Hi June, oh yes, you reminded me. We can't stop gardening either. This was the first year I didn't plant a zillion tomato plants and spend a lot of time trying to preserve them. Last year dried them. Still have a bag. "Sun dried tomatoes" was not part of our diet so I am not real good at using them. We got lots of goat stories. One way my grandfather made money during the Depression was raising goats and honey. Apparently my mother had a goat cart when she was little that she used to ride around in, drawn by a goat. The other story about my grandfather is his idea of Thanksgiving. We asked my mother one year what her family had for Thanksgiving. Apparently my grandfather went out on the back porch and shot some thing. What he shot you ate. One year a possum, which I have heard from others on the list is a great treat in some necks of the woods, but not ours. The family dreaded Thanksgiving and what they'd have to eat. His family were Covenanters so they had no Christmas traditions. My grandmother's mother was German (Lutheran) -- they had a lot. However there were relative in Florida who would send up a large box of oranges, mangos and persimmons. I remember them myself. My mother developed a hatred of mangos, the little brat. It's the middle of the Depression and she wouldn't eat the mangos! About this time of year someone asks about Scotch Irish Christmas customs. Not a long thread as they didn't really have any. The Scots didn't go out for Christmas either. Many of the Scotch Irish were just too Calvinist to enjoy such a pagan holiday. Which is why God sent the Germans to Pennsylvania -- so we could have Christmas. My cat came home late yesterday. I'll have to put a photo on the Internet. He looks awful -- shaven rear, no tail, sutures on the hip, drainage tub sutured to his back. Has a Fentanyl patch on his good back leg, which really impressed my brother. His doctor won't give him any. I guess this stuff is a hundred times more powerful than morphine (I read on the Internet). So he's not feeling a lot of pain. Linda Merle ----- Original Message ----- From: "June McLaughlin" <vjunemc@gmail.com> To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 1:10:34 PM Subject: Re: [S-I] SCOTCH-IRISH Digest, Vol 6, Issue 270 "The people who can't stop farming." It's sooooo true. I have tomatoes in pots in my living room window. (the only big enough south facing one). Thank you so very much. All this time I thought I was just garden variety crazy for my attachment to my animals, large and small. Now I see it's a DNA problem--I'm hard wired that way. The goat story was hilarious.