"Think Spring!" seed swap now on Saturday March 1

It was great fun being helped by Joyanna! :)

Jill had sorted the caladiums so I only had to sort the tuberose and pull the orders. Jill, I don't know how you do so much with just one hand!

Gosh, I'm so sorry I had to miss this!!!! =( I'm glad you all had such a wonderful time, you guys are the BEST people I have ever been Blessed to know!!

I sure hope Ric went home with that pocket-full of coconut shrimp... =) LOL!!!!!!!!!

Oh WOW sounds like you all had a great time. I know Ric did.
Ecnalg, Did you get the Glass Plate Flower, Ric could remember who got it?

Holly, sure hope you are feeling better. You, too Gita.

Joyanna picked out your beautiful glass flower plate, Holly -- because, she said, she knew I would love it! And I do. :-)

I can use my left arm despite the lymphedema swelling, just have to be careful about how much I do with that hand and try to not lift too much. At least the right shoulder is good again! Last fall was so frustrating, not being able to do anything, pretty much, with either hand for several weeks. Hoping for a strong, healthy, fun spring in the garden for all of us!

Gita and Holly, I sure hope you both get to feeling better really soon!! Tough little Gita, making it to the seed swap anyway, sniffles and all. You're such a trooper!! =)
Jill, I really hope your arm/hand are ready for a busy spring!

Ric started a Seed Starting thread in the forum, go check it out

Sally, I saw that and peeked around... don't have anything worthwhile to contribute to it though since I don't start anything indoors, but it's cool to read and learn. :)

Oh, you should sow at least a few indoor seeds, Speedie -- they're such fun to watch!

I have pain in the Sciatica Joint, compressing a nerve, It is a screaming pain, If I lay flat on my back and don't move I am ok. But any movement turns me in to a puking, light headed, bundle of pain. Trip to the hospital didn't help much. They gave me an inject able pain relief that did help but can't bring that home with me. The muscle relaxer hasn't done anything yet and the tramodol barely touches the pain. I was able to lay in the car to get up to the hosp. Ric went in to try and get a stretcher so I wouldn't have to walk in but they wouldn't give me on said they only do that for trauma patients not just for patients with pain. I heard the intake person tell someone that I was demanding, when I told them I couldn't stand long enough for them to take my blood pressure and some other small things they wanted me to do. I told them needed to get me to a bed now. They had one right there in the same room but apparently thought I was demanding because I needed to get off the hip and lay down before I puked on the floor or passed out.

I've thought about it, and even once I tried ... something, don't remember what... set up on top of the refrigerator. (good warmth, and the under-cabinet lights were just the right height above them)... but now our fridge is just too darned high for me to reach (we've gotten a new one since that failed experiment). There really is no place for it now. < =/ That's ok, I enjoy direct sowing and winter sowing just as much! =)

Holly, you should have just puked right on the mean person, that would have taught them that you're NOT KIDDING AROUND HERE!!!! I'm so sorry your "care" was anything but... the health "don't" care industry is just getting worse and worse anymore.

Holly, I'm so sorry to hear you're struggling with so much pain!! :-( And also having to deal with staff who label patients negatively for expressing their needs. :-(

Every once in a while I almost wish I was in health care again... so I could spoil and pamper the "demanding" ones - they were always my favourites and I so loved to spoil them rotten. There is simply no such thing as that "demanding" person, only people who are in need, and that's (supposed to be) what we're there for.
♥

Well the Dr and Nurse that took care of me were very good. It was just the intake person. I have a call into my ortho guy and hope to get some relief soon. going to do my exercises after I eat the breakfast Ric just brought me.

Oh my Holly so hard to have to be your own patient advocate and have to squeak so loudly and often to get help. Often it is the 'difficult' ones that get attention but where that judgment exists the 'healing compassion' we all need is held in check for 'real emergencies'. Sounds like that hospital and all its staff needs to be loved on alot. Hospitals and ERs should definitely be bully and abuse free zones! Sorry you had to go through that in addition to your pinched nerve.

Ditto to the well placed puke! but that is only temporary relief.

Holly, I'm sorry to hear you're in so much pain. In addition to well-timed and well-placed puke, does the hospital solicit feedback on patients' experiences? If you don't know it, you could probably find out the name of the intake person. She probably is making other patients miserable, not to mention compromising their health.

Holly, which hospital is this? (you can either abbreviate it or send me a D-mail) Since I am on Coumadin for the rest of my life, any surgeries or procedures I need, have to be done the same day because I have to be off Coumadin 5 days prior. Well, since I am due for a colonoscopy & they want to do an endoscopy and my doctor at the pain clinic wants to give me an injection for my sciatic nerve which is acting up again after 2 years of peace & quiet after the last injection, I am scheduled for all 3 on March 11 @ Hershey Med. Yes, you can complain about the Admissions person because you have the right to as a patient, whether in-pt or out-pt to their customer relations dept. Please have Ric call the hospital and ask whom you call & for the phone number. They should have it in their records who admitted you, since everybody has to sign everything. Good luck!

This message was edited Mar 3, 2014 2:45 PM

Sorry there is pain among any of you.Let me know how everything turns out.I'm waiting to see what century Md.will pass the medicinal marijuana law! I 'm mostly confined to the house when I feel this amount of pain.I take injections to control the progression of the MS,but,I don't have/ can not use traditional pain killers.Enough of that,my solstice seed sowing probably failed,but I spend days on my I- pad searching for ideas of anything gardening.Found Instructables site,some rather interesting ideas,others just plain bizarre .Until later,take care all.

Sos, good to hear from you! I hope you'll drop in again when you get a chance and share some of your internet gleanings. :-)

Quite honestly, I rather worry about national legalization of marijuana. Once it's legalized across the board, then it will be in the government's total control, and we can see how that affected the innocent little tobacco leaf. Once upon a time, tobacco was just that: tobacco LEAF. Now all the chemicals in it - well, it's horrid!! Mary Jane will be headed for the same chemical-drenched fate, I can see it now.

Speedie, in the case of tobacco, the government was not the responsible party.

Tobacco was completely unregulated for a long time, and advertisements were geared towards children and adolescents until they were banned only recently. Even that was a long and tough battle, as the tobacco industry didn't want to give up this lucrative market.

It wasn't until the 1960s that health hazards were being revealed and the Surgeon General started getting involved. That's when the government got involved and tried to control the sale/advertisement of tobacco, but it took a long time as the tobacco lobby is so powerful, especially in the South.

Always good to know the history of our nations largest 'cash crops' like tobacco. wood, cotton, rice, indigo, sugar, corn, wheat, soybeans and marijuana and whose hands are in the pot and pulling the legis;ative strings as opposed to appearances or the company line.

claws.wcu.edu/.../tobacco%20&%20cotton%20south%20AEHi.pdf

One thing I remember from my 60's hippy days was how DuPont was able to get the growing of hemp prohibited in America by painting it as an evil drug and leading to Reefer Madness' just to limit competition for industry profits.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/12/05/how-hemp-became-illegal-the-marijuana-link/

I also remember that one joint shared among 12 friends got everyone high. A much different weed than exists now.
Imagine how dismayed and reangered I am to find out that DuPont was also instrumental in vilifying Milkweed and swaying the pubic to consider it a noxious weed to eliminate the competition for 'latex' based products!

That we seed swap and plant swap is a radical act!
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There are strains of marijuana that are very low in THC and don't get you high. They're used only for pain relief. Can you imagine trading cannabis seeds at the winter seed swap?? They're probably doing that already in Colorado! Lol

There's something really cool about growing your own pain reliever. When I was sick earlier this week, just a couple of advils made me feel better. Imagine if I just cooked up something from my kitchen!

Well, there I go again, blaming the gov't for everything, Yikes!! Tsk tsk. =/ So, when did it become the practice to start putting all the chemicals into 'regular' cigarettes, and whose bright idea was it??

I've heard from folks from Colorado that, though marijuana is now legal, there are still many who will not buy it from the legal sellers because there's loads of questions to answer, and they just don't want their personal affairs "out there" to be tracked and monitored.

Judy, if our radical seed swaps mean thwarting that big business venture of trying to make people believe Milkweed is bad, then I need to learn how to become a BIGGER, BETTER radical! =)

Flavor enhancers have been used with tobacco for hundreds of years, because it's apparently not very tasty in its pure form.

When tobacco companies put filters on cigarettes to make them appear healthier, they also started putting in chemicals flavor enhancers like ammonia.

A Big Tobacco whistleblower went on 60 Minutes and also testified in court that tobacco companies were boosting the addictive effects of cigarettes and adding lung-specific carcinogens as flavor enhancers.

Big Tobacco execs actually testified in front of Congress in **1994** that nicotine was not addictive.

That was even though corporate research showed that it was; clear perjury on an issue affecting a nation's health, but instead congress prosecutes Roger Clemens for perjury about his personal use of steroids.

btw, I meant to apologize... there were several things I was still trying to split & label the morning of the seed swap, actually brought them with me thinking I'd get a minute to finish up at the party ROFLOL so if you didn't get basils, garlic chives, etc from me I'm sorry. They can be direct-sowed any time, so I'll bring seeds (plants too, hopefully) to the spring plant swap.

I also didn't get my 'Silky Deep Red' tropical milkweed seeds from Hazzards split, and I can't remember if I brought that pack with me to the swap or not... it hasn't yet surfaced, but those who saw my dining room table aren't surprised by that... I'm planning to start a bunch of it and share seedlings at the plant swap.

As always, I pledge to start earlier next year! LOL If I participate in the "piggy swap" in fall, that should get me going, plus Joyanna is getting more interested in harvesting seeds. :-)

LOL I was noticing the opium poppy seeds as well! :-D

Hmmmm, we're gonna have to keep a close eye on you two! ;)

Speediebean, you inspired me to find out whether birds eat Papaver somniferum seeds. Answer: yes. Wisegeek says that all of the poppy seeds that we eat (and that are in bird mixes) come from opium poppy plants and that "seeds that come from other varieties of poppy plants are not suitable for human consumption. They are generally used to grow annual and biannual flowers." http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-poppy-seed.htm

I have never seen Papaver somniferum (non-native) growing in the wild in my area, so I wonder how invasive it is. If it's in mixed bird seed, you would think we'd see at least some plants in the wild.

We supposedly do not have the proper climate for Papaver somniferum to mature and produce "commercially useful" seed pods, hence it is grown as an ornamental without significant governmental intervention. Likewise, mature seeds would not likely be produced to spread in our local environment.

Haha, that's good to know, greenthumb. I was wondering why this seed wasn't regulated.

Thanks, greenthumb; it's good to know it's not an invasive.

This discussion reminded me of something else: some years back, there was talk of regulating Salvia because teenagers somehow figured out how to get a buzz out of them.

Salvia divinorum. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum

Whew! So my Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' and Salvia lyrata are safe.

reminds me of the time I saw guys picking pods from wild jimsonweed- I still think they were going to make something "funny"

Okay, so I don't need to feel guilty about sowing opium poppy seeds! LOL!

Thank you, green thumb! I have tried collecting seeds from poppies and was wondering why it never worked for me. Now I don't need to keep spinning my wheels.