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This is a wonderful post. (Also, your meme-finding is excellent.) I've missed your words. I can't decide if that's because you haven't been here in a while or I haven't been paying attention or keeping up with my subscriptions, but i suspect it's the latter...

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Thank you, Jenn! I unexpectedly took the summer off from Substack, and there are only a few posts since returning. I have to go catch up on your writing.

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Thank you! You'll see it's mostly about one thing these days....haha! And I haven't managed a post this week.

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PS, I had a great laugh from your Sean Kelly repost! He is so spot on about recipe blogs! 😆

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I had a wave of nostalgia, seeing your red Betty Crocker cookbook…”she” was my faithful cooking mentor from my early 20’s. I lost/got rid of it during one of my many, *many* moves in my younger years, but her fruit crisp and shortbread cookie recipe will stay with me always!

To think Dame Maggie didn’t watch “Downton”—she was priceless in “Gosford Park”!

Loved your garden and bee update! And wonderful advice. I am vowing to get some of the perennials you’ve pictured for our wild bees.

I didn’t realize how vulnerable honeybees are, to forage just down to 50 degrees. Sending all positive energy that your new queen makes it, and all the hives come through the late fall and winter! 😊

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I wonder how many people had that red Betty Crocker book & remember her fondly. My son saw a copy at a local thrift store, but, despite having the thought, didn't buy it as a replacement. 🫤I guess it just wouldn't have had the same mystique as ours?

Thank you for sending kind thoughts to our bees!

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I always enjoy your posts!

My mother collected cookbooks for decades, reading them like novels. I have many of her favorites.

We're still having August-like heat but I got antsy and sowed bee balm, calima bean and chamomile in small pots in my kitchen.

Thanks for all the pics of your garden, it's inspiring!

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Thank you, Jennifer! How lovely to have your mother's cookbooks; it is cozy to just read through a cookbook without a recipe in mind.

I hope your kitchen plants are doing well. And that you have cooler weather soon.

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I love seeing all the cookbooks. That’s a great idea to share those. I always seem to collect recipes and then never make them. And you still have a lot of fun stuff in your garden as well.

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Thanks, Cheryl! I suspect recipes are like books for some of us... more in our collection than we could ever attend to. I certainly fall in that camp, and yet I'm more likely to re-read an old favorite and fiddle with a known recipe than to strike out for new territory.

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Been a weird year, weather wise. But I did get some honey from my two hives. My mentor told me it's probably been the worst year since 1972! Had to protect one of my hives--a strong one!-- from robbing today.

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Truly odd weather, for sure. I'm so happy you had a honey harvest!!

The robbing was awful this year. We had to come up with new ways to lure away the bandits.

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Perhaps I'm in the old fashioned club, but I also love a good handwritten recipe. I've kept all my favorite ones on cards in a recipe box and I have no intention of changing it! Unless perhaps it's to compile them all into a book to pass on to my children. Though I'm so darn messy that I've had to rewrite some of my most used ones a few times!

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Hurray, welcome to the old fashioned club! 😍I adored pawing through my mom's recipe box as a kid; I think it is lovely that you store your recipe cards that way. I don't think I'll ever manage to "neaten up" my recipe scribbles, so hopefully any future grandkids enjoy a challenging puzzle to decipher.

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