Headline in today's paper says water rates will be going up as a result of the (mandated) curtailed use of water. Folks, there is no drought here! At least where I am. We're quite a bit above normal precip for the last 6 months. But yes, there is a water crisis. For years SFWMD was intentionally keeping the level of Lake Okeechobee artificially high (14-15'). Every spring they would discharge huge amounts of water and the accompanying silt and pollutants into the St. Lucie and Calloosahatchee Rivers and estuaries to lower the lake level before the wet season. The result was always huge marine life loss and heavy sedimentation with oozy muck. Clams, oysters, fish, vegetation and finally manatees and dolphins would inevitably die off or develop lesions, viruses, etc. Lots of money was wasted for a long time studying what might be causing the problem! Finally SFWMD and the state were sued to stop the disastrous discharges. Since then Lake O has been being purposely maintained at 10.5'. To further exacerbate the problem the dike at the southeast end of the lake was found to have serious problems last year. High water levels had been putting more stress on it than it was designed to hold. Lower level means less stress. Less water means more restrictions and higher cost. As for me, I don't have an irrigation system, so lawn areas never get water. I try to mulch everything as heavily as possible using my yard trimmings and collected lawn and leaf debris from around the neighborhood. Of course I do spend a lot of time spot watering my favorite plants or new ones. I don't have many water hogs (at least in the landscape).

Lots of good stuff here, but a few bugaboos too... Flower Kitty, you weren't trying to do bad things; I think you had the right idea at heart, but just went after the wrong plants. Lots of people here want to rip down poison ivy and that's just WRONG! Number 4 usage plant for wildlife in the Northeast and I suspect high values elsewhere too. Leslie's list is pretty good (I don't rip out Rubus), but I'd like to add Japanese barberry and Burning Bush. Both are popping up in the woods with increasing frequency; barberry is the worst of the lot for deep woods. You can recognize it easily in spring as it's the first thing to leaf; a bright chartreuse to make it even simpler. Ripping out barberry and mulltiflora rose is hard, nasty work until you get the right tool. Now that I have that tool, it has become sort of a savage joy, a ritual sap-letting frenzy that brings me great joy and cleans the forest of NNI's with amazing rapidity (God bless my friend Rose Hiscus at the Connecticut Invasive Plant Council for telling me about the Weed Wrench). There is a size to fit everyone (I have a heavy AND a medium) I have removed a 2" caliper locust tree in 15 seconds (and got most of the root) with the large and the medium is the perfect size for barberry and roses. Gets almost all the roots so you don't have to worry about sucker growth and it does it in a third the time of cutting and a fraction of the time of digging (No, I'm not a paid spokesman; this is my favorite tool, bar none, and if you try it, you'll understand) I have let clients borrow mine and then had a hard time getting it back ("One more day? I'm doing a friends house tomorrow..."); that's how much people like this thing. I watched an 80 year young lady lean into a light Weed Wrench to pop out a 4' barberry and land smack on her keister 'cuz it popped out much easier than she'd anticipated. Bfore I could even offer to help her up, she'd hopped back to her feet with a wicked grin and she was the scourge of the woods for hours, gleefully tearing out bad guys just because she could. So Flower Kitty, don't just add, subtract the real baddies too; just know who they are... Here is a link that might be useful: Weed Wrench

You're describing 'Auto Complete' which is in internet options under the 'Content' tab. You can disable it there or read the little note how to delete forms.

I guess I didn't make myself clear- sorry. I can do all the work at the office- which is about 500 feet away from my condo. I can use/get into the office computer fine. I don't know which IP/or whatever you need to use, so that I can get online with my netbook at home 500 feet away. I want to watch video from my home without downloading everything to a dvd/disc at the office and then bringing it home to watch. There is a way to watch live/saved video on the computer that is at my house even though the 'film' is on the computer at the office. Hope I made myself more clear. Thanks