Lindamarie, FIRST and foremost, here's one big ATTAGIRL for your resolve through completion of becoming DEBT FREE! YEA!!!! It doesn't get much better than that. NEXT, for someone who's been gardening for only 2 years, you have a more complete list of plants of anyone that I've ever seen. Whew! (And bunnies, too!) Don't you just love showing at the local fairs! I have helped out in ours by manning the Master Gardener booth. People just don't know what fun really is, do they! I'd love to have some of your Double Scrambled Eggs if you have any left. I thought I'd look at your list to see if I could offer you anything. But, this is my year to transplant my entire yard. Whew! What an undertaking. However, I can start a Pineapple Guava cutting for you if you'd like - I'd be happy to. If you LOVE butteflies, Gregg's blue mistflower can't be beat and I could send you some of that or my Mexican Feather Grass. Just got a good pup from it. Other than this, I have some miscellaneous things. I don't know if you have any of the Double Scrambled Eggs left and if you'd accept postage. If so, PLMK how much. I look forward to chatting with you, Xtal Here is a link that might be useful: Mexican feather grass

Been a few days since I bored y'all. Donna glad to hear about the rain. My ideas on hay must be whacho. I see grass hay that was cut and bailed since last friday. Seems overdue to me as I can walk through my patch and see the seeds falling. Been a long time since we made hay when I was a kid but I thought the right time was shortly after bloom and definitely before the seed heads were shattering. Garden. Mine consists (or did) of two tomato plants plus one in a pot on the patio. Went out to weed the two in garden and found weeds buried in dirt. Hmmm? What happened that there is no more 'dish' for water around them?? A little scraping and found a mole or more likely a gopher had surfaced in both places. Rebuilt the basins and watered but don't have much hope they'll survive. Must have been a busy little bugger as every step I took around there was collapsing another tunnel. Starting around on the watering again. Got the front done last night. On to the N end of the back tonight. Senior moment yesterday. Hit dental appoint and on way back was stopped by the jail captain. He wanted to borrow my PU to haul some brush. I told him I would pick it up as I was going wooding again today. He noticed the 'punk' willow I had on the truck and I told him I was on the way to deliver it to the patrol sergeant for tanning purposes and also to borrow their ladder. He suggested I borrow his instead. Good idea as it will save me a 20 mile drive to return it. Delivered the 'punk'. Back to town and loaded the brush as captain's. Only needed to load the ladder from the garage that was right there. Did I? Must not have as it wasn't on the PU when I got home. Somewhat good day in the woodpatch. Out of bed, loaded and gone by 6:30 with a lunch. More clearance of stuff in my way to get to the down log. Not a lot but it did cost me about an hour. At last got to actually cut some good wood after 3 trips. Cut a batch, load, cut some more, split now and load again. Go to cut some more and the Stihl MS310 won't come out of choke. Quick inspection and managed to get it freed up. Back to cutting but when I went to shut down the saw wouldn't go to OFF. Finally died. More inspection.. nope, my eyes don't see all those small thingy bobies anymore so it is off to the dealer in the morning with it. I had had enough sweating by then anyhow and had 3/4 of a load so quit. Home by 12. Still have about 8' of a very solid 24" log for my next trip plus a big snag that -may- have good wood in it plus another good size tree that should be good. All right where I have been working so only minimal clearance getting to them. re: all the wood in town I was hoping for. Looks like that is no-go. The town park has some over-age trees coming out (a few) that I will probably get (maple) but all the locust (big and old) no. They are removing them due to 'locust borer' and are only permitted to burn the entire lot - over 30 trees. What a waste! Did volunteer to help with cutting them up. Harry K

No offense to Old Hazza, but the eggs we raise are the best I have ever tasted in my life... They are laid by 100% free range chickens. They eat all that is available on our small farm including fibrous grass, bugs, and other such things... I think that the difference might be that they are happy chickens. We have 16 laying hens and each has their own personality, likes and dislikes, etc. I have a favorite named Phoenix because she is fire red. She sits on my shoulder while I mow the grass... As content as can be. They roost in the trees at night and scratch around all day. They visit with us and chase the cats and all sorts of funny things. They are great producers and fun pets. We don't weigh or measure their eggs or rate the shades of the yolks, but we eat them everyday and breakfast just seems like one big dessert! In my life I have never enjoyed a more rich, hearty, creamy, delicious egg from any other source. Can it not be true that happy hens just produce better "quality" eggs? I know we need large farms and such but that just don't settle well with me... It makes me feel bad to think about the mundane lives that they have... Just sayin...

Jim said "As I think back, I used dirt mixed in the bedding in the 18 gal and only coffee grounds in the 32." This does not surprise as you INNOCULATED the 18 gal bin with bacteria that gave the bin a tremendous headstart. The other bin had to catchup with whatever bacteria from the worms. I have found like most others here that using a little "casting tea" is a great way to really stimulate the decomp process. Now that being said, I started this thread and experiment to see if I could demonstrate that kind of 'significant' difference in the reducing paper to usable castings. My now one month project does NOT show that difference. I have read the arguments that people have said that worms have no teeth and they have a gizzard so grit MUST be an asset if not a requirement. I want to point out something that most people here may not be aware of- in commercial poultry industry, grit is NOT used. In an egg production facility, chickens are kept in cages where they would have NO way to get grit. Some broiler production houses have concrete floors that can be thoroughly cleaned between batches of birds to reduce disease transmission. Now if grit would help these birds' efficiency even by a fraction, the money savings would translate into big bucks. Don't you think grit would be incorporated into their diet?