Kids do great at the 4-H Expo

That's right, Shandi Anderson, Kelsey Blotter and Amelia Ritger did great at our Douglas County Fairgrounds where the Nevada State Expo for 4-H was held on Oct. 14. Shandi won four "best of variety" with rabbits including her broken opal senior doe broken mini rex named Periwinkle, her red senior doe mini rex named Tulip, her blue junior doe mini rex named Clover and her tortoise junior doe mini rex named Coyote. Kelsey won the cavy costume contest with her guinea pig and also one grand champion DQ with her guinea pig. Amelia won second place for her lionhead rabbit named Chewy and a grand championship in intermediate showmanship with her Holland lop bunny named Mickey. Congratulations girls. Anyone interested in joining the 4-H here in Douglas County, you may call the extension office for more information or our assistant leader for rabbits and cavies, Lynette Anderson at 267-4033.

A couple of years ago I decided it was time to plant some beautiful trees in the front yard planter. I looked through all my gardening books to see what would grow here in our harsh climate and what would look pretty. I was trying to block our view of part of the street and hopefully eliminate some of the noise from those cars who drive way beyond our 25-mph speed limit. After careful consideration, I decided on two flowering plum trees, two flowering pear trees and one gala apple right in the center. It turned out wonderful. In the spring when they flower they are so colorful and they are green the rest of the season until this time of year when they lose their leaves.

Here is the problem, last year, one of the flowering pear trees turned into what looked like an apricot tree. Well, late in the season it had nine little pieces of orange fruit. My daughter, who was 5 at the time, ate all nine pieces of fruit in one sitting. I never actually looked at the fruit closely. Of course, you can imagine how many times she went to the bathroom the next day. (It reminds me of a little earlier that year when she ate fruit off the flowering plum trees. I had to call the poison center to make sure the little fruit weren't toxic. They never had bore fruit before.) Anyway, this year this beautiful flowering pear tree flowered right when its sister tree did, but the same thing happened in the middle of summer. Only this time it had hundreds of, what I thought were apricots. A friend of mine was over picking up some veggies and I showed her my tree loaded with fruit. She said, Lisa, this is a plum tree, if they turn gold; she figured it was a golden plum tree. I looked at the tag still hanging on the tree from the Nursery, it says "flowering pear." So, along with my other canning, I put up 43 jars of what I think is golden plum jam. Oh, it is so delicious. My daughter Jenee' thinks it's best on top of vanilla ice cream, but my husband says it's best on a sandwich with peanut butter.

n Lisa Welch is a Johnson Lane resident and can be reached at 267-9350.