@ fruitnut: Wester is a rielable producer under difficult conditions? @lucky_p: Yes I know, in fact Cape Fear is a Type 1, Kiowa a Type 2. Unfortunately in Italy we have only Cape Fear, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Shoshoni and Wichita. I forgot a nursery sells also Wichita, but by seeing the pollination pattern I excluded it. Than I read that it is subject to Scab. Is Wichita better than Kiowa? Anyway I have struments to spray treatments and I have a patent to buy eventually chemicals. Here we use to treat only grapes but we don't use to treat olives and other fruits. We have a lot of Juglans Regia, the common nut, but we don't use to treat them and they are usually native plants or seedlings. I have 4 big plants, I never treated them and they make good nuts.

This is not really a moment of serendipity but I found it interesting and envy-making in equal parts. I occasionally 'do' some family tree research on behalf of friends and 99% of us are from a long line of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers or in my case ancestors who made nails right up until the 1850's and back as far as the 1590's. What an adventurous lot! But I have just one friend who comes from a background of European quasi-aristocracy with too much money and time on their hands who in the 1800's wandered around German and French spas, having 'affairs', fighting duels, neglecting children. Some of this wealth had come from sugar plantations in Jamaica and as 'handouts' from the winning side of Revolutionary causes. Going back another generation to the 1700's I found a 'respectable' family connection among the English landed gentry . My friend's 7 time great grandparents were called Hampson and Miss Rebecca Hampson married one William Austen who's son the Rev George married Cassandra Leigh who's seventh child was Jane Austen . . . You will remember that Jane Austen mentions in Mansfield Park the 'interests' the Bertram family have in their Jamaican estates and in 'real life' the hard-up sons of the Austen's were helped by their wealthy relations. Just thought I would share this find.

I love it. In fact, I love it much better than the rest of the bathroom, https://thestir.cafemom.com/home_garden/190042/sneak_peek_inside_jennifers_lopezs and color me shocked to find out that it was Jennifer Lopez's house.

So pleasant to see this conversation continuing. I second Rosefolly's wishes for adequate water for us all. German author Heinrich Boell wrote a story titled 'Christmas Every Day'. It's been some decades since I read it, but as I recall, the idea didn't work out well; still, our Christmas lights will be up through this Sunday! It has been so gray! The sun is then forecast to come out, thank goodness, and I HOPE it melts most of the snow, which is still present in abundance. Good luck getting out to your land, bart. I'm hopeful, with the current precipitation, that water supplies won't be a problem this summer. Sheila, hello! Paula, our chief problem is getting the car out of our parking space and onto the pavement a few yards away, as the pavement is plowed but the gravel-and-dirt (mud) parking area isn't. We had a major digging out session several days ago, since when we've been able to exit and re-enter. Paved roads are no problem: they're promptly plowed after snow and are salted. (My brother was surprised about the salting, as it damages vehicles, but, in fact, I've never seen salt damage on cars here, and there are decades-old vehicles in circulation. A mystery.) P.S. Italy is still in strict quarantine until January 15. This means we're not supposed to leave our property except for necessary errands like grocery shopping. So that's another reason to want the snow gone from the garden, so I can fool around there instead. However, like many Italians we're suffering from quarantine fatigue. On Epiphany DD and I went for a walk, clean forgetting that we were supposed to stay home (I remembered when we were a couple of miles from the car). There were a good many other people out walking or cycling too. It was breaking the rules, not a good thing, but at least the chance of catching the infection in the open air was very low. Everybody kept a good distance away from anyone who wasn't in their group.