Here I am adding more info from the literature review and my own experiments for those interested in this vegetable. Clusterbean also called Gavar/Guar/Guwar/Guvar bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L. Taub.) is a self pollinated, multipurpose, drought resistant, and restorative annual leguminous vegetable crop. Green and tender pods of cluster bean are used as a popular vegetable in many parts of India and Africa and some part of the SE Asia. It is also grown as a forage crop as well as green manure. It has great It has soil-enriching properties since it is a legume used for reclamation of saline and alkaline soils. It is said to be extremely drought-tolerant and grows well in arid and semiarid regions with little moisture. Too much moisture will leads to more vegetative growth and less pods. I found that this crop not new to southern states, but has been cultivating more for gaur gum, has wide variety of food and non-food uses. Gaur gum is used in gluten free food! It is one of the best food thickening agent, almost eight times as powerful as cornstarch for thickening applications. It is quite easy to cultivate. I did couple of experiment on its performance by sowing seeds in early spring and early summer (never tried as fall cop), transplanting vs direct sowing, limited water vs regular water in the last three years but with limited no. of plants with uneven replications, so statistically saying my results are not scientifically sound. Here what I found- it does well if directly sown seeds in mid-summer, I usually sown here in Norman around first week of June. It is good succession crop after you harvest your spring crop. Even you won't like it as a vegetable but as a soil improvement or green manure crop. It also suppresses the summer weeds in the vacant beds. Cluster bean seedlings are too sensitive to transplant shock, plants will get stunted and reduce yield significantly. However if you follows Dawn's paper cup trick of planting entire cup then it will not have any impact. I tried that this year with direct sowing and cup transplanting. Both seem to be growing well, but with cup I started a week early, they have couple of extra leaves. This year, I am also thinking plant second batch in late July as it is kind of a short day crop, I observed that number of pods per cluster keep increasing and taste better when day length shortens. Expect bountiful harvest from August to until first frost. It is very frost tender crop, little frost will kill entire crop. So harvest all pod when there frost forecast. Green pods store pretty well in freezer. I not found any difference in taste with fresh and frozen. We are still eating last year's harvest. I will keep adding if come across any interesting info about this vegetable. -Chandra

Robins are birds that I enjoy viewing, but not as they try to build nests under our porch lights which are on both sides of an area right by our front entrance door. For three days my husband has removed the straw, twigs, etc in order to prevent a completed robin's nest. They put the straw, twigs, etc. up, he takes them down immediately. Today after reading these posts, I sprayed the area with ant and roach spray that I use when the ants try to visit too close to our outside walkway. Two robins just came with straw in their mouths, but they flew away. I hope this is a long-term solution. This is the first time that we have had this problem in the nineteen years that we have lived here. I am already tired of the mess on our porch and the potential health hazard presented if the robins succeed in building a permanent nest. We have plenty of trees that the birds usually choose for their nests and are still quite welcome to do so. However, why our porch this year is a puzzle. Thanks to all who have posted for their solutions. To the haters, because one does not want a bird's nest in an area that he/she frequently uses in his/her home, does not label the person as an animal hater. Why should my quality of life be compromised daily upon trying to enter my home for the sake of a bird's nest? The answer is that it shouldn't and will not. We will win this fight and reclaim our safety and keep our good health.

As I wrote in my post, my reference was to domestic cats, not to feral or barn cats who live their lives without being fed or receiving immunizations, deworming, external parasite prevention, and other routine veterinary care. I have precise first hand knowledge of what species my cats have killed over the past 40+ years and a good idea of how many of each because they bring their quarry home to my front porch and, being well fed, only occasionally do they eat one of their game animals. I could probably count on my fingers the number of birds my cats have killed over the past decades, and among these were a few English sparrows. I would say that on average 6 to 11 baby barn swallows have fledged from nests on our front porch and eaves of the barn each year, despite the presence of our cat(s.) The parent bird who fell victim this year is the only swallow killed by one of our cats ever, so I'd say that the survival rate is highly stacked in favor of the swallows. (Seven on average x 40 some years is a large sum of swallows that have come into being on my felines' terrain.) Toxoplasma gondii only poses a threat to developing fetuses and those with severely compromised immune systems. It is important that pregnant women avoid contact with litter boxes. Other than this caution, the risks posted on the inflammatory website you posted are highly exaggerated. As I also stated, this is a moot point since my current kitty has only perhaps another year of going outdoors and I do not intend to replace her when she is gone. We will have to agree to disagree on this point.

"One thing I noticed this summer is that our barn swallows embarked early on their migration." They did the same thing this year, maybe left 3 weeks earlier. And Left a mess. They seemed to make bigger nests, used allot more mud and dropped so much more below the nests. I do have to admit I love at how graceful they are in flight and it is so fun to watch them learn how to fly from the balcony. The parents are so encouraging to the young birds when they are training them how to fly. Here is a link that might be useful: Alpiste Canary Bird Seed