready to perform surgery. In having a "violet talk" with a friend today, I learned that her sister lost most of her collection to a bug. Someone had given her a plant she did not isolate that infected the lot. She has disinfected, and is ready to replace. I offered to pass along some of my back-ups and plantlets. This is incentive for me to don my surgical scrubs to go after any suckers, etc., as they will go to a home in need. One more question for today, does it happen that a plant with double or triple petals might result in a single or sem-double blossom from leaf propagation? I know that the colors might not have the full range as the parent. We were discussing whether leaf propagation might affect petal count, also. She commented that her plants "like to be crowded and grow two or three in a pot." I am trying to think of a tactful way to address this issue. Perhaps I can offer a free grooming session. Rain keeps Californians from going out. It is amusing for those of us from rainy climates. They also are amazed when they do go to a wet climate and see people walking around with umbrellas! They must think they are African violets, afraid to get their leaves wet! I am discovering Violet Friends are lots of fun to talk to. (Or perhaps we all just have undiagnosed OCD.) @ LunR Gorgeous ring, and a fun design! Joanne

Annie, I remember last year you said you could get a bushel of apples for $6. My friends make a giant kettle of apple butter, maybe 55 gallons, and they paid $13/bushel last year even with the large quantity they needed. Problem is, those cheap orchards aren't online. Maybe I'll find out where they got theirs. It's over an hour drive to their house, but there's a peach orchard nearby so if I time it right in the season I can do your "peach jam for a cold morning" the same weekend. Wish I could do peach-raspberry jam, but the berry farm with fall raspberries is over an hour in the opposite direction! That 55 gallons of apple butter is something to see. They grind the apples a few days in advance & let them start to ferment, then add tons of sugar in a huge copper kettle over an outdoor fire. Last year toward the end they decided it wasn't quite sweet enough & added another 50-lb bag of sugar! The thing is, they open-kettle can it, zillions of quarts. One year they stacked the jars back in the boxes while hot, and a bunch hadn't sealed by the second day, so they started moving the boxes to check the ones on the bottom. Lo & behold, once they started cooling, they started pinging like crazy. I know fruit butters are pretty low-risk, but I was a little surprised at how nonchalant they were about it. Maybe I fret too much over my canning, but what about a happy, safe medium? Melissa

Finally, it does drive me a bit crazy when, on many threads here I read that the headspace in the recipe must be followed exactly, but later find that: "Sure the recipe calls for 1/2" but that doesn't mean that you MUST use 1/2". Hmmmmm. On the headspace issue - you are talking about 2 very different things. ;) Yes, you must follow the recipe when it comes to MINIMUM headspace left. If it says 1/2" then yes there must be a minimum of 1/2" and no LESS. But it is safe and allowed to increase head space slightly if needed. If it says 1/2" then you can safely INCREASE it. Not to 2 or 3" obviously but to 3/4-1" instead of the 1/2". We have found this to be very helpful over the years when dealing with very thick products such as salsa and apple pie filling. And you will find many approved recipes for salsa which stipulate 1" headspace so with that particular thing there is an approved range. Very difficult to learn about how that might work by just filling up jars with water and heating them up in the canner for practice... It is a very beneficial practice as many will tell you and is a standard practice recommended in many canning classes. Not only does it let you learn control of the heat and pressure stability but it teaches you about siphoning causes and how to prevent it. A few runs with jars of water filled to the 1/2" mark but that come out with more headspace when finished shows that you either aren't stabilizing pressure as well as you think, aren't screwing the bands on enough, or have an imperfect seal before processing. Granted you can't learn about the removing all the air from the jar before capping cause or the starch foods cause, etc. but it does help. I forgot to post the link above. Sorry. Most of the rest just comes with practice over time as there are just many variables - in this case variety of apples, syrup density, your stove, how strong your twist on the bands, etc. - to control or predict them all. So, for what it is worth, we use Granny Smith and Sungold apples because that is what our trees are, we slice vertically because we find it is easier to fill the jars, we use a 1 c measuring cup to dip out and to fill with slices and syrup (we use the standard fruit medium syrup recipe) at the same time to the shoulder of the jar then remove all the air bubbles and top off the jar with syrup only to the bottom thread, check for air bubbles again, wipe the tops, screw on the lids and bands to finger-tight, and process. We bring the heat up slowly till the PC has vented well for 10 minutes then put on the 10# weight. Once it begins to rock we slowly reduce the heat in micro-amounts until it is just doing its minimum rocking motion (our gauge reds slightly over 10# at that point), and begin the timing. When the timmer goes off, we turn off the heat and let the canner sit till zero. We wait an additional 10 mins. then crack the lid, wait a min. or so and remove it keeping it turned away. We check the jars to see if they are still bubbling. If so we let them sit until they stop and then remove them carefully. We have minimal if any siphoning problems but then wife and I have been doing this for more years than many have been alive. ;) Dave Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP Causes of siphoning