Ya know, that reminds me of a story. I was bent over, weeding the hostas this summer and I heard this strange sound. Then this aroma of ... fragrant hosta ... filled the air ... How far can a dog run into the forest ... ÃÂ.ÃÂ --~ dave we enable all we can ... glad to have you along for the ride.

The early mornings are dark now, and the shadows longer. I love this transition time. A fox or two moved into this city neighborhood that abuts a pond and wildlife corridor, so the rabbits are really under control this year. YES! My out-of-control russian sage plants are badly in need of trimming down, but the honey bees and bumblers are still on the flowers all day. I just cant deprive them yet. Our surviving tomatoes are looking and tasting great. So far, we've eaten every single one in some recipe or another. I plan to roast any remaining ones and freeze. Peppers I just chop and freeze. This garden is just the perfect size for one person, (two when dear daughter comes home to visit) I spent years with a huge garden and the annoyance of trying to deal with excess produce. I can't honestly say that I appreciated the frozen/canned stuff much later on. The thrill is in the seed, plant, watching and anticipation and great taste of sun warmed veggies. So, I gave up the big garden, the canner, the dehydrator, all the mason jars. How do the rest of you feel about the new-found back to the earth movement that is gaining ground now? I must say that I do appreciate the local small gardeners that participate in the local farmers markets. But it is the cheesemakers, the florists and bakers that usually steal my heart and money. Aren't we lucky to live in Wisconsin, where the Germanic and other ethnicities combine to bring us some of the best food in the midwest? Pondy

I have said that there are simple things you can do which doesn't entail a great deal of time and money to give you more options to achieve desirable photo effects. One of the annoying things with picture taking is unwanted reflections. You can buy a polarizing filter for your lens and significantly eliminate them. The filter is not expensive from $5.00 to $20. Just find one that fits your lens screw mount. The following side-by-side photos of a soup I made which show identical lighting, exposure, and angle of shot for the pictures. By changing the rotation of the filter, you can cut out a significant amount of unwanted reflections. This can give you better saturation of colors and sharper definition of you subject. As I remember, some time ago Lars was saying that he had problems photographing samples for his work. I think with a polarizing filter, many of his issue would go away. And BTW, SharonCB has done an amazing job in putting together a professional series of tutorials. Look for them here. dcarch

Well, my redone kitchen better represents me than the kitchen which came with this house, but No, I cannot say it represents my "essence." Plus I find that's a constantly shifting line. As I age and as my life's circumstances change I find so have I. In a huge way. Seven years ago if I'd been asked to name my dream car it would be w-i-l-d-l-y different than my answer today, today as the 40 year-old mother of two young children. Today my answer is a minivan and guess what? That's what I drive! Woohoo for me! We moved into this house with a baby and a toddler and tout de suite set about remodeling the kitchen (most of the house). It was not something over which I'd ruminated, dreamt for years, and I kinda regret that. I know that today, nearly five years of living in this house as a growing family, I would do it all so much differently. Now I have a better idea the rhythm of our family and what it means, plus, of course, having spent the past four+ years visiting GW has definitely made me think more about my "kitchen essence!" To get to my essence we would've had to build from scratch, and I psychically could not have done that then. We made the best choice for our family at the time: we were moving from an area with horrible schools (San Francisco, CA) so schools were first, second and third on our list. With little children we also wanted to be in a young family filled and friendly neighborhood, and we have that in droves. We are so lucky in that regard! The house is fine -- my dream, my essence? Nope. Not even close. But we have a beautiful, easy walk to my eldest's school (which is fantastic) with our neighbors, and our school district provides a wonderful education and superlative therapeutic services to my youngest (who is severely impacted with Penelope Syndrome). Next door to us is one of my eldest's best friends, and three houses down is another of his friends. We got what we wanted. We absolutely settled, compromised on the house, and it was worth it. My partner and I do occasionally talk about the "what ifs": what if we'd somehow known then what we know now, what we would have, could have done differently. But we wouldn't have the joy of walking to school and living amongst these other families. We picked and we chose, and we can live with that. Just like I can happily, easily live with the kitchen we redid. It works, and it works pretty well.