Had never heard of the websites, thanks for that. Love seeing the pics. Had a Maltese as the kids were growing up but he passed away after 17 years!!! Loved him. Now I have become a 'cat lady'. Have always rescued cats, taking them to the shelter to have them fixed and placed for adoption. I also fostered a couple of kitties this past winter. I have of course Bowie who is very affectionate, his mother was dropped off here with five babies. All were taken care of and two adopted out. Kept Bowie, but no one wanted his mother, she is very shy, I suspect she was treated badly. I also have the sister Chloe, who is also shy, but a sweet cat. Here is a pic of the three together. Bowie, Mommie Kittie, and Chloe. They are a very closeknit family!! Bowie follows me everywhere when I am outside, which is of course all day long !! They stay outside and I have a shelter for them when the weather is cold. Then I have Sweetums, who is my spoiled inside baby, never was going to have an 'inside' cat, my daughter found her abandoned at a park several years ago when she ( my daughter) was taking pictures, just before winter, she was starving, and we couldn't leave her. There were two kittens, and my daughter's boyfriend's mother took the other one. So Sweetums stayed in the house to recover from the surgery (spaying) and then I didn't know how the others would react to her and she is long haired. So needless to say she stayed in and I love having her in the house. She is very quiet and very well behaved. She has bonded completely to only me, hides when anyone comes over. This is her living the good life. Then lastly and once again never thought I would have a cat inside. This is scaggs. I named him scraggly, cause he was such a mess and no one knew what his name had been. Very sad story, his owner who had been evicted from his home, just left his cat outside on the porch of the house, after he had been an inside cat for almost two years. There were a couple of businesses in the neighborhood and they would feed him, but not every day. I knew about it and couldn't stand it, so I took him to the vet, he had already been neutered. Other than being hungry, he was in good health. But he was a big mess. He had been living under a dumpster for awhile, (after crying on that porch for weeks,) and with his long fur, it was a disaster, so I took him to the groomers to have him cleaned up. He stayed in my garage then for a few weeks, while I tried to find a home for him, He is very loving, and seemed thrilled to be in a garage. I slowly introduced him to sweetums, and it worked out, so in he came and now i have the both of them inside and they get along great. He is the 'company' cat, cause he likes people, in spite of what he went through. Boy that was long, sorry. Aren't you glad you started this!!! Cindy

My cat Nala, though we just call her cat. Turned 2 on January 5. This is my Chihauhau Sophie. Turned 1 today actually, January 22. Thinks she's a little human girl. This is one of my rabbits, Efram. He'll be 2 on June 25. I have 5 other rabbits (Ruddigger-2 on May 30, Dingo-2 on October 27, and Loki, Spockles and Chester-all 1 on March 25) but I don't have pics of them uploaded on my comp yet. And this is an old picture of a wild jack rabbit that I found as a little baby and raised to adult. His name was Boots and he's just a baby in this pic. Maybe a month old or so. Fed him with a syringe until he was old enough for solid food. Sadly I couldn't keep him because, well, he's a wild rabbit. Had to let him go. But I'll always love him.

Dave, I will try and separate the red ginger and let you know when ready. I will also try rooting rangoon creeper and see if that works. Scott, I got my rangoon creeper from zone9tropicals online nursery 2 years ago. rareflora and almostedenplants online nurseries also carry this plant.

The average is Adult females weigh 100 - 200 pounds whereas adult males are larger, at 150 - 350 pounds. But they can get bigger. A few years ago a very large male spent his summer in the larger apple trees around here. He was very big, but unfortunately he was hit by a car when he was trying to cross the highway to go back into the hills. There hasn't been any fatal attacks around here, thank goodness, but they will euthanize the ones that enter homes or get into cars. They use those Karelian Bear dogs to scare them the first time they are trapped, but last week they released a mom and cub and mom turned around to confront the dog, luckily it all ended well. That's what scares me most, inadvertently coming between a mom and her baby. It's sad when they have to be put down because I feel like we live in their territory, and a lot of times human mistakes cause the problems. And some humans actively feed them so they become even more used to people. There is a lot of bear activity up at the lake. One even wandered into a casino one day. A bear walks into a casino. Their noses are so powerful and often it leads them into trouble.