Thanks for all of the positive comments..You are all way to gracious as I'm really not a writer..I always have all of this stuff in my head but I hate to write or type so it never gets down on paper too often..I suppose one of these days I'll write some sort of memory type book before mine(Memory) has diminished to the point where it's all fuzzy..It's funny, this little thing we call life..How when your young you wish it would hurry up and as you start reaching into middle age, you wish nothing more that it would slow down..LOL..I feel in my heart where I differ from the "franchise" is that I would do it anyway whether I made another dollar from it or not..I really do enjoy it..I do not like the business aspect of it that much as far as the filling of orders and dealing with habitual complainers. But that's part of it and it goes with the territory...I do not want to be known as someone who just introdused a pretty face or another mauve with a eye and matching edge...LOL..Not slamming them..Just think that the eye and edge thing has run amuck..I would love to see even bigger full forms up to 10" or so on statuesque plants in the 4-6 foot range..That would be a worthy path I feel..Instead of clogging up the 24-30 inch height range with more of the same..(we still hybridize full forms btw) I just got off the phone with Brian Mahieu earlier tonight telling him how excited I was to see such good plants in our intro's...Plants, not just a face...As I have filled hundreds of orders this spring it has become evident that both Brian and myself have taken the right path in selecting for the plant before the bloom. Details such as mature clumps that just fall apart instead of having to hack up woody type clusters of crowns..Things like beautiful cool mint green foliage that almost has a waxy look to it, and foliage of different colors of burgundy and purple and a few stable variegated ones as well...I loved digging a clump of Svenska today..The fans were spaced apart far enough to lay your fingers in between them on mature clumps..And then to discover this mint green foliage with burgundy pink edges on every leaf was a nice treat as well..I noticed a clump of a select seedling that was completely chartreuse in color..The only one in the field. Not sick or iron defficient, just a very healthy chartreuse...Can't wait to see it bloom..This is a few of the reasons I do this..To really try to get "plants" out there..I lopve trying to figure out why a cross isn't taking..I did probably 30-40 attempts with Scandinavian pollen on Brushed By Bluebirds with not one pod...on my last attempt I selfed BBB and it pulled the trigger and all 20 of my BBB pods with Scandinavia pollen took giving me 96 seeds..Things like that is why I do it...To try and get pods on plants that are pod infertile is a goal for me..I have had some luck doing everything from spraying different sprays to just pleading with the daylily Gods..LOL..Another thing Brain and me play around with is utilizing Tet. pollen via unreduced gametes..We have alot of luck with this and what better way to get Tet genes into your programs..I love good buds and branching..Someting I'm getting better at than when I started...I have some insanely branched and Budded seedlings with amazing increase and rhisomates growth like Kwanso that have come out of crosses like (Citrina X Linda)X (Galaxy Explosion X Hankow)X (Jungle Fowl X Thorhalla) X (Species X Species)..Once you get a line of breeding like that, you can then be assured of a total plant and then have an aweful lot of fun playing around with the blooms..I dont do it for recognition..I dont do it to conform to the standard..I dont go to shows, and don't have time to visit other gardens..I don't care about awards or ribbons..My fulfillment for this is rather simple and I am rewarded every morning I get to see the sunrise and watch all the Bluebirds we have, to watch our little pygmy goats and donkeys play..To have my faithful sidekick cat Mango come to me and love on me without judgement..and to be able to see that seedling bloom for the first time..And of course my family whom without my wife Laura, I would in no way be able to get it all done..My boys are a big help as well...I love all the people I have met..I love seeing peoples faces when they see a bloom that is speacial to there eye and then laugh when they leave with a yellow nose without telling them..I hope all of us who enjoy gardening and daylilies in particular can reflest like this from time to time and not forget why we do this...Antway, enough of my ramblings...Hope I didn't bore the heck out of ya..Later Taters...David.

Emagineer knows of my efforts for a creative "chicken tractor" design and has been helping me with ideas. I'm fairly well limited in what I can lift, don't want more than 3 or 4 hens free-ranging around the backyard, but I've got 10 pullets right now with no special destination for a half-dozen of them. Maybe they've got a final destination but no special one. More important, I've always had chickens then haven't had chickens then had them again. Commercial production hens live only to 17 months of age but I've read research studies that show that keeping them thru a molt can even be an economically reasonable thing to do. I have never pushed them thru a molt to get them back into laying quickly. They've just been kept for almost sentimental reasons but by the time they stop laying a 2nd time I'd have a geriatric ward in the backyard if I continue to house them. The solution to having and not having is to have new ones every year and still not rush the old hens off to the funeral parlor. But, that means having two different age groups together. That's problematic. The solution would be another small coop. I was thinking today what I might do with the space in my small backyard now occupied by the hoop house if I didn't have so much need for it. It catches the overflow of flats from the greenhouse in the Spring. Growing Asian greens during early Spring isn't quite a need, at least not a critical one, but it does that too. Would I be willing to turn that space over to chickens? Naw! We are more garden people than chicken people. But, the idea got me thinking. Perhaps one of the beds could be turned into a bench. I could cover the bench with heavy pond liner plastic and build a coop/pen beneath. When the clear plastic cover comes off the hoophouse in June - presto, chango - baby chicks move in, under the bench. Just an idea for combining the 2 activities. I'm willing to share neither the greenhouse nor the hoophouse with chickens when they are closed up and in production during the Spring but outside of that time period - the hoophouse grows vines up the hoops. Or, it's just hoops rising up out of the ground beneath the grey Winter sky. (May need to shovel a bit more snow around here . . . ;o) And, the way my neighbors are - - I could probably move an 800 pound Bengal tiger into the backyard and they'd never notice anything other than that their damn house cats are underfoot at home a little more than usual!! d'S'

I have a Kodak EasyShare, it's my second one. My first one didn't do closeups very well. My new one is a Kodak EasyShare CX6330, actually lower mega pixels than my first at 3.1 versus 3.2 but exceptional picture quality and very simple to use. Not sure about football field pictures, but otherwise it's a wonderful camera, dead simple to use, and I bought it used on ebay for about $60! There are quite a few comparison and rating articles on the net similar to this one I've linked to - you may find that helps you make a decision on what's best for you. Suzan J Here is a link that might be useful: Digital Camera Comparisons

Interesting thoughts -- we could all improve on paperwork storage in our homes. Two things I think I'm doing well that differ from the above mentioned Script, and someone else might find some ideas in my methods: Taxes. Yes, like Script, I am scrupulous about maintaining records for my taxes. About a dozen years ago I went to the office supply and bought two big boxes of BRIGHT GREEN folders (green like money). I labeled them Taxes 2000 ... Taxes 2001 ... Taxes 2002 ... Taxes 2003 ... and so on. Given my family's typical lifespan, I made enough green folders to take me to age 110 -- probably more than I'll need, but I'm ready! They're all stored in my file cabinet, taking up very little space. Now when I receive anything tax-related -- a charitable receipt, an end-of-the-year bank statement, whatever -- I have a place to file it. In April, I have a place to file a copy of my taxes, and I can go back and see previous tax years. For the rest of my life, this system is in place. Death folder. Ours is a notebook. Two identical notebooks, actually, since we have two children. Our girls are young adults now, but they've never dealt with an estate -- even if they don't open it 'til they're old, it'll be useful to them. It contains a lot of stuff: - A personal letter to the two of them - A list of our wishes about funeral and items we'd like donated to various family members or charities - A list of things they must do immediately; it starts with going to our house and taking possession of the dog, but it also includes small details like canceling our voting registration and destroying any medicines in the house. At every turn this list includes addresses and phone numbers, including the lawyer we suggest for probate, the funeral home our family's always used, and family members who should be contacted. - A copy our will; they know what's in it -- everything split between the two of them - A list of our financial assets -- bank accounts, investments, insurance, deeds/maps of real estate ... when our youngest became a legal adult, we made the two girls co-beneficiaries of every account; note that this was done before either was married, so our two kids -- not future son-in-laws -- will own these items. - A list of the bills we pay each month -- electricity, phone, even the guy who cuts our grass. - Official copies of our birth certificates, our marriage certificates, and the girls' birth certificates -- they might not be needed, but the girls won't have to scramble to find them - A flashdrive with all of the above in digital format plus photographs that might be useful in putting together the funeral Our rule: We keep two years of tax returns in the notebooks ... the reason being that someday an accountant will file our final estate tax return, and he or she will want our last two years of returns -- so every April we pull out the notebook, discard one old return and insert the newest ... so our rule is that every April we look over the notebook and update anything that's changed. For example, last year we changed bank accounts, and someday we hope to add items concerning grandchildren to the book. Our girls know that the notebooks are stored in the safe, and they know where the key to the safe is hidden, and they know it's labeled with a misleading name so that a thief wouldn't look at it twice. Last thought on this notebook: Though this project took us the better part of a year --- we kept remembering one more thing, one more thing that really should be included -- we didn't find it difficult emotionally. I suspect that if we were older and/or one of us were in poor health, it might've been different.