I am guessing about 40 people read this thread on a regular basis......maybe as many as 100......and that maybe 10 or so are in the Seattle area.....usually I stick to just topics that pertain as well to the Portland area....as it is courtesy of this area that we owe this forum and that is where the remarks should be dedicated to:

Hopefully, it is not too "tacky" if I advertise for a Seattle event coming up on Sept.24th.....for anyone in this area or beyond who wants to travel here:

www.pipersorchard.org

Access the above website and you can get directions and agenda. We will have some orchard experts in the afternoon talking shop about fruit trees in the orchard.....and in the morning we will have a US Park Service historian, Susan Dolan, speaking about the history of fruit in America and the preservation of our historic orchards......

It should be good, but due to inadequate advertising, I don't anticipate much more than 50 people to come to our lectures.

Don,
You are a great contributor to this site and to the education of fruit growers in the PNW.

This is a great topic and exactly what this site is meant for.

Many people like me who live in the Portland area have family, friends or other excuses to go to Seattle: Mariners, Seahawks, diving, concerts, museums, etc. and travel there from time to time.

There are a ton of lurkers on this site. Some don't have the experience that we have to answer some of the questions but love to hear about events like this.

I love your posts and I look forward to meeting you in person some time.
John S
PDX OR

You are kind, but I have to disagree with you on one thing:

You wrote:
" Many people like me who live in the Portland area have family, friends or other excuses to go to Seattle: Mariners, Seahawks, diving, concerts, museums, etc. and travel there from time to time."

I have to say there is one excuse that just doesn't cut it this year. No one needs to drive up all the way to Seattle just to see the Mariners....

A person would be better off just driving up to see the Piper Orchard that is able to produce year after year for 120 years now....and then if said Portland person had money to throw away and lots of free time to dispose of....... they could, only as a side attraction, watch these Mariners that seems to be ever re-building but never coming to fruition.

Don,
You've got to realize, Portland has no pro baseball team of any kind, not even single A. The soccer league said you had to get rid of baseball to get soccer, so the city commissioners said ok. I like the young Mariners and they have some good players. I admit, it is more difficult to root for the Mariners than say, the Red Sox or the Yankees (the evil empire).

Seattle can also grow some types of berries like ugni molinae, Chilean guava that just barely get killed in Portland and just barely survive in Seattle. I have heard some great speakers at some fruit shows I've seen up there. Linda Chalker Scott, and some other super smart people.

Sorry for annoying all you non-baseball fans.
John S
PDX OR

The Seattle Times featured us (the Piper Orchard) in their "Weekend" edition 10 days ago. So we got the publicity out.

And our Festival went well......there is a huge interest in things like antique apples these days.....and that sure helps when it comes to things like getting publicity or recruiting volunteers to work on a historic orchard.

too much background noise on this "YouTube" but you can at least see a pic of me, of Susan Dolan......and on the Apple ID table you can see a pic of Dr. Robert Norton, our resident guru.....and Lori Brakken, of the Seattle Tree Fruit Society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPhklOtR1L8

If anyone does a Youtube for one of the HOS events and wants to give a few names that go with it.....I would watch it just to see who some of the characters there are with HOS.