Sorry not to chime in from the USA, but I thought you were getting good info... There was a controversy about PT wood a few years ago, but it seems to have gone away now - and maybe slipped out of the thoughts of most of us - after all, we don't HAVE to think about it anymore. If you search the Forums for "pressure treated wood" or for "safe wood" you might get a number of postings and a number of opinions. As I recall, the concensus boiled down to 1.) railway ties were probably OK for retaining walls, etc. where your physical contact with them would be minimal, 2.) using them for veggie beds or for paths, where you would be touching them frequently or eating veggies, esp. root vegetables, that had touched or were grown in the 3-4 in. (8-12 cm) of soil next to the tie was probably not a good idea, 3.) it was probably OK to use them for veggie beds if you were raising leaf or fruit crops, but not to plant anything in the 3-4 in. (8-12cm.) of soil next to the edge. I would be VERY reluctant to have them in a path or driveway where I would walk on them barefooted, or where my shoes might pick up any that had oozed out with summer's heat that might be then brought into the house. Personally, I hate the smell of creosote, so wouldn't use them at all. In general, I try to avoid using pressure treated woods, esp. as there is always the problem of what to do with them after they have outlived their usefulness - burning is NOT a good idea, nor is grinding them up to use for mulch. BUT, I do use them for construction (it's called for by code, if nothing else), since I do want buildings, footings and foundations/sills to last as long as possible, and PT DOES rot a lot slower and is less attractive to termites than most plain woods. I can't afford redwood - and probably wouldn't use it anyway because of old-stand logging concerns - nor can I now afford cedar or cypress - their prices have gone sky high - and locust is impossible to get as lumber. So, PT wood is the only way to get the qualities I need. At least, now it SHOULD be safer than the old stuff. I don't remember now if the PCP issue came up at all. I'll have to look it up and see what the relative danger is. Yet one more thing to worry about....

Yes, FOAS, I agree about multiple servings per meal. But, the next time you order pasta in a restaurant make a guage of how much is on the plate knowing that 1/2 cup is 1 serving. Here, a plate usually has 2-3 cups (I've had plates with even more than 3 cups). That's too much pasta & it's also likely white pasta. I'd be surprised to learn that Americans are not getting enough grain in their diets. Whole grain? Yes, not enough but white flour products...no. Many people who eat the huge plate of pasta for dinner also have had a large sandwich for lunch (likely a roll that's more than the 2 servings of bagged sandwich bread) and possibly more grain for breakfast (English muffin, toast, cereal, donut). Also, with the pasta dinner...often it is served with a crouton containing salad & garlic bread...more grain servings. I eat 5 meals/day...always have. I started doing that when I was young because I was always hungry. Eventually, found out I had thyroid problems, had surgery, but still continued with the 5 meals/day just much smaller. I was fortunate in that my jobs allowed me to duck away somewhere & eat pretty much whenever I felt the need. I know/understand that not all jobs have the benefit of flexible schedules. Still, mid-day snacks can quite easily be upped to mini-meal status. Something like hummus/pita crisps & a piece of fruit. One benefit of more meals/day is to help keep blood sugar levels even & not get ravenous unless you're a lumberjack, or equivilent. Piling all your grains (carbs) into an evening meal is also not condusive to weight loss. Better to have that restaurant pasta meal at lunch. My point is that I believe that due to supersizing many Americans do not realize what's a "serving". Our perceptions are also supersized. While I'm ranting (and I'll quit after this)...people also eat too fast! It takes our bodies about 20 minutes of chewing to feel satiated. If we gulp our meal in 12 minutes we'll likely still think we're hungry even after an appropriate amount of food. If we just stop eating though our bodies will eventually catch up with our forks & register that we're full. So, just slowing down is a great weight management tool. Eating too fast is a pitfall of many singles & families that don't eat meals together. Eating together around a table & enjoying a conversation naturally slows down our eating. My DH is struggling with this issue now. After 6 years of living apart Mon-Fri he had started gulping his dinner down in front of the TV. Now, together full-time he's being forced to slow down because I'm talking to him. He'll still gobble a sandwich when he's alone in 3 minutes flat. :) /t

Hazel, Yes he is very much a typical coyote in appearance. His coat might be slightly more golden than what I usually see, so I think there is a slim chance he has some domestic dog DNA in his heritage, but he is not at all the sort of coyote-domestic dog hybrid we sometimes see here, so if he has domestic dog DNA, it is a small amount. I had to deal with a coyote one year that was a clear coyote/golden retriever mix. About the only part of him that looked like a coyote was his head and his tail. He had no fear of humans and would try to walk right up to you, which is extremely dangerous and cannot be tolerated. I ran into that one occasionally while walking my dogs and he would try to walk along with us, not in a menacing way, but because I knew he was a coyote, I always reversed course and headed straight back home. If a car came along, he'd run right off. Otherwise he'd pace us from about 20 yards away. This one is not like that, but he also doesn't exhibit much fear and he certainly doesn't slink off with his tail between his legs like coyotes often do. He is probably 2 or 3 years old---a young, muscular healthy one that is eating very well, not looking at all like the lean, skinny half-starved ones we often see in drought years. Clearly he roams our neighborhood a great deal and is used to humans and the noises we make because he does not startle easily and he also has taken to standing his ground a bit and staring back at me instead of just turning and running off. We probably should have shot and killed him long ago, but the longer you live with wild things, the more you know that all of them have an important role to fill in the ecosystem and the more you understand that it is better to divert them, to try to prevent them from becoming habituated to your presence/your habitat, etc., instead of killing them. And, truthfully, killing a coyote or a bobcat doesn't really protect your animals because another predator moves right into the available territory as soon as you kill one. I have studied his trail and no matter which wildlife trail he uses to enter/exit the woods near our house, it appears that once he gets deeper in the woodland he is utlizing a fallen log that rests across the creek bank about 10' above the waterline as a bridge to cross the creek. So, also on our list of things to do must be for us to go into the woods (ugh, in snake season already) with the chain saw and cut that log into several pieces so it no longer serves as a bridge. It is a very large tree trunk, possibly a walnut that the idiot beavers chewed/girdled but couldn't bring down due to its huge size about a decade ago. I've only seen it from the road's bridge over the creek, but tomorrow I think Tim and I will put on our leather workboots and such and venture into the woodland to check it out. With free-range chickens, you expect to lose one to predators here and there, but it really doesn't happen that often here. Except in the past year it has happened too often. I worry more about the coyote getting one of our cats than our chickens. Still, when a coyote is coming into your yard while you're outside working in the garden and not that far away, you do have to take action, if only to establish that you're a threat and that the coyote needs to stay away. So, that's where we are now. I left all the poultry inside their individual chicken coops/runs today, and they are not happy even though their fenced runs are large and fully covered with fencing so they are safe. Once poultry is used to free-ranging, they're never really happy confined. I don't care if they're happy today, because at least they are safe. Our chickens would rather be free than be safe, but their vote didn't count today. Only mine did. I kept the cats in, and the dogs are in their fenced dog run with the 8' tall fence to keep the coyotes out. So, I am not worried about the dogs, but I do always bring them indoors from the run if I have to leave the property. Kim, The thought of the blood doesn't bother me. We use blood meal and bone meal, after all, as organic fertilizers. I'm glad you and your little man are having so much fun together. See there---he'll be like me---growing up gardening and having it in his blood, which is a wonderful way to grow up. When kids understand where their food comes from and how it is grown, they automatically understand concepts that non-gardening children (and adults!) do not. Amy, I think Tim would have a stroke if I suggested he bring home some Zoo Doo (lots of zoos do sell it!). He told me yesterday he'll take care of the coyote himself. I love my husband, but I rolled my eyes. When I was having cougar encounters in the yard and was terrified and just trying to make it back to the house alive and in one piece, where was he then? Sitting on his butt watching TV and not paying any attention to any noise outside, not answering his phone (which he conveniently leaves in another room so the noise will not interrupt his TV viewing of some stupid movie he has watched 10,000 times before) and completely clueless, even though after the first cougar encounter he KNEW I was terrified and wanted him to keep his phone with him at all times. If I ever kill him it will be because he walks into his office, closes the door and tunes out the whole world including me and any predator that might be out in the yard with me. If I do not specifically tell him "I am going outdoors, there is a coyote lurking around, keep your phone right beside you", he won't have his phone handy. It makes me nuts. The odds of the coyote coming into the yard when Tim is home on the weekend are between slim and none. In the last year, that coyote has killed dozens of Chris' chickens (he built his coop too close to the woods and knew better and wouldn't listen to us, so what do you do?) and comes into the yard all the time when I am outside and when Chris is working on his house on weekdays, but never on weekends. That could be because we have a weekend neighbor whose property, which sits between us and the river, is not here during the week but often is here on the weekend, so it might be his presence that keeps the coyote from coming up through the river bottoms, crossing through his land and coming onto our land. I have thought about ordering cougar urine though and using it there on that edge of the woodland. Nancy, We have long had dogs---anywhere from 3 at one point up to 8 (a stray dog adopted us and then had puppies) and now we are down to 2 very old, grey-haired, more mellow ones and two hyper-excited ones that I guess are about 3 years old now. It is the easily excitable younger, smaller dogs who sound the DefCon 5 Coyote alert. They are ferocious barkers when a coyote is near. I believe all our dogs have prevented us from being burglarized on several occasions. Once, the word got back to me through a third party that a less-than-honorable person was prowling around our property looking for stuff to steal and our then young and healthy dog named Biscuit (who was a big softy but had a very ferocious attitude towards strangers) went ballistic over his presence. Supposedly this idiot fled and then told all his friends and acquaintances to stay away from our place because "they have a dog that will tear you up". Biscuit crossed over the rainbow bridge several years ago and we miss him so very much. After Biscuit, Duke was our main protector. He died last year. He was a Rottweiler-terrier mix and looked mean. He could act mean and just his appearance terrified people, but he also was just a big wussy. Luckily, no one but us knew what a wussy he was. His brother, Jet, is my big protector now and he has become extra-protective since Duke died. He even barks at Tim and Chris and doesn't really want them coming too close to me, which just makes me laugh, but it makes them highly irritated. I tell Tim it is his fault, When he leaves for work, he tells Jet "you take care of Mom today" , and Jet does just that. The problem is that Jet doesn't really turn off his protective instincts when Tim and Chris come home from work. It is easier to have 4 dogs than 8, and when our two older ones cross over the Rainbow bridge, I don't intend to replace them. We'll still have the two younger ones, and they think they are tougher than they probably are so they bark at anything. I mean if a car comes up our driveway, they have a full and total conniption fit. It is hard for anyone to sneak up on us with all these dogs, and that is a good thing. Amy. I'm so sorry about your dog. It is so hard when we have to let our furry companions leave us. My garden still is too muddy to do much, which is frustrating. I am going to try to weed today and then add some mulch to the just-weeded areas. Baabaamilker, I was going to say dianthus (specifically Sweet William, which is Dianthus barbatus) and bachelor buttons, but I see you already have it all figured out. Kim, How odd that the lettuce seeds did not sprout. Are the seeds fresh? Hazel, You can grow lettuce and pretty much all greens indoors under lights in the summer, preferably in an air conditioned room that stays below 80 degrees. Both heat and lack of water make lettuce taste bitter, and I think it really is a moisture issue more than a heat issue, at least until the lettuce begins to bolt. You will have the best success with leaf lettuce or with summercrisp lettuce varieties, not iceberg. Iceberg types are nice and crunchy but take too long to head up here and hit that wall of heat pretty early. Tim likes the crunch of iceberg, but leaf lettuce is more acceptable to me and I like the crispness of summercrisp ones. I really don't think it is a variety problem---I think it is our heat and lack of abundant moisture. Every lettuce variety I've ever grown has done well as long as it is well-watered and as long as it has shade from noon onward in the hot months. Eventually even well-watered, well-shaded lettuce will bolt though, and growing more indoors is one way to work around that. Amy, I'm sorry you're disappointed with the work done in your bathroom. That's why I like for us to do it ourselves, even if it take us 100 years to finish one project. Katie, I hope you're enjoying the chickens and hope the weather stabilizes soon so you can get plants in the ground. I have almost everything in the ground now but I am very far south and have been having awesome warm weather for a long time. I also have frost blankets if the cold nights come back, as they are sort of threatening to do late next week. Your lettuce looks fabulous! Dawn

Garden web was first on ivillage, which nbc purchased in 2006, until in 2013, i village was swallowed by today.com, which at around 2014 decided to drop( yes up for sale but no longer wanted by nbc) the GW forum. GW went live on houzz in Jan. 2015. Gw was looking for a new server to Save it, because short of a purchase today.com no longer planned to sustain it and that is why houzz was able to acquire it. Really, dispersing only half of stories and the side you like is misleadingly unhelpful. Also not acknowledging houzz' prompt response and repair to our gripes is plain rude. blfenton, I never did the three step sign up thing the other day maybe that is why it was back on my page.