When you want to personalize your garden, try putting your children and grandchildren's handprints and footprints in concrete stepping stones. This can become the first step in a fun family project! You will end up making a stone for each member of your family. Place hand and footprints into the concrete and write your name or use wood stencils for your names. Each stone can then be personalized with impressions of small objects--dog biscuits for the dog, a small garden shovel to reflect someone's passion for gardening and a toy hammer to symbolize someone's carpentry trade. Then put the stones near a swing or a setting area to become the focal point of your backyard. You will always treasure this family keepsake.

On Friday, May 6 Kaye Young will once again take us on a fun-filled historical trip. This time through Jasper County! We will visit Burl Ives' grave at the Mound Cemetery, his homeplace, various historical spots along the Embarrass River, and Love's Ford Bridge. This will be a very interesting day! We encourage all HEA members to join in on this fun outing! We will have lunch at the Tea Room in Newton. Please call the office, so we can see how many cars we will need to take!

Saturday, May 14
8:30 - 10:30 a.m.
Robinson City Park
Marathon Shelter

Do you have too many irises and not enough day lilies? Are your houseplants falling off the shelf? Then dig up your irises, divide your houseplants and bring them to the Master Gardener Plant Sale.

Anyone can buy! And anyone can sell seeds, flowers, plants or trees. You set your own price. Table space is $10.00. Call the Extension Office at 546-1549 by May 9, to reserve a space or for more information.

Have your plants priced in containers (styrofoam cups, plastic baggies, plastic shopping bags or pots) and please have each plant labeled clearly! Bring your own change.

Plus any HEA Unit is welcome to have a table to have a fundraiser!

Climbers and Twiners: Ornamental Vines for the Home Garden will introduce you to the wonderful world of vines. Ornamental Vines offer exciting diversity of leaves, flowers, fruit, and structure that can add another dimension to the garden. Join Greg Stack, Horticulture Educator, as he explains how these versatile garden plants can add a whole different look to even small space gardens. You'll leave knowing what to look for in vines, how to care for them and most of all look at some interesting choices that can be added to your garden. Climbers and Twiners: Ornamental Vines for the Home Garden will be offered Thursday, May 5 at 7 p.m. at the Extension office.

The cookie monsters in your home won't notice this sneaky way to cut a few calories from those homemade sweets: substitute 1/2 cup of mini chips for the 1 cup of regular-size chips.

We have another mission! We want all you ladies to start saving your medicine bottles. We will be sending them to Kentucky to go down to Haiti. In Haiti they cannot give out lots of medicine at one time.They do not give out a full bottle of medicine because they may try and sell it for food money...so they give out small amounts and then they have to come back and get more.They can even put liquid baby cough syrup in them and again they only put in a couple of doses so they won't over dose the child.The bottles are extremely useful to them (pills get crushed in baggies). They only get medicine and supplies that are donated through churches and pharmacies. Pharmaceutical companies donate items that they have a surplus of and they cannot get rid of. They told of one lady bringing in a camera film bottle to put her pills in that she had found on the street.

So what do you think? We are to save the bottles. Pull off the label if you can or Hope will pull off the labels before they are mailed. If the label does not come off completely that is ok. Please drop them off at the Extension Office and we will also collect them at our various meetings and Bazaar!

It's possible! Tropical plants can grow in Midwest home gardens and landscapes. Greg Stack, horticulture educator in the Matteson Center, has developed a new website -- Tropical Punch -- that contains information about the selection, care, and use of tropical plants in Midwest gardens. The website features 14 different tropical plants that are suited for our environment and provides several photos of how they can be used in a landscape. Please visit the site at:

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/tropicalpunch/

• Drink coffee in moderation, no more than 1-2 cups per day, preferably choosing decaffeinated over regular. Water and herbal tea are always the better choices.
• Always use a paper filter to brew your coffee. The paper will help remove some of the chemicals that have been shown to increase LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels.
• Cappuccino, espresso, and coffee made with a press are all made without a paper filter and are commonly found in coffee shops and restaurants. Avoid drinking these on a regular basis, especially if you are trying to lower your cholesterol.
• When ordering coffee in a restaurant or coffee shop, skip the drinks made with cream and whole milk. These ingredients add substantial amounts of saturated fat.
• If you have elevated triglycerides, diabetes, and/or are overweight, use a noncaloric sweetener in place of sugar or honey to sweeten coffee or tea.

Strawberry Ambrosia

2 c. sliced strawberries
2 t. honey
1 t. orange extract
2 oranges
½ c. flaked coconut

Toss strawberries, honey and orange extract in a bowl. Cut oranges in half and remove segments leaving the shell whole. Cut orange segments into pieces and toss with strawberries and coconut. Spoon into shells and chill before serving.

Calories: 120 per serving, Fat: 0 grams per serving