Your Little Diamond is really cute. You can probably get a lot of the Little Jewels by trading leaves or at a reasonable cost from collectors on the web and make kitty sigh a breath of relief. The link below is for one that is willing to trade leaves. You have lots of gorgeous violets and if they only want the gems maybe they'll sell you some leaves. Check out the photos in the Enter the Project section too. Here is a link that might be useful: Optimara Little Jewels Project

This is such a good idea! I've wondered if some of you could have been my neighbors in the various places I've lived. Anyhow it's nice to be "online" neighbors now. GW Name - luckygal What does your GW name stand for? - I don't really believe in "luck" but I feel very blessed to have survived so well this long. Real Name - Katie Age - 66 Companion - same husband for over 42 years Children? - 3 nice adult kids and 6 wonderful grandkids Pets? - 3 indoor cats, 2 we chose from the SPCA and 1 who chose us - he just wondered by one day and needed feeding, and one outdoor feral cat we feed who keeps the mice under control. We're between dogs. Where do you live or used to live? - have lived in rural BC near the middle of the province for almost 20 years, originally from the west coast of BC, have lived in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Germany Zone? - 3b (according to the Canadian Zone Map) Do you work? - yes, but since I retired I don't get paid as much for it! Have been a jill-of-many-trades and master of a few. Companion Occupation? - ex-military, retired teacher Other interests besides gardening? - various crafts, sewing, knitting, crochet, reading, computer, yard saling, repurposing yard sale finds, interior decorating (DH calls me Martha when I get too obsessed), photography, traveling now that we are retired How long have you been gardening? - 60 years at least (difficult even for me to believe) - my parents were avid gardeners and I helped from an early age. Where is your garden located and what is its size? - we have a large acreage and the garden is near the house, sort of large city lot size but could be larger. Courses in Horticulture? - no, self-taught, but with many mentors What are your specialities in gardening? - propagating houseplants but I'm no longer doing that as it tends to get out of hand (who really needs 30 diefenbachia?), I like growing perennials from seed and nurturing yard sale plant finds, I like planning my garden then deviating from the plan. My DH would say it's leaning on my shovel and telling him what to do! Favorite Flower? - delphiniums, Lady's Mantle, geranium Vancouver centennial (more for it's foliage) are a few Favorite Tree/Shrub? - dogwood altho it doesn't grow in our climate What has been the best-performing plant/plants in your gardens? - shasta daisies and feverfew which are overly prolific self-seeders, irises, delphinium, Lady's Mantle, various poppies, Autumn Joy, and lots more - I'd have to think. Most Challenging Plant? - lavender, I started with 3 plants a few years ago and have one left which seems to struggle to survive every year. I think I need to create a mini-climate which is dryer and warmer but it's easier to just visit a lavender farm and buy some dried. Favorite Gardening Quote? - "I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error." ~Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988 Favorite Garden Magazines? - have only ever taken Gardens West and Harrowsmith subscriptions but no longer - occasionally borrow from the library, there is much more info online Favorite Garden Books or resources? - have 4 of Lois Holes' books which I use, some old gardening books I seldom read, Richters herb catalogue which is fun to dream with, online sites and forums What is your favorite tool? - my little red wagon which I use instead of a wheelbarrow in the house yard. DH got me a second one, a green one to use out in the back-40 for picking sticks. Both yard sale finds $10 each. I also really like using our old cement mixer, it's like this huge noisy toy! We've made hypertufa pots, concrete rhubarb leaf stepping stones, and I like mixing my own garden-healthy mulch in it. What are you most comfortable in when gardening? - shorts, shell or t-shirt, flip-flops mostly or heavy workboots if I have to dig, if it's cold fleece pants and tops, same footware, cotton gloves changed frequently when muddy or rubber gloves occasionally, depending on what I'm doing. What has been your best garden project? - When we had a new water line dug they struck rock the entire way so DH hauled huge rocks in the tractor bucket and created a rockery on a slope near the house. It's become overgrown so I need to replan and replant soon but I love those huge half buried rocks. He also more recently built me a large decorative-only birdhouse out of old barnboard and it's in the garden all summer and on the verandah in the winter. Any projects in the works or planned? - started a lasagna bed this summer over part of the lawn and we're adding to it, hope it produces great veggies next year. Am thinking about a garden house, probably plan it over the winter. Would love to enlarge the garden area more but I think that might be biting off more than I can do. If you had an unlimited budget, what would you do with your gardens? - I've always wanted a bobcat to play with but with an unlimited budget I'd probably hire a landscaper and gardener also and keep them busy for awhile. Buy a hammock and watch them work! Cottage style all the way with gazebo, ponds, streams, bridges a la Monet's garden. If you could invent a plant, what would it look like? - hardy for my zone, resistant to all plant problems, long-lived perennial, very blue and it would look just like my delphiniums but smell like a spicy rose. Would that seem weird or what? Describe an experience with a garden pest that had you ready to throw in the trowel? - being "bug-phobic" I try not to think about them and the birds eat most of the bugs in the garden altho we have zillions of ants, also voracious deer, and pine, spruce and fir beetles in the forest. Plant pests are dandelions, wild yarrow, chickweed, and various pasture grasses that seed. I try to be organic but occasionally use ant dust around the perimeter of the house so they don't eat it! Otherwise it's live and let live here. Parts of the lawn are turning into yarrow groundcover which I may address, or not. Hey, it's green. What advice do you have for the novice gardener? - Join your local garden club, read everything you can about gardening - discover gardening forums and online sites, read library books, start composting, plan a bit, then just get out and do it your way and have fun. Don't waste a lot of money on expensive plants until you actually have good soil to plant them in. We learn more from our mistakes than our successes so don't be afraid to try. What is your motivation for gardening? - I'm incapable of not gardening, it's in my genes.

Tony, I suspect I will be able to smell them, too, when I'm cleaning off a bunch of them from the front of the car. They probably get smellier the longer they are there, as well. Now I have to go off and figure out a way to captilize on the information that you can be chased around by a sliced tomato! Of course, if I chase you OFF, you might not be inclined to share fresh mulberries & scented geraniums with me. Hmmm. Better think this one through before I act! Carol, mockers and wrens are insect eaters, true, but mockers are also very fond of fruit, and any seed mixture that contains dried raisins, cherries, etc, will attract them. They will also eat seed when push comes to shove, but not often. My wrens come to my feeders, too, as do my brown thrashers, cousins to mockers who are primarily insect eaters. The thing of it is, the BIRDS never read the rule books. And if suddenly seeds look good to them, why they see no reason NOT to eat 'em! Seriously, while it isn't common practice among MOST insectivorous birds, some will develop a taste for seed and augment their diets from your feeders. I'm always tickled when I see it happen. They are "bonus birds!" I hope your bald cardinal doesn't have pox. There is a type that spreads like crazy among wild birds, and one of the symptoms is bald heads. I've seen some bluejays that looked like they had only a skull sitting on top of their bodies. *shudder* NOT a pretty picture. Hopefully, Bald Betty is just having a bad hair month! We have a squirrel with a powder puff tail, too. Don't know what HIS story is. Yours sounds like it had a narrow escape from a predator and managed to recover. But...don't drink the water, just in case! Marcia

I'm not saying this is what's wrong with your kitties but I had a problem with my kitten that the vets just couldn't get to the bottom of. We did multiple types of medication on her (she did come to me extremely sick) but the diarrhea never subsided even after she was bug free. The medications seemed to relieve the diarrhea greatly while she was taking them but then it would come right back. I was to the end of my rope so what I did was just give her plain cooked rabbit (from the butcher) for her meals. The vet said rabbit was a good selection b/c it's not a popular ingredient in food. Her stool immediately firmed and she was better by day two! From there I could add a store-bought cat food and she'd get diarrhea immediately. Since I knew for sure I was dealing with food, it got considerably easier to get to the bottom if it. Nature's Variety, Prairie Lamb and Oatmeal was the winner. It took me months and months of frustration. Again, I'm not saying that's what wrong with your kitties but you may want to keep that in the back of your mind if the meds don't work. You can't do a continuous diet of meat alone because it lacks all the nutrients but my cat was fine for a couple of days. If you are in fact dealing with a food problem, from my experience I can tell you that you can't just settle on one brand that's 'supposed to be a good food'. I tried every supermarket food and traveled to 3 different pet specialty stores searching for a variety she could tolerate. I can't think of a brand I did not try. She couldn't eat the other flavors of the Nature's Variety either - even the rabbit - go figure. And for some reason the oatmeal works fine for her. It seems to me if both of your cats are getting the proper meds then the bugs should be cleared up by now in both so they wouldn't be passing it back and forth to each other. I hope the E-coli medicine fixes their problem. If not you might consider switching vets or addressing a possible dietary problem. I so sympathizes with you. Are you giving them probiotics to counter the antibiotic effects? I believe there's a thread about them going on now. They basically just put back in the good bacteria that the antibiotics kill (which can cause stomach upset).