Dear Kirk & Carol & Kido's Those pictures are priceless ~~~ That little toddler is a prize picture award winning model !!! The picture is out of this world.... Love the Sled...price tag and all!!! Adore the handmade by mother Carol Quilt !!! that precious little adorable smiling face tells it all..... This is the life for me !!! He says !!!!! Thank you sooooooo much for sharing !!!! and Jeannespines.... LOVE YOUR PICS ALso !!!!That bird house is awesome! we have lots and lots of snow here in ILLINOIS but it does NOT seem as beautiful here in the city... as these pics.... guess it makes me miss my oldddd...120 acres in OKLAHOMA ! But NON SQUAWKING FLIGHT>>>> I'm trying to bloom where I'm planted.... It is God's will I am where I am just for TODAY!!! who knows what this NEW YEAR 2008 ~ will bring...... God Bless YA'LL H A P P Y NEW YEAR 2008 !!! see Ya when I get there !! sigh*** ~~~~~~ Susie

I think it shows what a great person you must be and with such caring and devoted friends , you are so Blessed. My neighbors house and one and a half acres are for sale and I sure pray I get someone half as nice as you. I would love to look at stuff like that all day instead of 15 redneck vehicles,a never used trampoline,their chickencoop with plywood leaning against it(which happens to be 10 ft from the pool they never clean)and a flat lawn of weeds.Hope you have a really large yard cuz at the rate you are going you will have so many bears you won't have space to garden!

Bears happen. Here in Montana black bears do wander into our town (well, small city) and cause a lot of problems in orchards and dumpsters. Fish and Game or Wildlife and Parks will humanely deal with them pretty quickly. Usually they dart them and relocate them, sometimes trap. They almost never find it necessary to kill them. I've taken to carrying pepper spray when I'm in the mountains now (as much for wolves and cougar as for bear) and you might consider it. This is a pint aerosol that goes off with a very loud bang and sends a cloud of capsaicin. It has been known to turn charging grizzlies, which is a good trick. One experience with it will convince Black Bear to seek friendlier neighborhoods. Expect to pay forty or fifty bucks for a can. Local bear expert Jamie Jonkel says it will, in fact, deter 9 of 10 grizzlies .... There's no warranty for the tenth bear. You'd have to lay in wait for your bruin, so it may not be practical. I can imagine trying to convince my wife that I needed to sit up and stare at my trees until daybreak! Good luck. We all sympathise. :-)M

Yeah, it would. As you only can harvest 2/3 of the plant. You can plant early, mid and late summer bearing. Some good ones are Encore (late), Prelude (early), and Taylor. I have these and also Cascade Gold. I have yet to evaluate the latter, but the others produce well, and have good tasting berries. Prelude though acts like an everbearing, so not sure why it is considered Summer? It produced a fall crop. Great tasting berries on this one. I really like them. I had a number of fall bearing that also produced late, but I believe it is because they are new. Fall Gold did the same thing for a couple years, but now the fall crop was the first finished of all cultivars. It needed time to adapt I guess? I like both types btw. And yeah you do need a lot of plants to get a decent harvest. But they propagate easily, room is my problem. I'm maxed out, but for a good 7 weeks I was getting about 30 berries a day, this was decent, and expect even more next year. Some fall and almost all the summer bearing didn't produce the first year. Rosanna, Double Gold, and Honey Queen fall bearers bloomed too late. I will keep canes for a summer crop. Himbo Top, Caroline, Polka, Fall Gold, Kiwi Gold, Crimson Night, and Prelude did produce. So next year I should get around 50 berries a day probably for over 9 weeks. Here's a recent photo of part of my full sun patch. The back bed is raspberries. The front beds are blueberries, and strawberries. I also have 2 black raspberries, and 8 blackberry or blackberry-raspberry hybrids. Next year I'm going to be drowning in berries! This year between the 4x4 beds I added 1x4 beds to add beneficial flowers to attract bees and predator insects. I did a little research and have already purchased annual and perennial flower seeds that have those features. Here is a link that might be useful: Flowers for Beneficial Insects