I live in Southern California which used to be and again almost is a part of Mexico. In the hispanic areas you'll see a basket right next to the toilet bowl usually full of waste paper not from washing your hands. I go to an auto repair shop where he has a sign that reads: Amigos: After you wash your ass, put the paper in the toilet, not the basket, this is not Mehico. This stems from small rural villages who use human waste to fertilize their fields, along with the usual animal waste. In order not to have a mess of old toilet paper on their fields, they put the toilet paper in a waste basket. As for supplementing orchids diet, I do that regularly with Horse Manure which I compost in a garbage barrel. I just put a little on top of the root ball and occasionally make 'Horsie Tea' which gets sprayed on them in lieu of fertilizer. When you are at my place watch out for brown rain. A friend of mine was over the other day to get some plants and in the process of trimming something he gave himself a small superficial scratch. He went nuts asking me for Hydrogen Peroxide, Iodine and A and D lotion. I have all of the above somewhere but pretended I did not because this display of fear and horror over absolutely nothing was not only ridiculous but also amusing. I told him I could get the dogs to lick it but he declined. This guy is a perfect man living in an imperfect world. I think your advice is good, I'll start saving dog turds, maybe one should also start a 'Dog Turd Board' (DTB) to regulate this new industry. I wonder if the Chinese could produce dog turds cheaper than us and ruin this new enterprise. I can see Al Gore being the president of the new DTB, so good for the environment and probably will have a beneficial impact on global warming. Until the public really gets into this, he can put them into his 'Lockbox'. Nick

aw thanks you guys! Audrey, when I was first choosing roses for climbers I tried hard for non-thorny ones with lax canes since I'm a newbie... but.... I loved Sombreuil too much to not get it... so she will be one of my only scary thorny climbers. :) I'll just have to wear gloves. Though, I'm a little more dubious about the entire "it's just thorns" endeavor now that I heard about flesh eating bacteria. ( Necrotizing fasciitis )

Hi zoewolf, Good luck at the doc's today. I'm wondering if all those antibiotics have caused a problem in your gut? Have you been taking probiotics and eating yogurt with live cultures? Be sure to drink unsweetened cranberry juice to help with bladder problems. I wonder if its still that ovary cyst? Maybe its gotten larger and is pressing in different places? I'm curious why you're calling it cystitis? Let us know what the doc says.

We just delt with Brown recluses in our home, until we knew what they were we actually had them crawl on us a few times which was quite enough for us, I searched and searched, spraying was not an option as it creats a very nice menu of dead bugs for them, so I found a product called Diatomaceous Earth or fossil flour at Lowes garden center it's organic and says it safe, it kills the critters and makes it irritating to walk through, we sprinkled it in every cranny , around the walls and even put it on the dog for flea control when frontline wouldnt work.We also sprinkled it in the attic with a feather duster, it's messy and dusty wear a mask.in the house I used an empty parmesan cheese container to lightly sprinkle, we then found they started crawling up the walls I guess to get out of the dry irritating dust so I dusted slightly up the walls , We have noticed a huge reduction in their sightings and it has been about 6 months since we started using the "flour" . When those nasty biting orange lady bugs showed up I dusted the outside doors where they were landing and they showed immediate signs of irritation and would fly away, noticed very few on my doors and siding after that.I hope this stuff is as safe as they say and it works for so many other things.worked perfect for the fleas on our animals as well. It's supposed to be organic and I'm all for that. Karen