It seems as if blooded behinds are fairly common? This is my first year raising turkey. I lost one because he jumped out of the pen and froze during the night. All of a sudden they started pecking at 2 of the other birds pulling out their tail feathers. One died from the shock, the other I rescued, Now in my lounge under a heat lamp all by it;s self. Will I be able to put it back do you think? or shall I just go and buy another turkey from the store and keep the 2 together?

PrairieMoon2, I have a seed starting mix from Gardens Alive! (I got it free) that is very nice. The fluffy stuff in it is coir based, I don't recall what else is in it, but Gardens Alive! is online and easy to find. I just use that for starting seeds, though. For regular plants in pots I mix ordinary soil and compost, or ordinary soil and aged horse manure. I grew a few tomatoes and peppers in containers last year (just to avoid having to weed part of the garden to plant them.) They were in a soil/manure mix. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that, so they grew really well! :-) I have always used some real soil in my pots, I have a few houseplants that are almost 30 years old, so I would have to say it does work. For my rosemary plant I mixed soil with sand about 50/50, as rosemary has specific drainage and growth requirements. But normally I just use what I have, which is soil, compost, and horse manure. I age/compost horse manure in large containers so that I usually have some old stuff that is safe to work with. Marcia

gardenluv, I've sown pretty many perennials already and just sent away for some seeds from J.L. Hudson and Prairie Moon Nursery. So I should have more to sow in a few weeks. :) Yeah, just what I need, more plants! LOL My neighbors will soon think I've lost it. Ha. I'm so glad to hear that you had success wintersowing snapdragons. I will ws the seeds that I collected from my plants a couple months ago. I think I'll sow them in about a month. If you're in zone 5 and sowed them in January, I'm confident that mine will be alright too. I would assume that they don't mind being snowed on then after the plants are growing. pitimpinai, Thanks for the welcome and for those links! :) I will be sure to check them out. I don't know why but I didn't think to look for a FAQ page. Duh! Ha, well, it's good that you could point me in the right direction. I hope I'll have time to do my wintersowing after I am done with my homework of doing all that readying. ;-) I will absolutely start right away...I love to read about plants and look through seed/nursery catalogs and have ordered some seeds. I look forward so much to planting that I called our local Walmart and asked when they would get their seeds in. :-D (Btw, I was told probably in another week or two). ghoghunter, I guess you and I are in the same zone, except I'm not sure if I'm in 6a or 6b. The map I found online didn't have a's and b's, just the numbers. Since I now know that it's okay to ws annuals, I'm going to do like you and sow all of my perennials and then ws my annuals. I have more perennials to sow than annuals and already sowed probably 3/4 of my perennials (none of my annuals, of course) and will be sowing some more perennials in another few weeks after I receive them in the mail. I still want to buy some red zinnias at Walmart or Lowe's when they get their seeds. I don't live too much on the wild side, so I think I'll wait another month to sow my annuals. :-D I just wonder why they saw on the packets to wait until danger of frost has passed to sow the annuals outside? Maybe the seed companies should read this forum. :) My list of perennials is fairly long and I don't want to bore anyone, but my annuals list only consists of zinnias, blue vervain, tropical milkweed, and hmmm...I know I have others but can't think of them right now. Thanks to all of you for your great help!

Whoa, if you get a degree in industrial arts you get to acquire carpentry textbooks along the way?!? Sweet! Kim, I've always enjoyed/appreciated your contributions; given the wisdom of trial and error that was behind them, I see why they stood out. My mom got us a couple of the Reader's Digest fixit books (have to run downstairs, one of them might be the very one you have); I like the way they are encyclopedic and detailed. I know Jane Powell but not the Small Houses books (do you mean The Not So Big stuff by Susanka, or the Small House anthologies from Fine Homebuilding?) Thanks for mentioning books; I think I might start a reference book thread for this forum. Hey Casey, THANKS for taking the bait. And you are NOT a bloody genius, you are an old house DEITY for crying out loud! Would you please start your own show on youtube? Or maybe just a house tour? Even Petch house has youtube videos. Or, do you already have a project blog and everyone knows about it but me? Actually for someone with a degree in historic preservation, I am impressed with how low-key your posts come across; they read more like an old friend who's "been there" and wants to pass along lessons learned along the way, it's really very nice and encouraging. But if you ever want to browbeat me feel free; I would take it as a compliment. To be honest if I post about something I'm thinking of doing to my house, and you don't opine, I figure one of two things is going on: 1) you're not on the forum; or 2) you're politely disapproving. Most of the time I assume it's 2 because you seem to be pretty consistent around here. But I just want to say, and I hope I speak for many, that I love love love your posts, especially when I'm searching on a problem I'm trying to solve and something from you pops up! (PS I finally got around to using that general finishes gel varnish you recommended and it was fantastic, thank you; I will post photos to the woodworking forum sometime before the next census.) Oh, and I love the way you "aged" the color tones in the new pine beadboard in your kitchen; reminds me of the pine in my grandmother's kitchen. When I was really little I used to look at the gleaming pores and think it was the closest wood could get to 24K gold.