Bon, I think the argument about whether or not pill bugs and sow bugs will rage on forever. Different people have different experiences. My experience is that in our climate, they'll eat everything they can find in dry years, though they aren't as much of a problem in wet years. It also depends on how much organic matter you have available for them to munch on. If they run out of organic matter to break down, they'll immediately start eating your plants. As you noted, they have to eat something when they get hungry. Grubs at the level you're seeing would worry me, but then, most grubs are not an issue, so it wouldn't worry me a tremendous amount unless I am having an ongoing issue with the types of grubs that are destructive. Grubs are simply the larvae of beetles, and there are many beetles that are beneficial. If you have too many of the types of beetles that are destructive next year, then the time to use milky sport powder to lower their population would be next August. We have a gazillion different kinds of ground beetles here and they are very beneficial, so I don't worry about them. In the years when we have an outbreak of the types of beetles that munch on plants, all I do is put a little bit of alfalfa (the kind that is compressed into rabbit feed pellets is fine for this purpose) into a 5-gallon bucket and just leave it there, sitting under the yard's security light. The beetles are drown to it and drown in the alfalfa tea. I scoop them off the top and toss them on the ground or on the compost pile, and the next morning, there's a whole lot more floating in the alfalfa tea. After a few weeks of that, all the problem beetles are gone. Since you have small children, you might not want to use a 5-gallon bucket if you think they might wander over to it and play in the alfalfa tea, but even a fairly shallow pan with water just 3 or 4" deep will attract and drown a lot of the bad types of beetles. You'll find beetles floating on pure water too, but they are a whole lot more attracted to alfalfa tea than to tap water alone. I have had years where the raised beds in my garden were full of grubs, though not as many as you're seeing, and they did zero damage to the garden plants. Dawn

Hi. Thanks for the advice. Our weather is improving, temp. wise, and I think I will go ahead and divide the fern itself. I actually do have some 12" and 14" wire baskets that we "stuff" with our own moss. Have grown many kinds of begonias in those, but I actually would prefer the ferns. I would also like to get another Staghorn this season. The problem I have with those is that they get so big that when they have to come in for the winter, I just don't have a place to water them without making a mess. Any suggestions? My husband is the 'fern man'. He basically works with the garden ferns, but I'm slowly reintroducing him to more of the 'exotic' types. The 'deers' tongue and the dainty Maidenhair are often winter hardy here. So is the Pteris. We lost alot of them a few years back when we had a hard winter. Our hardy ferns are now sending up their beautiful fiddleheads. Is it too late to divide? They are getting huge and have broken the containers they were in a couple of years ago. I'd finally like to put them in the ground. We have a 30 year old stand of nandinas that my dad and I planted when my folks used to live here. I'd always been told that they didn't send out new plants, but they certainly have gone crazy with age. Last season we had to cut many of them down to the ground as they were blocking one another out. Can I dig some of the new babies and move them to another place? Well, I've asked enough questions! Thanks. SAM

Birth control pills may help mask menopause symptoms By TOM VALEO Published March 28, 2006 All women can expect to enter menopause sooner or later, but women taking birth control pills may not notice, at least for a while. In the meantime, they can expect several benefits from the pill beside avoiding an unwanted pregnancy: They will avoid some of the most conspicuous signs of menopause, such as hot flashes, night sweats and irritability. "A woman on the birth control pill is getting hormones at a level above what her ovaries would produce,'' said Dr. Catherine Lynch, director of General Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa. "When a woman goes into menopause, the ovaries basically shut down and no longer produce estrogen or progesterone in any significant amounts, so a woman taking the birth control pill in the standard fashion of three weeks on active pills, followed by one week of inactive pills, often won't have any symptoms of menopause until that pill-free week. She may not even realize she's in menopause because she's getting adequate estrogen and still cycling.'' During the week when she is not taking active birth control pills, the woman may even have a "withdrawal bleed" caused by the sudden drop in estrogen. A withdrawal bleed is easily mistaken for a normal period. And if the woman is taking continuous-use birth control pills, she will take inactive pills only one week out of every 12 instead of every four, so she will have a withdrawal bleed no more than once every four months. "So a woman who's, say, 51 and taking Seasonale one of the continuous-use birth control pills isn't going to have hot flashes or night sweats for 12 weeks, because she's having estrogen provided for her by the pills,'' Dr. Lynch said. "She may experience symptoms during the week she takes inactive pills, but just as symptoms start to climb, she starts taking active pills again, and she won't appreciate that these are symptoms of menopause.'' But that's not all. Taking birth control pills also seems to reduce bone loss. In fact, if the woman is also doing weight-bearing exercises and getting plenty of calcium, low-dose birth control pills may even help build bone density. Women on the pill also experience less iron deficiency anemia, and some studies suggest that the pill protects against benign breast disease, endometrial cancer and epithelial ovarian cancer. The Cancer and Steroid Hormone Study, the largest to investigate this last issue, found a 40 percent decrease on average of ovarian cancer in women who had taken oral contraceptives. The risk decreased as the amount of time on the pill increased, so women who had taken the pill for seven years or longer experienced a reduction in the risk of ovarian cancer of 60 to 80 percent. Some Women on the pill also experience less iron deficiency anemia, and some studies suggest that the pill protects against benign breast disease, endometrial cancer and epithelial ovarian cancer. studies suggest that oral contraceptives might even protect against colorectal cancer, uterine fibroid tumors, Alzheimer's disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Taking the pill has always meant an increase in the risk of blood clots, which can cause a stroke. But a woman who does not smoke, does not have high blood pressure, and takes a low-dose oral contraceptive can almost eliminate that additional risk. So why not just stay on the pill and enjoy all the benefits of hormone-replacement therapy, known as HRT? Because even low-dose birth-control pills deliver five to seven times as much estrogen as HRT. HRT simply gives the body back what the ovaries were producing before they were shut down by menopause. The birth control pill delivers a dose of hormones large enough to shut down the ovaries, and it's pointless for a woman to keep taking hormones after menopause has begun and she has stopped ovulating. She would be better off with hormone-replacement therapy, which would provide her with the same benefits but a lower dose of hormone. "The trick is figuring out when she is in menopause,'' Dr. Lynch said. "There are a couple of ways to test this, but they're not 100 percent reliable. She can go off the pill and see if she's still cycling, but if she's sexually active, there's an outside chance she could get pregnant. "While it's rare for pregnancy to occur at the age of 50 or 51, it can happen if you're still ovulating.'' Tom Valeo is a freelance writer specializing in medical and health issues. Contact him c/o Seniority, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail features at sptimes dot com. [Last modified March 28, 2006, 08:52:07] Here is a link that might be useful: from a Florida online newspaper

Oops...I meant Vitaglo.com...and the size is #3. I've had cats from kittenhood to senior years. Some took to pilling much better than others. After being catless for 6 months, I recently fostered a poor cat from the ASPCA and had to give her thyroid meds twice a day. She would not let me pill her (she barely let me come near her). She fell for the pill pockets a couple times. I could actually hear her growl when she bit thru to the pill. Then she got wise and refused to eat the pockets. I had to give her back to the ASPCA where the pros could handle her. Then I read about meds that could be topically rubbed onto a cats ear. But I don't know if they can do that with Baytril. Also, A friend's cat just had surgery and she told me that her Vet gave the cat a long acting antibiotic injection. You might ask about that since an anti-biotic is something that you can't put off while trying to find the magic pilling solution. L