Well, I work on BIG daries, I own my own beef cows, and my past is in beef operations of all sizes... I can say that producers of all sizes are against the NAIS in any form they choose to present it. For my big dairy customers: It is all they can do to get employees who can write down numbers acuarately enough to use a simple numbered eartag system with any accuracy much less reporting the results to the USDA. No matter what I am trying to look at when I deal with records on big dairies I expect to see a ten-percent margin of error due to employees making mistakes... The USDA has not come up with a way to overcome that and their system won't work until they do. As far as my small beef herd: The hassles of just having the herd itself are almost not worth it. It would just take a little bit of government to get me to throw up my hands and tear out the pasture and plant citrus. As far as my past with beef operations: Ain't no way in **** the USDA is gonna track those animals! I used to help on a ranch whose strategy to control inbreeding was to ride out into the backcountry and shoot every bull over three years old that didn't have a brand... The country was so tough that they couldn't even gather all of their cattle to work them. There are more ranches like that than we realize and they can't survive if they are expected to track every single animal.

Auteck, I've been warned against afternoon "watering" as opposed to light "misting". Which one are you doing? I will try to get some updated pictures for you. heelsfan, I just came back from columbia, SC which is only 4 hours drive from here and what a difference in climate. It has rained here twice in the last 2 months yet yesterday in SC I got thunderstormed on 8 times in one day. It was like a rain forest. That is the kind of humid coastal plain weather that puts that tropical swamp grasses into high gear and we haven't had that here and we don't normally even get that kind of weather until August. If you're having or have had that kind of hot humid weather with temps in the mid 90's and above then that really isn't what I'm having to contend with. I did see some tall fescue that actually looked like it was in excellent shape though.

Welcome to Georgia! I would recommend a tour of the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, located on the campus of the U of GA, there in Athens. It is a large garden, covering 300 acres (121 hectares) and one section is devoted to GA native plants. Take a notebook and record some of the plants you find attractive and wish to plant. Most of the spring flowering natives will be dormant at this time of the year, so you will need to schedule a return trip next spring. There are several nurseries in the Athens area that sell native plants, Goodness Grows & Thyme After Thyme are 2 that I'm familar with. When in the Atlanta area, you may want to visit the Peremeter College Native Plant Botanical Garden, easily accessible from I-285, near the intersection with I-20,East of Atlanta. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, at Piedmont Park, intown Atlanta, is another resource. Georgia has a very active Native Plant Society that is a great source of information about native plants. Visit the website at: http://www.gnps.org/ Have fun and enjoy the natives! Rb I don't have a sure fire method of combating mosquitos without chemicals, no one does, but eliminating standing water around the premises reduces breeding grounds, wearing white or light colored loose fitting clothing when outdoors, covering as much exposed skin as possible, will reduce your attractiveness to the biting females. Here is a link that might be useful: State Botanical Garden of Georgia

Yes, that must have been it, Omar. It was pixies playing tricks on us or else it was me who was somewhat "pixilated' after all the talking and trading ... LOL I have a question: someone brought a jar for the door prize table containing something brown that looked like preserves of some kind, but it had a picture of a cleaning woman on it. I asked the contributor and she told me that if was for cleaning your hands after gardening and contained brown sugar. I'm fascinated, but can't remember what else the cleaning compound contained. Anybody remember who brought it and what else it contained besides brown sugar? The dates for both SAPS next year will be announced by Lorelei soon ... :-)