Ow! That last was horrible! Wherezza cawfee?

Good morning, Christy. Gardening is number one on my list today.

Christy, dear, I thought you liked us… What on earth did we do to deserve that Paula Abdul thing? Whatever it was we PROMISE not to do it any more. My eyes… my eyes…. (G*)

Hi, Marion! LTNS.

Well, this Bill Maher clip just brightened my morning ..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..72724.html

Morning all — The Peanut woke up with an awful fever this morning. She’s watching a Scooby Doo cartoon at the moment, so I sneaked away to say howdy.

I thought maybe it was just me being horrified by the Paula Abdul outfit. Guess not. *g*

I love the smell of fish emulsion in the morning, smells like victory. Now if i could only keep the catepilars in check and figure out how to revive ridiculously sick cherry trees .

Mornin’, Christy -

Oooooooh, fish tank; missed that announcement. What kind of fish are y’all gonna get? Love the ones with the big googly eyes and feathery fins….don’t remember the names but one of the guys who owns a wonderful home furnishings store nearby has several tanks of them. He also does the *real* greenery. Hot pink gravel???

mornin’ all.

Uh. Mah. Gawd. My eyes. My eyes.

fashion faux-pas aside – are her breasts even related to one another? I find myself wondering if they’re even on speaking terms….

btw, here’s a question for any of the fish owners out there — we got The Peanut a little 10 gallon tank for her room as a birthday present (her birthday is later this month, but we set the tank up early to let the water get filtered and ready). It fits perfectly on her dresser by her bed, which should be really fun for her once we actually put fish in it.

I’ve been doing a bit of research, and what I’m reading says that we can have something like two or three goldfish and/or 6 or 7 tetras plus a sucker fish. Does that sound about right? Which is the hardiest — and will likely survive being loved by a soon-to-be-6-year-old?

.
Damn! No more bee-vomit? That leaves turbinado-mucous. Bleecchh.

Nice flowers, though. Here’s some funny pictures funny pictures In case you need a laugh.
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Charles Dow Rolls in His Grave: The Distortion of the Average He Made Famous – Friday, March 6, 2009

Have you ever asked yourself why the Dow Jones Industrial Average contains non-industrial stocks? Why such a large weighting is given to financial companies such as American Express, Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan and AIG (Before its removal)? After all, you wouldn’t expect to see General Motors included in a healthcare index or Goldman Sachs in the home builders index.

The Wikipedia entry for the Dow Jones Industrial Average states that:

“The average is computed from the stock prices of 30 of the largest and most widely held public companies in the United States. The “industrial” portion of the name is largely historical—many of the 30 modern components have little to do with traditional heavy industry.”

We do not dispute the claim that the “industrial” portion is largely historical. Indeed, there are components which have little to do with industry. Financial companies, who do not produce anything, comprise a large weighting the in this average of American Industry.

Over the last 20 years, the Dow Jones has been reshaped into a basket of 30 conglomerate corporations, with little regard for the actual business they’re in. Today’s Dow Jones would be unrecognizable to the man who created it over a century ago.

History
The index was first published in 1896 by Charles Dow, Founder of the Dow Jones Company and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Dow created and monitored a list of important industrial companies. Along with the Industrial Average, he created the Railroad Index (Transportation) which he would track along with the industrial stocks to gauge the health of the economy.

The Dow Theory was created based on the notion that both indexes should rise together in a healthy economy. The concept was a simple one. While industrial companies made the goods, the rails transported those goods to market. One couldn’t function without the other.

The original Industrial Average contained 12 industrial (Producers of goods) stocks:

- American Cotton Oil Company
- American Sugar Company
- American Tobacco Company
- Chicago Gas Company
- Distilling & Cattle Feeding Company
- General Electric
- Laclede Gas Light Company
- National Lead Company
- North American Company, (Edison) electric company
- Tennessee Coal,
- U.S. Leather Company
- United States Rubber Company

Notice that all of the companies in the index were producers of goods. There were no financial or bank stocks included in the average. At the time of his death in 1902, Charles Dow’s industrial average contained 12 stocks which were comprised of industrial producing companies such as US Steel, US Rubber, National Lead, American Car and Foundry, etc. Still no banks.

The Dow Jones Begins to Change (Era of Reganomics)

1982
80 years after the death of Charles Dow, American Express was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This marked the first time that a financial stock was added to the century old index.

1988
American can, a manufacturer of tin cans merged with Commercial credit corporation and adopted the name Primerica.

1991
JP Morgan was introduced to the Dow Jones in 1991 and replaced Primerica corporation.

1997
Travelers Group was added to the index. The company would later change its name to Citigroup.

2004
AIG was added.

2008
Bank of America was added.

Reasons:
We struggle to find an explanation as to why such changes were made. Was it because America became de-industrialized over the last quarter century? Was it merely a reflection of big business today? With companies such as General Motors and General Electric playing dominant roles in non-core businesses such as finance and banking? Or were these financial stocks added to the index in hopes of propping up its value with companies such as JP Morgan and AIG, whose earning power seemed indestructible? Our hunch is that it was a combination of each. (More at the link.)

http://www.chartingstocks.net/…..de-famous/

Gold fish, Christy – tetras are tropicals, so you need a heater and a bubbler and all of that. Gold fish are definitely hardier.

Toby, from downstairs -

Wrt squash borers……oh, spit! I was afraid of that! Do you have any idea what size the butterflies are from the standpoint of mesh openings size as a cover? How the heck do truck farmers avoid the borer problem…..or is it because they have entire fields of squash so can afford to lose a few plants to borers?

Oh man! That’s excellent — I so needed that this morning. Thanks! And great to see you, too — how are things going with you?

You think we could do two or three in a 10 gallon tank with a sucker fish to clean things, then? I don’t want to get too much in there and screw with the ammonia levels. I want the fish to be fun, not Wild Kingdom trauma. *G*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…..h_7294.jpg
there is your moth for squash vine borers – I’d use any lightweight row cover or..if you have nylon sheer curtains laying around the attic (which I always seem to do), use those and tuck them down good; cover the edges with dirt.
And yes, the truck farmers either spray the heck out of the plants (ahem) – or they accept losses.

Are you talking the sort of borers who come in as a little inchworm-looking pest? In which case, I’ve used a collar made out of plastic cut from around a milk jug to keep them from getting near the plant stem..

The sucker fish is tough. After the great flood of 2005, we were not able to return home for a while (about a month, actually)…and there was no power to power the filter and lights in my son’s aquarium for some time after that. My son pretty much wrote the thing off as a loss. But all his fish but two survived. The sucker fish grew a lot during that time, and the other fish (several varieties) survived with only 3 casualties.

The Peanut is really excited – we got the whole tank put together with her gravel and plants and everything including water and the pump running to get everything nice and aerated and lovely. Now all we need are the fish. The pet store fella said to give it at least a week to allow the chlorine and other crap to completely evaporate out of the water. There is conditioning stuff that we got so theoretically we could put them in earlier, I suppose, but I want to start the tank off as healthy as we possibly can for her.

She picked out one of those little bubbler treasure chest things that opens and closes. It’s all so fascinating when you are 5. *g*

http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/squash_pest.html
Iowa State University Organics Research Program conducted trials of various control methods for squash bug and squash vine borer. Researchers found that mulching with newspaper and hay, combined with tightly secured row covers on the plots (a level 2 control), provided very effective control of both weeds and squash bugs in pumpkin (C. pepo)—especially in the wet season of 2002.(4, 5) The row covers apparently excluded squash bugs, preventing them from entering to lay eggs.

Gauze row covers (e.g., Reemay™, Agriforce™, Agribon™, Tufbell™) [Section 205.206(b)(1),(2),(3)] physically exclude pests and prevent them from reaching the plants in large numbers. Preventive strategies have become more important with recognition of A. tristis as a probable disease vector.

Hand picking and trapping of A. tristis, or slitting each vine to remove the larva, in the case of M. satyriniformis, represent attempts to control pests after they have begun rearing another generation in numbers sufficient to cause economic damage and pest buildup. Such labor-intensive controls may be uneconomical for large plantings.

I think I was thinking of a cutworm, then and not the vine borer, looking at that. Both are nasty little buggers, though.

Can’t see the grass yet where I live, Christie, but I’m thoroughly envious of you and your daffodils. ;-)

One of the things I like about nylon seer curtains(besides being able to find them at yard sales) is that unlike the row covers, which are spun polyester, they seem to last pretty much forever. The row cover stuff just tears so easily, whereas we always get years of use out of the nylon curtains.

So, what are you reading this morning?

Am I the only person for whom that’s not an easy question? I can’t even tell you what’s on my nightstand right now – by title or author. I just read.

The library here in Indy sends out notices when books are about to become due to be returned. I always find myself surprised – “do I have that?” “Oh yeah, I guess I do – it was pretty good too.”

duh.

I bet she is excited. Aquariums are fascinating when you’re 5 or 55.

Good morning everyone.

I have no idea about fish tanks, nevre had one but find them really fascinating to look at.

She picked out one of those little bubbler treasure chest things that opens and closes. It’s all so fascinating when you are 5.

They’re fascinating at 48 also. I’d pick that one too. :)

I’m reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs right now. So far a very interesting read.

heading for 72 degrees here today.

If it doesn’t rain, the bicycle will be making its maiden voyage for 2009….

Good morning all. I learned something interesting via Google research this week.

When I was in college, during the early ’60’s, I worked summers and Christmases at a men’s store in downtown Dallas. It was founded in the 1870’s, was second to Nieman-Marcus in prices, and I was curious as to what happened to it. The man who hired me was an austere vice president, who looked very much like former Attorney General John Mitchell, but a little grimmer and more forbidding. I was summoned to his office on several occasions, which turned out to be nothing punitive, but he never showed a flicker of a smile or frown, and spoke in very few words. Anyway, on Google, I discovered that his wife, Hermine Tobolowsky, is known as the “Mother of the Texas Equal Rights Amendment,” and that he was her active supporter throughout her eventually successful fight to overcome chavinistic Texas laws. I would have never guessed it.

After the most difficult tech week ever, The Cocoanuts opened last night. It was so funny, and I’m now down with a chest cold.

This couple came up to me after the show and said they enjoyed watching me. I replied I wasn’t in the show. They said they knew that, they just enjoyed watching me laugh. They could see how much I was enjoying the show.

Yeah, just back from a quickie consult with the Google on the subject. One ref. mentioned covering stems with strips of nylon stockings to prevent egg laying. That sounds a wee tad easier said than done. :-( No old sheers handy so I need to go looking for the row cover stuff you’re talking about.

Christy -

Assumed you were talking about the cutworms on tomatoes.

Toby -
Just saw your 21….will definitely check that one out……thanks for the trademark names; now I’ll know what to ask for.

mornin’ pups!!!

congrats on the fish tank!!!
hopefully the peanut will have a lifelong love affair with fish. i have.
my dwarf plecostamus just had another baby…highly recommend getting the dwarf version, no heartbreak later in having to get rid of the regular that get too big for the tank. and if you have a male and female-one has facial ’spikes’ they will have babies.

and platys play and play. they are one of my favorite freshwater. and fancy guppies.

used to have a self-supporting saltwater tank. i hafta say, it was beauuuutiful. haven’t had fish for ten years and a friend just gave me her 55 on a really nice black wooden base and a 20..kinda want to make the 55 saltwater, but am on a different budget than when i built it before. can put the few fish in there into the 20.
BUT i had an idea the other day. a way to make a strikingly beautiful saltwater on a little budget.
they have black substrate and black sand for saltwater now, so, i think i am going to make a low budget version saltwater tank in the 55.
with black substrate/sand, ‘nemo’ clowns, white anemones, coral structures that i already have in the garage (that can be an expensive item), and that’s all..well, maybe. and watercolor a background for it like i used to do for all of my tanks.
yep.

On goldfish and birthdays: During my son’s fourth birthday party, someone noticed that the two goldfish were dead. Freshly dead. The group gathered in the bathroom to say goodbye and wave them on as they swirled in the toilet bowl and disappeared. All the boys said it was the best party ever!

I’m not sure what to think of Sachs, after reading the Shock Doctrine (well, most of it). He seems to be trying to rehabilitate his image.

Reading matter:

Just finished a non-political read; first one in way too many donkey’s ears….need to get back in that habit for pure escape.

Bone by Bone: Carol O’Connell, author of the Mallory mystery series. Hard-cover only, for the moment. Was disappointed initially because it turned out *not* to include Mallory but well-written anyhoo.

thanks, that was fun.

She’s really, really excited. So much so that we didn’t realize she was running a fever last night for a while because she kept disappearing to go look at her fish tank. It was only when I got her to sit still and eat dinner that I realized she was overly warm.

We’re headed out to the pediatrician shortly…

Well, spit! No edit on PUAC……

Bone by Bone: Carol O’Connell, author of the Mallory mystery series. Was disappointed initially because it doesn’t include Mallory but well-written anyhoo.

drop one fish in there now to get it going before you add more…a mollie or something hardy. (get two, they will breed)…will get things ‘cookin’ sooner and have less problems.

the ‘de-clor’ drops work great. i use them. i used to set water out, but no reason to do that really.

i have a little volcano/colored light bubbler….blue one in the big tank, red one i’m not using if you want it.

This book was passed along to me by someone who is very involved in the international relief community, and I don’t know his history. I didn’t read The Shock Doctrine, so I don’t know the connection.

8 degrees here. So much better than the predicted -4. Right now, we’re in the shadow of the East Ridge, which rises 3,000 feet above us about a mile to the east of us. The Continental Divide runs along the top of it. But to the west, the Pintler Mountains are snow covered and rosy in the morning sunshine, brilliant and welcoming the morning. I grew up on the flat prairies so it is odd to me to look west to see the first sun of the day.

What the heck is happening? Full comments *not* being posted. Anybody else having the same problem???……….if this one doesn’t get cut off in mid-sentence, too.

Farmers use beneficial insects to fight bad bugs.

The Google has a ton of info.

The real secret is to dedicate a portion of your garden or an area near the garden to creating a habitat for good bugs to live and overwinter. At one time I was managing 60 acres of organic citrus and discovered one day that every leaf on every tree was covered by mite egg sacks. I rushed to get organic sprays to the farm to kill the mites, but in the days it took to deliver the spray materials, my good bugs had moved from their habitat and parasitized every mite eggs sack.

Beneficials is good!

Good Morning All.

Sorry to hear about Peanut’s fever, Christy. It’s not nice to be sick on such a beautiful day.

It seems I’ve been given a great honor, or perhaps I just reached up an grabbed it. But my Cardiofeedback experiments are near completion, and I’m beginning to answer some of humanity’s biggest questions.

What happens inside of us when we feel Compassionate Love, or “Eureka” or Oneness? Can it be measured and quantified? Can it be taught?

The Gizmo I’ve been experimenting with allows me to directly interact with my electromagnetic field. This has the effect of taking the power of meditation and other Heart Coherence exercises and focusing their benefits with the laser like focus of a computer, and the results so far have been amazing.

In addition to finding out that the human electromagnetic field dances to music, two things that I’ve discovered while using the Gizmo are the “Coherence Burst” and the “Polarity Burst.” These seem to be the mechanisms of transcendent awareness.

My experiments are like the CERN and SETI projects, rolled into one. CERN seeks to find the point where the wave becomes a particle. I’m seeking the point where the particle becomes a wave, and I get to be the particle.

Similarly, SETI is searching the vastness of outer space for waves generated by intelligent life. I’m using my computer to search the vastness of inner space for what Avatars and Mystics, Lovers and Fools have sought for thousands of years, and finding it!

In addition to having a bazillion rescue parrots & other birds in our home for years, my son and I had a 30 gallon fish tank that included lots of Tetras, Platys, and a couple of Angel Fish (that got pretty darn big!). Lots of fun and nothing is more relaxing than having a fish tank in a room to look at and listen to. The Platys we had gave birth to tons of babies and we had some “grass” at the top of the tank for the babies to hide in so they wouldn’t get eaten by the other fish. When they got big enough to scoop up, I then put them in a netted ‘cage’ at the top of the tank to feed them and for them to grow. Again, lots of fun and my son loved, loved, loved the whole process. Very educational for the little ones. Little Ms. Peanut is so lucky to have you, Christie! ;-)

I went to look for Shock Doctrine to be accurate, but my books are in a confusion. We are moving again and the first shipment went out on Tuesday, so maybe it was in that group. What I remember is that Sachs was involved with Milton Friedman economics and some of the Shock Doctrine sort of realigning of economic structures, particularly in Poland, that haven’t turned out so well for those of low economic means. The details escape me (do numbers seem oddly insubstantial for anyone else? I try to focus, but they either turn liquid and leak out of my brain or turn to vapour and float away), but I think he later reevaluated his premises and is trying to go in a new direction.

happened to me the other day – (while using IE) a hard refresh takes care of it

Mornin’ All !

so sorry to have missed teh Sharkbabe drive-by

well.
it is exciting on many levels…from a kid level–her own special wild things living in her room…they won’t hurt her, that she gets to observe and love. it’s magic!! remember you kept watching ‘blue planet’? she’s watched them on her tv, now she gets to ‘be there’. imagining and empathizing for living creatures, what they like, what they do, etc..

nuthin’ like fish and pets.

i’ll send an email with a simple list of fish choices. and/or comment here later, have a few things to get done first after i leave puc.

many ways you can go…
but i need to know-
does it have a heater?

LOL – it’s making me laugh too. that warms my heart.

I was over at a friend’s house last evening and she had TVR’d an episode of American Idol. Yuk. Anyhoo, Paula was wearing that outfit but had a scarf covering her cleavage. Now I know why I’ve never watched the show. I was an American Idol virgin until yesterday. Will my life ever the be same?

That’s a really good idea — maybe I’ll use the “one fish now” concept as incentive to not scream when they draw blood at the pediatrician’s office later. The incentive system in action…

Thanks for the info, I’ll do some research about him.

Good morning. This is the first day in weeks where I have nothing to do. Nothing pressing. So, I’m here to enjoy PUAC for as long as I want.
What am I reading? I join others who are looking for escapist novels. I’m reading The Lincoln Lawyer. Hoping I like it enough to read the whole series. Just starting it. So far, so good.
OTOH, Now that Bush isn’t pres anymore, I may be able to read all those books I bought that I was afraid to read for fear it was my future. Blackwater, for example, has been on my nightstand forever but never opened. And, (shame on me) I never read The Shock Doctrine. Honestly, I was afraid to.

OK, the fickle hand of fate tells me I’ve got some kinda case of ‘puter wonkies this morning so heading out on errands.

Y’all have a most excellent “spring will be here soon” day…..and many thanks for the gardening info.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

It doesn’t have a heater at this point — but it easily could. It has a space on the hood for us to easily drop one in. I think we’ll likely start with a coupla goldfish, teach her to care for them and then if they survive and thrive, we’ll work our way up to something more exotic down the road. She’s still young, and this will be a good lesson in caring for another living creature. Since our dog and cat are imprinted on me, she hasn’t really gotten to do much of that with them — this will be her baby, so to speak. *g*

Thanks for that. We’re working to organize a community garden here in the middle of a city. There’s enough airborne pollution that I want to grow everything as organically as possible and am researching every avenue that anyone mentions.

That story brings on the smiles

Hope the Peanut gets better soon, ta goldfish will surely help.
Good morning everyone.

It’s the best medicine. It felt good to laugh so much.

wow. tell us more about your experiments!

Alot of people sick here in my little town. The elementary school was even closed yesterday due to sickness. It’s a bronchial thing. Fever, can’t talk etc.
I’ve escaped it so far, but my sister, who’s on her way to Jamaica for a vacation she’s been sooo excited about, hasn’t been as lucky. She’s on antibiotics and just praying she feels better when she hits all that sun.

Morning All been lurking for a while. Tonight we get to set our clocks forward an hour. For me this always seems like the spring is almost here wake up call.

You know, Christy; my first taste of business came when my sister and I got tropical fish when I was in the fifth grade; the kid who sold the set up to us told us that he’d gotten started by selling fish to W. T. Grants – and when our mollies and swordtails had babies..we did the same. As I recall, that was 1962 and we got 9-cents a piece for them. We had our own little business until the pet dept. manager moved on and we could not get to do the same with the new manager..

Pole planting cottonwood trees with other volunteers at a local wildlife sanctuary this AM. Should be nice, with Sandhill Cranes flying and calling overhead. One of my most favorite sounds!

This evening a Chocolate Fantasy fundraiser for local Natural History Museum…black tie…

Goldfish would be the best buy at her age. I’ve got a 10 gallon at work with a gorgeous blue crown tail Betta, 4 long fin red tetras, 2 black fin tetras and 7 silver tetras.

It’s warm here so I don’t have to worry about keeping the water temp up. The filter should supply ample oxygen to the water so that you don’t need an air stone.

On the reading note, I’m sadly purging books once again as I can’t take them all with me. This is the third purge in the last four and a half years. I’m down by about 2,000 books now (I’m an English teacher….or maybe I’m about to say, was….as my job as visiting prof finishes in May. I always seem to remember some oddity that I want to quote and I want to have resources at hand. Besides, having my books around is like having a potluck party with no dishes to wash. Such variety, so many friends, in unusual combinations).

Here is how the Bush years affected us. My husband did expert witness testimony and environmental remediation (he’s a hydrogeologist). After the 2002 election, contracts were cancelled by people who frankly said, there will be no enforcement and we aren’t going to bother. Litigation over violations ceased and there was little call for his expertise in trials.

We limped along for two more years. He was told, quite bluntly, that he would not be a candidate for a job that would have been perfect for him in the EPA because he had signed a petition of Vietnam Vets against the Iraq war. He got a job overseas (NZ) and he moved there in 2005, with son and me following in 2006. Son’s education not working there. Son returned to the States in Jan 2007 to finish high school here. I returned in July of 2007 to supervise son for senior year. Husband tried to find job in States – found one in MT and takes it, just to be on the same side of the Pacific, Jan 2008. Son goes to college in Aug 2008. I move to MT to be with husband. We discover the MT firm to be dishonest, both with him and with the DOE. Husband hunts for another job in US, but he is now 65 and there are no takers. NZ asks husband to come back. He leaves next week. I will follow later after I finish teaching.

Meanwhile, there is a trail of my read books here and there, across two countries. I have a stellar student here and I comfort myself in the thought of giving her many of the ones I can’t ship to NZ.

Switching to TV shows, has anyone caught “The United States of Tara” on Showtime. It’s different and I’m really loving it.

I’m glad they told me that. Little gestures like that are great examples of how we share the world.

you don’t have to resort to goldfish….
unless they are her favorites.
and actually goldfish, ummm, well, you have to clean up their poop a little more than another kind…so they actually aren’t easier to care for, maintenance wise. and that might not be so appealing to her. i had a little turkey baster thing with a little bag/net that i used to clean up what the scavengers wouldn’t touch.

plenty of fish would love to be cared for/and can survive being loved by a 6 year old girl who will ‘love’ them too much. ha.

off of the top of my head–
you can fill up a ten with these, variety of size and color in the mix.
fancy guppies, platys, mollies, neon tetras, the neons are non-aggressive, having aggressive fish in a tank can ruin the whole experience, cuz there comes a point in time that you have to ’sacrifice’ the meanie or the other fish don’t get to have a life. (i am getting ready to do that, i gave them a chance, now it’s tuna time) SMALL scavengers, some scavengers (corys) will rip up your plants…be aware. i stick to a little striped catfish, cute, harmless, stays small.can’t remember the name, i’ll post it later. and dwarf plecostamus (sp). but since yours is a ten g, i’d stick with the little guy scavengers. i’ll give a list later….they don’t need to be added right away until after things build up a little in the tank, otherwise you have to feed them extra…they like green beans.

Yes, I used to be in that business. We patented an artificial diet for growing predatory bugs. I think we were the only people growing ladybugs instead of harvesting them to sell. We also grew “big-eyed bugs” (incredibly cute as young nymphs) and minute pirate bugs. The investors went belly-up just as the business was coming close to break-even, so it was heartbreaking to shut it down.

I still buy parasitoids to control flies here on my small horse farm. They work very well.

Just an fyi…EW at the mothership.

yesterday a friend called and we met at another friend’s who has horses and loaded up a trailer for my friend and about 20 big feed bags for me with mostly dried horse manure. the people who lived here before me had small children and a sandbox. i’ve now mixed all that manure in with the sand and plan on collecting leaves soon to also go into the mix. and i’ll buy some topsoil as well. this will be my first attempt at vegetable gardening in texas. i discovered digging yesterday that the sandbox is probably about two feet deep and was about half filled with sand.

i had wonderful gardens in israel and in oregon.

i’m thinking i’ll let the whole thing hang out awhile and then plant cucumbers, squash, beans and parseley for the summer. and then have it really going for a fall garden.

meantime step one has to be getting a fence facing the back. i’ve got side fences with my neighbors. the back faces a big greenbelt and much as i love the deer i want all the “snacks” i put out to be for me and my human neighbors and friends.

i’m very excited about this. any advice from anyone would be very welcome. it’s been a long time since i’ve had a garden. and never in texas.

Sixties’ icon Dr. Timothy Leary predicted shortly before his passing that one day someone would create a computerized device that could teach people how to see God. As it turns out he was probably right. The concept seemed simple enough. If you could align your brainwaves to the frequency of Love, you could unlock the pan-dimensional capabilities of the human consciousness and achieve the “Oneness” described in Scripture, or “grok” as they say in science fiction.

As one who well remembers when “Virtual Reality” came in sugar cubes, and who recalls the research in the early 1970’s into primitive “Biofeedback” technology, I was intrigued with Leary’s prediction. Perhaps someone was working on such a “Grok Box.” So in the spring of 1997 I began my search for the latest information on what I’ve come to call “Astral Technology.”

To make a long story short, I purchased my Gizmo two years ago and have been experimenting with it since.

About 18 months ago, I discovered a software glitch that kept the program from functioning properly. That problem was fixed on February 3rd, and since then the results have been amazing.

okay, i’ll bookmark your website so i can check it out more. thanks.

shucks, i completely forgot to post the thing i wanted to share—
http://www.thegreenhead.com
i found this site this morning looking for tomato trees….it has the most fascinating variety of things i have ever seen in a catalogue, no joke…

from gag gifts to high-quality techno to kitchen to bedroom to fireplaces, to those ‘living wall’ planter things i kept posting a while back, bonsai, portable ROUND greenhoused, an absolutely unreal variety of things…..when you click on an item, there is a running list on the page of related category items…
the first page i was on had ‘plant’ related things. absolutely beautiful gift and ‘me’ things on it. then i realized it was a whole site of things…

wish there was a way to separate the ‘kitsch’ but maybe i just need to slow down and take time to see it and laugh.
the main page you have to wade through junk a little, wasn’t quite the stuff i was seeing on the other pages, but the ‘running’ menu after i clicked had some really cool stuff, so, i’m going to look through the main page catalogue later, for sure.

here is the firts page i found, and the running items change every time i load it, darn it. can’t find something i now want to look at.
http://www.thegreenhead.com/20…..o-tree.php

Thanks for sharing that. It’s funny in a not funny way that our legislature is talking about upping the retirement age, but no one wants to hire us.

and it’s nice to be told that something you do naturally brightened someone’s world!!

we all get too self-conscious in a bad way, knowing that being ourselves adds to the world is a good feeling. empowering.

Not only can we not get hired many firms make it a habit to lay off older workers so they can 1) avoid paying retirement benefits and 2) hire younger workers for less money. For those of us without any pension plans we’re faced with working until we drop dead cuz SS sure isn’t going to cut it, even if one lives very frugally.

Walmart needs greeters. /s

Welcome to Wal-Mart
Get yer shit and get out.
Have a nice day.

i already found something i want! on the scrolling by too fast thingy.

it’s a backlit license plate size thing with the address numbers of the house. no plugs, wiring. i’ve got numbers over the garage door, but the kind of fixture for the light that’s above them, throws light to either side of the numbers, but not on the numbers.

at night the numbers are invisible.

i’ve been wondering if i was going to get a different light fixture or place additional numbers elsewhere.

i’m going outside to see where this might be hung!

thanks!

G’morning.
That’s funny. I was just wondering what a bunch of old crabby hippies would say to customers.
You said it, bub.
I was also thinking that if they hired me, I’d last about 2 minutes after they overheard what I’d tell folks coming in.
Like, you must be really poor if you need to spend your money at a place that treats their employees so badly.

cool! i didn’t see that…if you see this, do you have the link?
i need something for the end of the driveway, no streetlights here, and my house is impossible to find at night….well, even in the day people screw up which driveway it is. it’s on a little curve going up a hill and it drops off , don’t know you missed it till you’re up the hill and can’t easily get into the driveway coming back down the hill. think ‘mountain goat trail’ angles.

i’m gonna be on that site a while later on.

For those of you still searching for your sunglasses after the Paula Abdul reveal: here’s an alternate exposure, with designer info for your edification, and less visually offensive background.

subway, i remember when you bought it…glad it’s doing what you hoped.

“and now I’m elbows deep in rinsing hot pink fish gravel.” Sounds like great fun!

In the 5th grade, as punishment for some unruly behavior
my teacher sentenced me to memorizing and reciting
the first two stanzas of Daffodils by William Wordsworth.
My bad boy buddies got quite a hoot out of it and dogged me
for days.
In truth, it turned out well for me. I got a little appreciation
for the beauty and music of words. Plus, on a spring date
with a lit major or some such, it never hurt to
’spontaneously ‘ recite Daffodils-ha.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Here’s my fear. As the economy plummets and retail businesses fold, all we’ll have left is Walmart. We’ve already lost all mom and pop retail stores, now we’re about to lose the chain stores as well. What’s the answer?

Off to feed the strays at work and do a water change for my aquarium.

Which reminds me, Christy, goldfish have a tendency to dirty up the water more than other fish. I’d recommend changing the water at least once a month, every 2 weeks would be better. Put the goldfish in a bowl or something, change the water and let it get to at least room temp before putting the fish back into the aquarium. Goldfish are pretty hardy but a drastic change in water temp may kill them. There’s a gravel vac that is used to suck up the dirt in the gravel. Mine has a longer tube, about 12 inches, so that you don’t have to have your hand in the tank. For a 10-gallon under-gravel filters are not worth the money and the whole tank is disrupted when they have to be cleaned out. Really messy.

here ya go

Walmart isn’t going anywhere. The worse things get the better they do.

Here’s a little ditty that’s been going through my mind all week. Not Wordsworth, but something from my childhood.
I looked out the window and what did I see?
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise.
Popcorn popping right before my eyes.
I could take a handle full and make a treat.
A popcorn ball that would taste so sweet.
It really wasn’t so. But, it seemed to be.
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
*g*

Back to the mom and pop’s. They could match the buying power of the chains if they formed co-ops for their particular products, say pet stores. The co-op would be owned/controlled by the small business owners and would serve as a distributor. It would save shipping costs and employee more folks. We could prolly open a dozen or more neighborhood pet stores in St Pete and kick PetsMart down the road.

They’re the only big box store that made a profit last quarter. Target and K-Mart were way behind.

edit employee employ

PW is up at the mothership.

i loooove glow-in-the-dark things!!!

and it’s simple, clean lines….

i’ve seen solar ones, but they’re too intricate for what i needed it for…and too small for someone to see coming up a hill while going around a hairpin curve. this one is 13×7 (est)
just right…
wow.

the calzone delivery place will be glad. my neighbors who get bugged by mistake will be glad…but i guess they could put up their own numbers if it bugged them that much…
but i have gotten a lot of free food from a pizza chain cuz they couldn’t find me even after i gave directions, something to consider..lol..

thanks!!!

you could always take it down when you’re expecting the pizza guy. *g*

how about whoever gets it first let’s the other one know in the threads what they think of it?

This has been a really tough winter for my family. My husband passed away two weeks ago after a struggle with lung cancer. I am grateful that we got him home and had his family gathered around him, that his end was peaceful. My son and I are still in shock. Seed catalogs fill my mailbox, but I’m not ready to think about spring. When I do, I will have to think about starting young plants in the cold frame my husband built me last fall, to fill his time during chemo. I thank God for some good news trickling in from Washington, at least I can feel the world is not falling apart as fast as my family.

I’m so sorry, Carolyn.

(((((carolyn)))))

oh love, my heart goes out to you and your family.

(((CarolynU & family)))

{{{{{{Carolyn}}}}}}

You know the pups of the Lake are always here for you….so terribly sorry to hear of your loss. Thankfully he had a peaceful goodby with you and the rest of the family.

And what a wonderful tangible gift of love he left you…a tool to grow lots of plants to honor his memory.

Peace……..

Carolyn,

You might “widownet.org.” helpful. a website for and by the recently (and not so recently) bereaved. Useful for others also.

Sorry I guess widownet is out of date. It’s been some years since I have seen it.

Carolyn, I’m so sorry for your loss.

Hmmm…yeah.

Sometimes you just gotta ride the way the horse is going…

namaste

something I learned from a blog (would’ve thought it was this one…but who knows) Goldfish get stomach aches and float like they are dead but are not- letttuce or peas in the tank will revive the fish…

here’s something

http://www.petplace.com/fish/t…..page1.aspx

but what I heard/read there was no discussion of cooking the pea.

Carolyn, I’m so, so sorry. Hugs to you and yours…

((((carolynu and u’son and family))))

I thought maybe it was just me being horrified by the Paula Abdul outfit.

I’m horrified by the Paula Abdul “boobs,” if that’s what they are. it’s a bit difficult to tell.

We have a set of those. They’re great.

deal.
(good idea, but i think the manager has me marked in red on the map now. ha.)

but it won’t be this month for me, i’ve already spent my ‘discretionary’ money .
am taking a bonsai class and bought a bunch of stuff on sale for the freezer and replenished health food store supplies and pots on sale at big lots for herbs and flowers out front. am adding another grouping of hostas in pots on the deck, too.. (lots of nice pots right now, now’s the time to buy ‘em).c’mon spring. i’m ready.

i’m good for a while, but no more thangs right now.

so, it’s going on the list on the fridge. toward the top. right below ‘hand pruners’ and right above ‘ipod battery’. been using a ‘charge’ cord in the car and with the stereo inside. works for now.

raw

many fish like zucchini slices, too…rubberband it to a rock or buy the fancy holder version of it.

i missed this earlier–

one fish is the way to go to start off any tank, freshwater or saltwater, if you don’t have ’starter’ water, like i did when my friends gave me their tank…but i still lost a few and i still had to watch it closely..
any of the ones i listed earlier would work, i’d go for a platy or mollie. mollies are tough as nails, but platys can survive it, too. you can add more ‘friends’ after the tank is ready.

you’re gonna want a heater, more fish to choose from.

i like goldfish, but they’re messy and don’t play as much as the ones i listed.

if you introduce an angel while young, it probably won’t be aggressive. but like the plecostamus, it will get big and you face a bigger tank or having to find a home for it. my favorite of all time, pablo, was an angel of an angel..his mate died first. he hung in there for years…but i had a larger tank to put him in.and moved all of his buddies with him.

lots of fish that will be happy in a 10g and that will stay a certain size..and the smaller the fish, the more you can have, and no grief later when they get larger. so get a variety of a few kinds, different colors and different sizes. i still think the absolutely best fish is the neon tetra, they entertain and are beautiful especially at night. i listed my other faves, and theya re all easy.

right now i have 4 sunset platys, 8 neon tetras, i bought those. these came with the tank—three blue tetras that are mean so they are going, one red tetra that thinks it’s a platy, two dwarf plecostamus, two baby plecostamus, a little catfish thing that i love…..haven’t added many because i might put them into the 20 gallon.

mixed live and fake plants, so you can’t tell the difference. petrified wood log that i found in kentucky, a ‘driftwood’ piece from the pet store-not one from the woods–some fish need this to ’suck’ on, blue air volcano, jug, two ‘tree’ stumps with holes aimed so that i can see through to see the fish. and, of course, rocks. am adding more after i get my pile back from one of my friends..

fish need space to swim, things to glide through and around, plants to hide in and nibble on, places to ‘rest’ that are under cover–making a little slate cave thing looks great in a little tank..and a big tank..just make sure whatever you build can’t collapse on the fish. and don’t add just any ‘rock’, don’t use saltwater stuff (shells) from the ocean, and iron oxide anything..some rocks can leach into the water and kill the fish or make it impossible to keep the ph right. but most of the rocks in west virginia would work. : )

basically they need what we need. variety. out in the world looking and exploring, and safe/quiet in our room/cave.

boy, i missed a lot in the thread today…

i don’t know anything about texas dirt…around here if you add sand you will have cement. we have lots of clay. usually organic matter will take care of any soil. you need to find out ph too. extension offices will send out dirt samples you submit to be tested for a cheap price…well worth doing before you invest money, time and your body in preparing your soil. always do this first. then you will know what you need to amend.
you can have different soil than your neighbor, and different soil even in your own yard.

i don’t knjow which part of texas, so, here’s the google page for county extensions in texas…(but at the end i posted a list of states that is better.)
http://www.google.com/search?q…..=firefox-a

extension offices are there to educate..just call the office and they will give you info, called ‘fact sheets’ that will help you…usually they have a local website, and a state-wide site where you can pull up your own info. master gardeners are there to help also. ours have a booth at thefarmers’ market to answer questions and pass out sheets on timely things..ours are having a symposium on backyard gardening in april..succession planting, soils, plants, etc..

wait, here is a site that lists all of the states’ offices and info by county.
http://www.northerngardening.com/extension.htm

here is ohio’s ‘q and a’ site called ohioline
http://ohioline.osu.edu/

happy digging!

Hey, greenwarrior! Good luck w/ the garden. If you wre successful in Israel, you may be able to apply similar principles here.

It’s been awhile since I’ve gardened, too – too MUCH shade for anything to grow, even my herbs died last 2 years.

Planting season is March for many things – you’re a bit farther north and therefore a little cooler than S.A.–but you have a few weeks to plant everything for the summer. If your yard/garden is full-sun all day, watch out for scorching. We always planted in March or even February- had lovely ripe tomatoes in May and June – but by July tomatoes shriveled up dead before we could get them picked. (Well, we had to leave for work in the dark, by evening, too late. If you can pick early, you can keep tomatoes going longer)

Do watch out for the dreaded squash borer – first year had the proverbial Sorcerer’s Apprentice crop – never again. Second year, borer got 85% of squash before it got bigger than an inch or two. 3rd season-hopeless, and I gave up. But melons, eggplant did fine–peppers, of course, thrive longest, all kinds. But it’s good to look for A&M varieties that are specially bred for Texas. They even have an A&M carrot – it’s maroon!

Good luck! I’ve really only gardened in Texas, and it was frustrating, but glorious. I was harvesting tomatoes when my dad in Maryland was just planting his.

Greenwarrior- dmac’s post above reminds me – there are several good books specifically about Texas gardening, flowers and vegetables and herbs. It is different.

Here in S.A. we are officially a “semi-arid” climate – not sure but I think Austin area is less arid.

And, yes, the county extension agents can do everything she said. You can probably buy ph testing kits at nurseries.

Oh, and have you met Gardenville? Pretty sure they have a place in your area. There’s at least one other major organic gardening nursery there, well-established, can’t remember name and have to get moving.

Okay, one website, before I run out the door:

http://www.garden-ville.com/

you can buy ph test kits, but they won’t tell you why-what your soil is. it’s nice to have the ‘breakdown’ sheet and then they can tell you options of what to do with it..
all for about the price of a kit.
i think our extension office charges 12 bucks. they charge what they are charged, what it costs to run the tests at the state lab. sometimes there is a deal if there are a bunch to go out at the same time. advice/guidance is free. lol.

christy, forgot–
think of the gravel as ‘terrain’…slope it up or down towards the corners, and front to back or up or down…when you add things, like the treasure chest, landscape it into the gravel terrain just like you would in a landscape project, cuz it is..

think ‘wva hills and hollers’. lol.

there is a theory to slope from back to front, and slope up in the corners to let ‘debris’ be more accessible to clean the tank. but now with the super-suckem aids you can buy, doesn’t really matter, that tool can reach anything.

play with it. just moving the gravel up and down and around makes it look different. and moving things around is part of the fun of it.

i usually have a dominant slope from one back corner to the opposite front corner with flat, then slope areas down the ‘hill’. higher in back—that way plants in the back can be higher/taller than usual and will show up from behind what you place in there like logs and treasure chests, etc…