Yay! I just found out about manure closer to my house, too. It may be pretty fresh, (I haven't gone yet) but the stuff I picked up this spring wasn't as well-aged as what I'd gotten last year, anyway. I guess I should go get some soon, so I can age it for next year. I kind of need some right now, too!

Zabby, I could have used your help on that dinner! Our waitress/friend guessed the crab sauce had no cream, but when I made it just with chicken stock, wine, butter, and flour, it tasted like gravy! I'm sure an expert sauce-maker could have done better but I would have preferred a cream sauce to what I made. Maybe next time I eat there I'll talk to the guy who made up the recipe. It was a special, it's not always on there. Anyway, ok dinner, but I should stick to cooking vegetables since they're always my favorite part of the dinner anyway...I finished the broccoli and potato cakes but not the halibut. Thanks to all the feedback, I decided to use up the crab by making crab cakes tonight. I looked at Tyler Florence's recipe (which my friend made once) and kind of estimated for the amount of crab I had. They were good, not very stuck together, but great taste and hardly any filler. I fried some leftover mashed potatoes into potato cakes, sauteed some mushrooms that didn't fit in my shepherd's pie, and spread leftover roasted garlic on bread my friend made & brought. Voila! A delicious dinner for two created entirely from leftover ingredients. The best part was the drinks, which I made with both the halibut and the crab cakes. Also inspired by my favorite restaurant. Lavender citrus martini: Mix vanilla vodka with a bit of Cointreau, enough lemon juice to give it a little tartness, and lavender simple syrup (I like it kind of sweet). Delicious! Lavender simple syrup: Mix equal parts (by volume) sugar and water in saucepan. Add a few sprigs of lavender and boil till sugar dissolves. Cool in a jar in the fridge, leaving in the lavender. Use up within a day or two. Good in the martini, delicious over grapefruit, spectacular in lemonade. Dancinglemons, glad to see someone else in central VA. I wonder how many of us there are. I was thinking of organizing a berry-picking trip to Westmoreland Berry Farm on the Northern Neck. My kitchen isn't big enough to host a jam-making afterward, but we could have a canned goods pot luck picnic at the berry farm. Maybe I'll make a post in May when it's almost berry season. Melissa

Sadly, I remembered all of them,,,I must be older than dirt...LOL But now, in reviewing those questions a few more came to my mind... For those of you who remember Howdie Doody, what was the name of the sea capt puppet? I think I remember all the other characters on the show,,,MC= Buffalo Bob, then Clairabelle the clown, Chief Thunder Thud the indian chief, the indian princess was Princes Summer,fall, winter, spring, and the puppets were Flub-a-dub, Phineas T. Fillibuster and that darned sea capt I can't remember. Anyone remember the Winkie Dink show? and if so, did you have the plastic overlay for your TV so you could draw on the screen? Jemdandy,,,I not only remember all the above items but all that you posted as well,,, not only do I remember the Grayhound serving nearly every community, if you lived in the country on the buss route you could stand beside the road and raise your arm, and the buss would actually stop and pick you up,,imagine that. How about soda fountains where you could get a phosphate, or how about a cherry coke, vanilla coke, chocolate coke or lemon coke? And the cokes were a nickle.. A banana split was 25 cents, but who ever had that kind of money to spend? I grew up on a dairy farm and our neighbor had a John Deere A that you started by turning the flywheel...People today would not have a clue what the flywheel was for? They have never seen flat belt drive stationary machinery.. I began working on the threashing machine crew at 7yrs old. I worked the grain sacker and operated the stack blower or drove a team of horses hauling the grain in from the fields. Not only were the bicycles single speed direct drive, they all had those wide 24 or 26x 2.125 tires. In our town when you got a bicycle you had to take it to the police station and pay $.50 to register it. They turned it upside down and got the serial number off the main crank housing and a description, make, model, color etc, plus your name, address & phone number, and they issued you a small metal license plate (like the metal license plate shaped name plates the sell as novelties). The plate was a miniature version of the regular car plates issued by the state and you had to attach the plate on the back of your seat so the number was visible from the rear. If you got caught riding a bike without a license the cops would impound it and make your parents bring proof of purchase to get it back, plus you paid a $10 fine and had to register it before you got it back. On the other hand, bicycle thefts were almost unheard of because everyone knew the cops had the serial numbers recorded and could find out if you owned it. Remember when 8 or 10 boys would get together on a vacant lot with a ballbat, a ball and maybe a glove or two, and we played ball all day. We didn't need any special leagues coaches or schedules to have fun. Remember when you "Word Processor" was made out of wood and had point on one end and an eraser on the other? How about "Book straps" for toting your school books? Remember when you could always tell which houses the young girls lived in cause there was a hop scotch drawn on the sidewalk with chalk.... How about playing jacks on a rainy day? And talking about all the regulations on lead today,,does anyone remember when we had a lead melting pot on a little electric hotplate and a mold to cast our own lead toy soldiers? And we used to go to the grocery store and steal the lead balance weights off ppls car tires while they were shopping to have lead to play with...LOL Does anyone remember when we had a dress code in school? Oh, and here is a flash from the past, do any of you remember in the 50's when we had the "Duck & cover" drills? For those who don't know what that is, we went to school in the early days of atomic weapons and the cold war, and they had a special signal in school, when you heard it you ducked down under your desk on your knees, head face down between your knees and hands clasped on the back or your kneck to protect you from the blast of an atomic weapon. The continued to make the green stamps until well into the late 70's. By that time I was driving a company owned tractor trailer and when on the road I only stopped at truckstops that gave the stamps. I would buy $50 or $100 worth of fuel on a P.O. number from the company and I kept the stamps.. They also made some Yellow trading stamps.. Cigarettes were $.23 a pack but the vending machines took a quarter so they packs had two pennies under the exterior cellophane wrapper.

I visited in 2010 for the first time. My favorite memory is walking across the Brooklyn Bridge into the city. It's the first thing I thought of when I learned we were going! At the center, there was a man doing ink drawings ..I bought two..St Patrick's Cathedral and of course the Brooklyn Bridge. Both are framed and hang in the living room. We took a cab to the Brooklyn side and walked into the city, which made for some great photos. We also really enjoyed the Pedicabs/rickshaws. They are everywhere and made for a new and fun experience for us. The cab rides were waaay to scary for me, lol. We also loved Central Park and enjoyed a carriage ride through it. If you stay in Times Square, beware the character crew that appear to be willing to take pics with you but we had an unpleasant experience ( and scary for my little grand daughter). Some actually got into fights with one another over who got more tips. We stayed at The Millenium/Broadway in Times Square. We also got invited into GMA studio for the live show which was an unexpected treat after it started raining, lol. Do your research if time permits and find things interesting to you...most of all have fun! Just a word of advice...if you take the cabs, close your eyes till the ride is over..oye