Dear all Xchange 473 has been mailed to all the US addresses. There are 7-10 international orders ready to go out today. A few notes to keep in mind: 1. orders have a tracking number. Since we had so many issues with delivery last year, the tracking was a must. 2. The donation period is still open if anyone has items to donate. Please don't send me 1 or 2 of a kind, those take a long time to list and then fairly distribute, especially when they are rare and everyone wants them. 3. I am preparing another listing, with items that came in late, and items we still have from late last year. I am planning for around April 15th, so keep an eye out for it. 4. Again - I want to thank all those that sent in generous amounts of bulbs and seeds, it makes it easier for me to distribute to all that want them. 5. For your information - if there are any donations left after an exchange, this is what I do: I plant those bulbs that need to be planted, I store those that need to be stored and if they are seeds I store them in a fridge I have just for seeds. No fruits or food or anything. I store my own lily seeds and scales in there. Some of these leftovers are going to hit the next sale, and it will be with a number - FirstComeFirstSeerve. 6. Here in MN - we had 70F yesterday, and this morning 32F, tonight 23F. Keep in mind when you send me anything - that some protective packaging will help if the donation is small, sensitive bulbs and the time of the year is a shoulder season. 7. Let me know if you are quite unhappy with anything you ordered, I can try to make it up at a later time in a different exchange. I am human, I may make errors, or overlook, even when I try to do it fairly. It breaks my heart when 80 people want a bulb I only have 9 of, and everything on their order is in that situation. Even when I knew what you most wanted, I could not send you that. But we can try again later. 8. We will have an exchange of various spectacular seeds from Brasil, I don't know when, but stay tuned, I will let you know as I find out. 9. There were a few individuals that forgot to renew their membership - please do so if you want any shares. It adds a lot more steps for me if I have to check the membership and don't find you on it. Thank you. 10. I usually don't like surprises, but I can share some awesome things this group does: someone sent in a donation and used tangerines from their yard as packaging material. That made me so happy! I ate them seeds and all. Someone sent me a couple plants I've been wanting for a while. What an amazing generous individual. Someone sent me some hard to find seeds, just for me to try. Now they are seedlings. Someone sent me the largest bulb I've seen and shortly afterwards it bloomed! and it had an amazing flower! I know we share the love of plants, I can give in return my time to manage the exchange the best I can. Have a nice week and Easter with family if you celebrate, and a nice week and weekend otherwise, and be safe! Luminita Vollmer PBS Xchange Mgr _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>