Forgot probably most most favorite food that is good for me.
FRESH, REAL, VINE RIPENED TOMATO FROM MY GARDEN. ABSOLUTELY THE MOST AWESOME FOOD AROUND. EAT IT RIGHT OFF THE VINE. THAT IS ALL YOU NEED.

This post has nothing to do with gardening. It is a rambling bunch of wishes, foibles, and possible money saving tips.

Things I love to eat that are totally not good for me.
1. sour cream
2. cheetos
3. medium rare, well marbled steak
4. fried almost anything (can't help it, I am true southerner)
5. good greasy pork barbecue, (especially from Fat Boys on Nine Mile Road in Pensacola)
6. Fried eggs, sausage, crisp bacon
7. fried, yellow fish roe (especially mullet)
8. pizza, homemade with everything except anchovies, lots of Italian sausage
9. scalloped potatoes, with lots of cheese
10. cheese
11. good, full fat ice cream, except plain vanilla, or chocolate. I want texture in it
12. good greasy crackers
13. potato chips
14. fried oysters, and shrimp (I said I liked fried)
15. lots of cashews and other mixed nuts, macadamia nuts must come directly from heaven rather than Hawaii
16. slices of baked ham as snack, no bread, make sandwich with ham wrapped around Swiss cheese


Foods I like that are actually good for me:
1. citrus fruits, esp satsumas (tangerines for those non- southerners)
2. berries. strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, others too, but these are local
3. fresh squash, even raw in salads
4. humungous green salads
5. sauteed onions and squash
6. boiled shrimp
7. grilled meat of almost any kind
8. my version of blackened redfish, with Tony Chachere's seasoning
9. buttermilk
10. fresh, hot cornbread made with buttermilk and no eggs or fat other than in skillet to prevent sticking, cast iron skillet must be almost smoking when you pour in cornbread
11. fresh corn on cob, without butter or salt
12, raw corn directly from the stalk. If you've never tried t, don't knock it. Mine doesn't have any pesticides on it, so I know it is safe
13. fresh herbs to use in cooking
14. raw green beans, and green peas
15. fresh southern style cream corn, no cream, but picked at just right time, from stalk to table within an hour
16. pineapple, canned, no sugar, or fresh
17. fresh peaches, freestone preferably
18. watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melon
19. fresh green bell peppers
20. apples right off the tree
21. fresh, homemade lemonade
22. ice water, to drink, not shower

Now for practical:

If your dryer is not drying clothes, check the vent and vent pipes. Venting the dryer straight outside, without any elbows, curves, etc is best. It is easier to clean lint from a straight vent line.
If you have elbows in the vent line, check for lint build up, probably at least every six months. I know of people who have bought new dryers, and found the dryer was okay, but the vent line was clogged with lint. Symptoms are dryer not drying clothes completely, kicking off too soon, and not getting hot enough. This can also cause a fire. Always clean the dryer drum lint filter after each drying. Also wash the filter occasionally, probably monthly if you use fabric softener, either the liquid or the sheets.
Another dryer vent problem, (and this one is new to me, but I learned this today) is water collecting in the vent line. This will happen when the vent line has to go lower than the dryer, and then has an elbow and is eventually vented out higher than the dryer. Condensation collects in the low area, and will actually prevent the dryer from venting and will cause the dryer to kick off because it overheats before the clothes are dry.

If you dry clothes on the line, but don't really like the scratchy feel you get, there are two ways this can be alleviated. You can either dry in the dryer for five minutes or so before you put them on the line, or put in the dryer for a few minutes after you take them in from the line. Not quite as much a saving as total line drying, but there is less complaining. This also cuts way down on the wrinkling. Notice, I didn't say use fabric softener.

Want to make your bird feeders more squirrel resistant? Notice I said "resistant" not squirrel proof. One of the first things you need to do is to make sure you have the feeder at least 15 feet from anything the squirrel can use to jump on the feeder, limbs, tables, etc.
We had the best luck with putting the feeders on a T shaped construction of 4" pvc pipe. If you don't want the pvc pipe messing up your color scheme of your yard, Krylon makes a spray paint called "Fusion" that works on plastics. Kinda pricey, but will work. We also put a piece of 12-15" square of light weight sheet metal about 40-48" above the ground and slightly curved the metal downwards.
I am so proud of me. This is the first time I have downloaded anything to a blog. My six year old laptop didn't want to cooperate, but I played around and got it to work.
Now back to reality. this is what the metal looks like. This has been together for about five years, and is not the prettiest in the world, but it works. Now reasons for using this. Don't use hardware cloth or anything the squirrels can get their claws in. They will hold on and climb it. Use the round 4" pvc for the cross piece because if they do jump from a tree limb, etc., they are less likely to grab hold. If you use really small pvc, they will grab around it and shinny along the crosspieces to get to the feeders. They can grab wood. Same for the vertical. You can also spray the pipe with WD-40, kitchen non-stick spray, or a light coat of cooking oil, but we don't use anything with this arrangement.
You have to put the metal about 40-48" from the ground or they will jump up on it, but if you have the downward slope, they are less likely to be able to get to the feeders. We use cup hooks screwed in the bottom of the crosspiece to attach the feeders. We hold the metal in place with lots of duct tape for it to rest on and a little to hold at the top. It doesn't have to be stationary, and is actually better if it is unstable. It was really fun watching the squirrels trying to outwit this for a while, but now they don't even try.
You may want to cap the ends of the crosspieces, or you may have nests of unwanted birds there, or you can use this as extra nesting sites.
It only took us about 7 years to learn to outwit squirrels. We still have lots in the yard, and they feed on the dropped seeds from the feeders, but don't get to the feeders.

On saving seeds, you may get some VERY INTERESTING things if you save seeds from F1 hybrids. This is what happened when I did that. I saved some seeds from dwarf marigolds, that only get about 6 inches tall. Two or three generations later, when the saved seeds germinated, they grew as if they were on massive doses of steroids. They were two feet tall within a month and looked very strange. I decided to let a few grow. They were finally more than seven feet tall and had a trunk that was about four inches in diameter. They still had the distinctive marigold aroma, but the flowers were little white thingys about 1 inch in diameter and loosely organized. Even though the leaves didn't have the proper shape, and configuration, the plants resembled another Mexican import that is highly illegal. I took them up and destroyed them. After having taught basic Mendelian genetics for more than twenty years, I knew I may get some "interesting" results from planting F1 hybrids, but this result was a little over the top. I don't do F1 marigold seed saving any more.
This goes back to the old premise, "A flower is only a weed that is where we want it and behaves the way we want it to behave"