BATS is an insecticide that causes the plant to become toxic to insects that feed on it. Bauer Advance Tree and Shrub is the name of the product and it works very well. Using indoors is pretty safe if you are careful but outdoors these products can easily poison bees and other good insects if you are not careful. I grow staghorn ferns but only have one right now because my Platycerium grande died because it dried out too much while I was on vacation last year. Mike

I live in Toronto. The current age for the SDM discount is 65. I am now 61. When I was 55, apparently the discount did apply to people age 55 and over - no ID required - something I would not have minded providing. I was in line at SDM behind another woman who was 55 and we were told we were wrong. She left her purchases, but I bought mine. I finally asked at my regular SDM and was told the age was 55 - at this point I was 57. I was at another SDM one day - it was not a "Seniors' Day" and after I paid and was arranging my bags, the couple behind me - also not regular patrons of this particular SDM, were offered free coupons at Swiss Chalet since they were "seniors" as perceived by the clerk. They were delighted. As they walked away I heard them happily mentioning how nice it was of SDM to offer the seniors' special to 50 year olds. So, I asked the clerk why I had not been offered the Swiss Chalet coupons(thankfully I hate the food there anyway) and she told me that I was obviously too young. So I decided to take that as a compliment. Recently I checked again and apparently the age is now 65 - and as another poster said, the Thursday discount does not apply to items on sale. A friend of mine whose mother is 66 gets very annoyed. She checks prices out on Wed. and then goes to SDM on Thursdays, only to find that the prices have been reduced, sometimes by only .01 - so that the discount can't be applied. Re the bagged milk - I hate it with a passion. Recently, in desperation I had to buy it - along with several other people at Loblaws due to date issues on the 2 litre cartons. I don't have the special pitcher and I don't want one. I want the milk to close. So I decided to lightly snip the edge of the plastic bag and pour it into my glass containers. Of course it spilled and splashed everywhere - all over me, the counter, the sink and the WHITE DOG. It is generally cheaper to buy milk in bags, but I won't do it.

I went to Home Depot in Santa Clarita today and saw RMV on the Iceberg roses they were selling. I asked the manager about it and he said the grower assured him they were treated. I let him know that heat treatment is the only way and the grower is not going to do that for Iceberg roses. He claims that Lowe's uses the same grower, but I don't know if that's true. So, I'll probably see RMV popping up all over my city. Iceberg is the most planted rose in this area.

John - thank you so much for your kind thoughts. We will be fin Sheila - Our furnace was about 25 years old, so not unexpected, although the timing could have been better! Our house is 119 years old, and there is some question about the ducts, so that is why we want to consult our usual plumber. Also, long covid is precisely why we asked for the Plaxlovid. An interesting aside - I have a niece who has 30 years experience in advocating for kids on the Austism spectrum, with fabulous results changing the laws in CA. She just got a job as the CEO of a non-profit which was created to advocate for those who have chronic fatigue syndrome (which the medical community routinely was telling people was all "in their heads". The non-profit has now added long covid to their advocacy, and accd to my niece, LC and CFS are almost exactly the same thing, although they were not able to ignore long covid as long as they ignored CFS, as there were way more people suffering from it. Her non-profit (years before she joined them) was able to finally get the US Govt to produce $1B in funding for research, and she told me that some of that is happening, and finally producing some papers & studies, etc. The CDC had a new group of diseases listed when I looked all of this up on the CDC website - they now call them "Chronic Symptoms After Infection", and are looking at other diseases which may be resulting in similar syndromes - Lyme's disease is one example. Jackie