What I have seen with the South African, Hadeco bulbs lately (this year), that a lot of the bulbs had scapes emerging with the top of the bud chipped or cut off... I think they have emerged while the leaves were still on the bulb, and when the bulbs were harvested, they cut the leaves and the tip of the bud too. I had a Fanfare coming to me like that which Jodi took, since the other one was a little rotten, so I performed surgery on it and kept it to myself. But I have a Stars & Stripes with the same top cut off, and I have seen a lot of bulbs in the garden outlet having the same treatment... I assume that this happened at Hadeco already. Now... San Remo is not from Hadeco. Sometimes it happens that the first scape brings a little (or lot) distorted blooms, but usually the second and/or third scape are a completely different story and they tend to look nice and wonderful. Probably because the bulb has grown enough roots already... I have gotten a lot of bulbs that bloomed for me distorted first, then showed up their real beauty in subsequent blooms. I am not saying that you should not complain if you feel shortchanged, but I learned, that this kind of things happen from time to time. It might even happen that JS will replace the bulb for you. Who knows... Please post the picture here.

Sandy, I learned a lot about plant toxicity through crafting 100's of species of bative and exotic woods from around the world for over 50 years into calls, so it was a natural to also investigate by applying that knowledge to larval food plants in some of my rearing studies. Plants 101: Basically, all plants are not created equal toxicity wise even within a specific species in the same general area. Individual plants are a product of their own specific environment, so toxins can vary widely even between same species plants within a stones throw of each other. Whats in their particular growing medium naturally, whats in it unnaturally, what growth habits they are forced into by the physical chacteristics and location of their medium, etc can effect their toxicity. In general plants that are naturally stunted by the medium they grow in, by lack of nutrients, unnatural chemicals, by the wind, the lack of or excess moisture, temperture swings, etc are commonly far more toxic than those growing in a more favorable environment. Some of my favorite woods for years were the Dalbergia's, especially from Costa Rica and Brazil. They grow in several habitats there, and which one alone has a lot to do with their toxicity... along with the above mentioned influences. Some were so toxic they were unusalble for my purposes. While Dalbergia is a LFP for many lep species in the Palearctic/Indo-Malayan regions, I only know of Morpho achilles and Aphrissa statira using it in CR/Brazil, but there could be others. Anyway... Environmental factors up to a point can alter which genes become dominate and which recessive if they are induced at specific times during a leps metamorphosis. The most commonly seen aberrations in adults are temperature induced that occured within a specific time frame while in their pupal stage. But how well larvae handle and process plant toxins, oils, etc can also induce dominate characteristics that can become typical in all the current broods from a specific area. I chose these for the picture because I did them from several locations in each of these specific habitats many different years and this is what was typically dominate at each location. What triggered there differences would be speculative as I never proved them out. I have seen female plexippus especially that were so brown they looked more like Danaus eresimus montezuma or D. gilippus in basic color, but never a plexippus colony where that trait was donimate. Larry

We visited Moab last fall and it was one of the highlights of our entire Western US trip. Arches, Canyonlands... wish we had had more time there. We hope this fall to get to Bryce and Zion. The red rocks are amazing. But as plllog said, best left as natural art, or at least as vertical surfaces. Some stones have good reason to be polished, and some k;tchens have good reason to have polished stone, and some people have good reason to prefer that look. And polished is not necessarily unnatural. However, if you don't prefer that look, then as jrueter said, there are other options with granite. We bought the same thing that she has but ended up exchanging it for a different leathered stone for various reasons. The options are confusing.... leathered, honed, brushed, riverwashed, satin, antiqued, maybe more. One supplier I talked to last week said that the boutique names may differ but often mean the same thing or close to it. But it doesn't have to be polished. These kinds of treatments really bring out the beauty of some particular stones, but may mute certain characteristics on other particular stones.

Hehehe... *envy* I only have one, she will be 3 at the end of Oct. She's in daycare, and I take her in (DH is in a vanpool for his work)... then drive an hour to work. So I'm essentially gone 6:45am - 6:00pm every day. Doing just about anything other than basic cleaning/tidying during the week is difficult, except for the odd occasion when I have a day off but daycare is still open -- and then I don't want to do jobs, I only want to spend an extra day with DD. We're planning to paint a dining room and guest bedroom SOME TIME before the end of the year, and will probably have her spend a Fri & Sat night with my parents. That's a 3-way win. They get to have time with her, she gets to have time with them, and DH and I can actually do things that don't require us to be home OR quiet in the evening. :) (BTW, I would normally hire out that paint job but our dog is super territorial/protective. If we gate him, he will either jump it, climb it, or bark incessantly. He won't bite anyone, but will stay about 10 ft away and bark non-stop. If we close him in another room, he will bark & scratch up the doors/walls. He's fine with just us, but SUPER protective of his "turf"... little %&$* cost me my cleaning lady because she couldn't stand the non-stop barking...)