A note about sugar ratio and percent: To say a 1:4 sugar:water mix is 20% sugar is incorrect; the sugar is in dry, granulated form and the water is (obviously) liquid. The sugar industry expresses sugar concentration as percent sugar by weight (mass for you scientists) also known as Brix; where one Brix is equivalent to 1 gram sugar dissolved in a 100 gram sugar solution. This is the number a sugar refractometer will give you. A cup of sugar weighs 200 grams. A cup of water weighs 237 grams. A 1:4 sugar mix is 200 grams sugar + 948 grams water = 1148 grams total. Percent sugar by weight or Brix is: 200g / 1148g x 100 = 17% (rounded to the nearest percent). You 1:4 purists are only offering half the sugar concentration found in natural nectar preferred by Hummers! So, get over it already... By the same method: A 1:3 sugar mix is 200g / 911g x 100 = 22% by weight A 1:2 sugar mix is 200g / 674g x 100 = 30% by weight A 1:1 sugar mix is 200g / 437g x 100 = 46% by weight Benjamin F Tucker was among the first to mass-feed hummers in the 1930s and '40s. He used laboratory glassware to make his feeders (no Perky-Pet or Droll Yankees back then). His work was described in the December 1946 Popular Mechanics article: "Hummingbird Cafeteria". The lead photo shows 22 of his 'beaker feeders' lined up on wood shelves. A quote from page 125: "If you supply artificial nectar - half water and half sugar - he'll stay long after blooming time." Sounds like a 1:1 sugar mix to me - 46 Brix - and I don't believe he poisoned a single hummer... (PM December 1946 may be found on-line - I'll let you figure that out for yourself...) - waw -

I hope we don't have another frost here in Love County, but it is not out of the realm of possibility. One of my "old farmer" neighbors, who passed away last year at the age of 97, insists that he remembers snow falling in Love County a couple of times in May, although I couldn't find any official record of it. Another, who is a relative whippershaper at the age of almost-88, does remember freezes or frosts in early May. There again, I haven't been able to find any official record to back up his memories. I don't use pesticides, insecticides or miticides in general either, Susan, but the fire ants get completely out of control if I don't treat the lawn once every 3 to 4 years. For a long time, I tried to go it organically, but there is no organic product that is effective on fire ants, and, believe me, I have tried them all. Over the decades we have tried every chemical fire ant product too. Some of them seem to work for a few years after introduction, but seem to lose their effectiveness over time, which tells me that the fire ants must develop resistance to them. For several years now, we've used Over 'N Out (I think that's the name, it is in a blue bag.) with great results. The only real pest I had major trouble with last year was stink bugs on the tomatoes beginning in August. They are a huge problem and ruin the fruit so that it is inedible. I am going to watch for them this year and try to stop them in their tracks before they multiply and get out of hand. There's not much (organic) that works on them either, except hand-picking them while they're small. Being in a remote, rural location, we have every bug known to mankind, but at least that means we have a good population of beneficials and they help with the bad bugs. I always have a billion lady bugs and I love them. Praying mantids are not my favorite since they eat everything, good and bad. You'd think with all the caterpillars we have here that we'd have an abundance of parisitic waps, but we don't seem to. Dawn

I give away alot of my apricot jalapeno jelly. I prefer it with 5 different types of peppers, jalapeno, habanero, tobasco, pequin and serano, or whatever I have growing. Wild plum jelly is another favorite, if I can find wild plums (which I couldn't this year.) I made sour cherry, apricot and peach! Cherry is DGS#1 favorite, apricot is DH favorite and peach is DGS#2 favorite. I also gift squash/zuchinni relish. The last couple of years I haven't canned salsa, which I did for years. I have been making it fresh, even with grocery store tomatoes, which IMOP is better than processed salsa. I just don't care for the vinegar taste.

Vaporvac: Thank you !! I post info. here to help myself & family toward better health. The kelp & iodine info. posted in Feb 2017 helped me to get down to 118 lb. in August 2017. I always snack 2 hours before bedtime, and keep a diary of what's eaten before bedtime and the quality of sleep. I notice that when I had Multigrain Cheerios before bedtime, my sleep quality was poor (zero dreams), plus icky chemical-acrid-after-taste. Then I bought gluten-free FREEDOM ancient grains (rice & corn & sorghum & buckwheat) imported from Australia .. and was surprised how improved my sleep was (with vivid dreams). Glyphosate is known to kill beneficial bacteria in the gut. Other effects are cancer, kidney and liver damage, endocrine/hormonal disruption, autism and depression. https://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-glyphosate-cheerios-2093130379.html The tests conducted by Anresco were done on 29 foods commonly found on grocery store shelves. According to the report, glyphosate residues were found in: General Mills' Cheerios at 1,125.3 parts per billion (ppb) Kashi soft-baked oatmeal dark chocolate cookies at 275.57 ppb Ritz Crackers at 270.24 ppb Concerns about glyphosate comes as new research shows that Roundup can cause liver and kidney damage in rats at only 0.05 ppb, and additional studies have found that levels as low as 10 ppb can have toxic effects on the livers of fish. The U.S. has set the ADI for glyphosate at 1.75 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight per day (mg/kg/bw/day) while the European Union has set it at 0.3. https://detoxproject.org/alarming-levels-of-glyphosate-contamination-found-in-popular-american-foods/ On the heels of the growing controversy surrounding glyphosate’s safety, this unique testing project that started in 2015, has found alarming levels of glyphosate in General Mills’ Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes and PepsiCo’s Doritos Cool Ranch, Ritz Crackers and Stacy’s Simply Naked Pita Chips. https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.fooddemocracynow.org/images/FDN_Glyphosate_FoodTesting_Report_p2016.pdf Glyphosate Food Testing Results: (in parts per billion – ppb) General Mills Original Cheerios - 1,125.3 ppb Honey Nut Cheerios – 670.2 ppb – 14.5 Wheaties – 31.2 ppb Trix - 9.9 ppb Gluten Free Bunny Cookies Cocoa & Vanilla – 55.13* ppb Kellogg’s Corn Flakes – 78.9 ppb Raisin Bran – 82.9 ppb Organic Promise - 24.9 ppb Special K - 74.6 ppb Frosted Flakes - 72.8 ppb Cheez-It (Original) – 24.6 ppb Cheez-It (Whole Grain) – 36.25* ppb Soft-Baked Cookies, Oatmeal Dark Chocolate – 275.58* ppb Nabisco Ritz Crackers – 270.24 ppb Triscuit – 89.68 ppb Oreo Original – 289.47* ppb https://www.bestfoodfacts.org/glyphosate-in-food/