Bulletin!!!

Taffy just received an e-mail from Auntie Muffy - she got her sillie socks yesterday too!  I hope they keep her feet warm in that far north city where she lives.  She didn't say if she had seen any wild bears there this year, but last year she had one raiding her shed.

On a walk we espied these hanging on a date palm near us.  We watched a program on the TV one day about date palms.  Apparently there are male trees and female trees.  The pollen from the male tree has to be sprinkled on the dates on the female tree in order to produce real dates.  In areas where they grow dates for cultivation, they do this manually to ensure a good crop.  I don't think it happens very well in subdivisions though.  But, here is what they look like....

This one is a female tree.  The brown dates are from last year.  The green ones are this year's.