Three years ago my GF had a full blown stroke. The moment I recognized the symptoms I called 911 and had her taken to the emergency room. When we got to the hospital the doctor wanted to know the exact time when the symptoms first presented. I told him it had been about 40minutes and he said,,Thats great! And off he went. About an hour later he came and told me that there are at least 7 different conditions that present the same symptoms as a stroke, however if it is a real stroke they have an injection that must be started within 4 hours of the onset or it will not work. If they have the time to give you that injection you will be up on your feet again within about 4 to 8 hrs with little to no side effects, if not, your looking at months of rehab and probably a permanent parallisys. The doctor told me, even if you have very strong reason to believe your condition is a result of one of the other problems get to an emergency room immediately. It is far better to have a doctor tell you that it is another problem that is not nearly as critical as a stroke than it is to ignore the symptoms and hope it will get better on its own, only to find out you ran past the 4 hour window and have to resort to steroids and rehab for months.

Love the house! I'm probably new to you all here, I do post now and then but I was more active on the kitchen forum for a while, and sometimes the garden forum. My house, if any of you sort of know, is a 1915 Craftsman with some Victorian elements (I suspect the original owner had this built to their very specific specs). I had a historian take a look at photos and even they were a bit puzzled at all of the different types of Craftsman homes it draws on. Having said that, we're always in the middle of doing "something" here. Over the summer, I had my landscaping professional done, including a paver patio put in; some continuing electrical upgrades (like, we needed outdoor receptacles on the house and garage), emergency gutter repairs, etc. Right now I'm at kind of a standstill because I'm waiting on contractors to fit me into their schedules. I'm having my chimney/fireplace repaired to the tune of $6000 (it needs to be brought up to Code and the firebox has some damage needing repair). But scheduling them this time of year has been difficult to say the least. I had an attempted burglary and they compromised my sliding door in the kitchen so I'm waiting on the new one to come in which will mean taking down some masonry and the stairs to re-install. Also waiting on several new windows for the basement since one of the fell in on it's own accord (they were ancient). I had schedule the house and garage to be painted but this can't start yet - because of the masonry at the sliding door having to be repaired (I'm already 1 month behind on that and concerned now it might get too cold to do it). All of the gutters were about to be replaced BUT when they came, they discovered the fascia boards were rotted - so now I'm waiting on a price to add new boards also (I saw the condition of them - yikes, don't know how the gutters were even being held on!). I have regrading to be done on one side of the house, and installation of underground piping from the gutters to the street. That contractor left for Italy right as I made the decision to do the work. Expected back I think this week. And, I need 5 new doors. Front door, 2 sides (one is in my living room to the original car port which is now a covered patio), the garage door (not the pull-ups, we had those done already) and last is the door leading from a bedroom to the upstairs balcony. I have no idea what this is going to run me yet *terrified* I've picked what I want for the most part, but still have some questions for the contractor and am waiting on him to stop by to discuss. I really wanted all of this done by the first week of November. I have a TCO on the house and I've renewed it twice already. I think all of this work would have cleared it out but it's clear that I'm going to have to renew for another 6 months. Oh well. I'm sure the Town will be happy to have another $25. On a good note I finally bought a small flat screen TV for the kitchen. I got tired of running back and forth to the Living Room while cooking to see what was happening on my favorite shows :D

Thanks Ingrid. I read about your efforts with SE after I purchased her. Now, I can't even remember why or what attracted me to her in the first place, to get her for my yard. I will let her grow for at least a year and see if I want to shovel prune her. I hope Vick perks up too. I love his flower and it makes a great cut flower as well. I am not sure what his problem is! Occhi--I have never seen a rose that is one color on one side of the petal and the same petal is a different color on the other side. One side pink and one side white. What a rose! I think this rose is going to do very well here. I am excited about this one and I was very unsure about whether or not to get him/her.

Hundreds of scientific studies now show that organic ag should play a role in feeding the world" A role is not the ONLY role. And "A role" does not mean "the key". "In severe drought conditions, which are expected to increase with climate change, organic farms have the potential to produce high yields because of the higher water-holding capacity of organically farmed soils," Reganold said. You don't have to farm "organically" to have water holding capacity, or any of the purported benefits. The no-till GMO-using, glyphosate using wheat and corn farmers lose less soil and have less runoff than their organic neighbors who have to repeatedly till, or lose the crop to weeds. However, even when yields may be lower, organic agriculture is more profitable for farmers because consumers are willing to pay more. Only when you have enough affluent consumers who think organic is enough better to be worth the price premium. In a poverty-stricken subsistence farming area, pricing rules. And giving up that 10% yield may be the difference between the farmer staying in business or losing the farm. Reganold said that feeding the world is not only a matter of yield but also requires examining food waste and the distribution of food. Distribution's not a farming practice, that's infrastructure and government. If you want to minimize food waste, the non-browning Arctic apple and the non-browning, low acrylamide potato is a start, but vehemently rejected because they were made by a controlled gene change (instead of chemical or radiation mutagens, which is OK for organic's rules). Plantains that aren't susceptible to bacterial blight, potatoes that are late blight resistant, Corn that resists root borers, alfalfa that is lower lignin to give higher digestibility ... the list of possible ways to reduce field waste and post-consumer waste is pretty long, but rejected by purists because it involves modifying the genome of the plants.