I believe once you get south of Illinois it really opens…once you get the flow of the Missouri and a few other rivers.
What is your recipe?
vodka
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You just smash them up and add to the vodka? Sounds good!
yes. I also put some spice in. Each bottle, one with ginger cinnamon, one with honey, one with lemon balm, one with mint, one with ginger honey. Original receipt came from Chinawith no spices. They use very high % alcohol grain liquor. It is said that it is good to help the body to regulate in order to fight the summer heat. Another fruit, Chinese barberry also can be used this way.
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How does that differ from a tincture?
I should have a ton of elderberries that i need to do something with. Would like to make some homemade sambucol.
Yes! I have talked to them about it. A couple Merchant Marines live on the island. One guy too flies all the company flags and they sound the horn every time they pass his house, and the Merchant Marines place too.
In the winter the ships will put Christmas lights up, pretty cool! I never got a photo though!
I have only been sailing a few times, each time was fantastic, I like the silence of no engine!
I kayak every so often on the river/lake. Its fun but it almost needs to be windy or it gets very warm. Also need a hat/sunglasses and sunscreen or you bake.
This is the biggest thing that makes it this far north. I believe it gets all the way to the Twin Cities. The smoke stacks come down so that they can get under the bridges.
I really think they should dredge the entire river system and put locks in place that allow full size cruise ships to make it here so i don’t have to fly to Florida 
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I bet after a few drinks of that you don’t care how hot it is, lol. It looks good, thank you for the recipe.
Beautiful ship! Photos look awesome.I want to Kayak more myself. I need to buy one, one of these days!
I received 4.75 inches of rainfall in my backyard orchard today. All of it fell between 11:30 pm and 10 am. Pretty impressive…
With the wind during the overnight storms I lost the top of a Redbud cultivar “The Rising Sun.” I’m bummed by not terribly surprised, as my specimen was in its 2nd year in my yard and last year and this spring grew small leaves. Redbud usually has a fist-sized leaf and these were half-dollar size. It also didn’t grow very thick wood. Somehow it hit a growth spurt in the last month and was growing full sized leaves. It couldn’t bear the weight of this year’s foliage in the wind and snapped. 
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Took out a bunch more garlic. I could kill so many vampires…it’s not even funny.
It’s almost chilly here this morning. I have 64F… its very cloudy and a NW wind is blowing. SO weird. Suppose to be near 90F Sat/Sun so i better enjoy this.
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Interested to hear how it tastes since we are in the same general area. I had two beautiful Flavor Supreme fruits developing on a branch I grafted last year, but they were on a smaller twig off of the main branch and the twig broke under their weight. I had no idea pluots could get so BIG!!!
We picked cherries at a u pick orchard in New Mexico today. My little boy may have eaten one or two.
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OMG, that is just too adorable, Mark, thanks for sharing! Reminds me of my summers spent up in Vancouver, BC. Our German neighbor across the alley had a huge, huge Bing cherry tree. I was allowed to climb up it (I was a big tree climber as a kid), and pick the cherries up high. She would spread an old quilt underneath the tree. We got to take home just buckets of cherries, and every summer, I’d eat so many that first day, I would make myself sick. Very good memories, and I still love, love, love cherries.
Patty S.
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Cherries and pistachios both. You sure know how to get my attention.
I don’t know how your son managed to get that much cherry juice on his hands and face, but not his Thomas shirt. He’s got a talent.
I’m still a kid. I’d be up a tree in a second if it meant an opportunity for fresh cherries. By the time I was done, I’d look just like your son, except my shirt would probably also be juice soaked, too.
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I offered him some cherries for breakfast this morning and he said no way.
The pistachio orchard is pretty amazing. Years ago we took the tour of the orchard and processing facility. They say they need less than 10% humidity to perform well. I have two females and a male. I hope one day they fruit in our balmy 18% humidity
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