My female is sooo focused! First nesting fledged (6) on Thursday May 10th, I got the nestbox cleaned out asap because I know this female is very quick to start the second nesting (she is the same female we had the last two years). She started the second nest on Friday and laid the first egg this morning! I couldn't believe only four days inbetween fledging and laying another egg! Dad is still busy feeding the fledglings which are in our woods, haven't seen any of them yet, hopefully by this coming weekend I will get some glimpses of them and maybe tell how many made it. Two were non flyers so I am not sure about those two, especially with the mom focused on the second nesting and not on her fledglings. Donna

Orrin, Well, nothing that outrageous, but it was a challenge. At 120 yards, my Lumix was pretty useless. I borrowed a Fuji 80 mm spotting scope set to 20x, and put my Canon G3 up to the eyepiece and took pictures. After some fooling around with the settings on the camera, I started getting some good results. Photoshop helps too. I should have some better ones soon- Jeff

Unfortunately all they show is a selection for heating cycle rate, and all that does is set it to a 90% or below efficient furnace or a 90% and above, that's the problem. When I called Honeywell to see if I can set the temperature differentials, they told me that the AC specs are set to cycle a certain way and it can't be changed. She told me that it is probably detecting a .5 degree difference and turning on and then also off after that .5 degree difference is reached. Which sucks for a thermostat. At first I thought that would be a good idea, but not the way it operates the AC. Sure it feels more comfortable then before since there are no more temperature swings from 77 to 79, but I can't justify the constant cycling to keep this constant temperature. I think its pretty stupid not to be able to at least set the temperature range to your individual needs. I guess this thermostat was not worth the money. The only reason I even changed it in the first place was to take advantage of the 2 stage furnace set up. My old stat did not have a w2 connection. Whether it would make any difference to have it set up the old way without the second wire for the W2 or leave it without, I'm not sure. I know that you will still get some 2 stage heating with the old stat but not the same from what I am told. So I thing I might just go back to my old thermostat, unless I can somehow remedy the new thermostat to detect, at least, a 1 degree change instead of a .5 degree.

Personally, I'm fine with "dumb" smoke detectors and CO detectors, though I can see why it might be handy in the aging-parent situation. Yes, I'm concerned about expensive things becoming obsolete. As for elderly or deaf people, just a note: my daughter was assigned to a "handicapped room" in the dorms -- not that she needed it, just by chance. We looked up and down and wondered, "What about this room is special?" First time the fire alarm went off, she found out: the fire alarm wasn't just a noise in her room. It was accompanied by a blindingly bright, pulsing light that literally could wake her from sound sleep, even if she hadn't been able to hear the noise. She said the light was actually painful. I had never known such a thing existed. Is such a thing available for home use? I dunno. Back to the point: DEFINITELY have some sort of a CO detector. A friend of ours died from CO2 poisoning, and it was heartbreaking -- he'd only been retired a year, was devoted to his two grandchildren, and should have had many years left to him. What a stupid, stupid thing to take him away from his family.