I do follow Hippocrates' idea of let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food and so I would rather have a tasty meal of healthful foods than "pop a handful of pills." Obviously there are limits to this because it isn't anything that will have quick, dramatic effects. It has a more gentle steering towards health but it is effective in its own way. Purslane is one of those healthful foods I noticed years ago. We like to nibble it straight from the garden or add it to the salad bowl. My youngest is a great fan of it and is often going through the garden to browse and pick handfuls of purslane to eat. I like the various "golden" purslane varieties. Grows extremely well in the vegetable garden. It is more upright (less clinging dirt than the prostrate wild variety) and it has larger, more succulent leaves. If you let some flower, it will self-sow or you can easily collect the seeds to sow more. It grows quickly and is tolerant of cool temperatures so it is a good one to try even in Northern zones for fall harvests. I also tried the "gruner red" variety and found it not as robust as the golden varieties. FataMorgana

Hi Dries, I'm not sure about Sarasota but it should be great. But Clivia grow well in Naples, which is just an hour or so south, down the west coast, in USDA zone 10/11. Naples can have a couple of really cool nights in Jan., most years in the 50s, but some nights in the 40s. It doesn't sound too bad for them, eh? The soil is sand, basicly, with a thin layer of organic matter, litter from lots of really, really, rapidly growing tropical stuff, and depending on the area, pines and palmettos. It rains a lot in the summer, and not that much in the winter.[ hmm, the water was hard in Naples,and full of calcium, and just a little swampy. But rain conditions should give them the water they like. There may be reverse osmosis plants there now.] Sarasota may be just into zones 9-10 and very rarely be hit by a frost. It too, is on the coast. I was kind of shocked, a dozen years ago, when some of the fancy hotels and stores, began using them as bedding plants there. I mean, it seemed a little casual, almost disrespectful. When I got over my snit, gosh, they were lovely. The amarillis I was just getting used to, funny they bloom in late spring, may, june? not in a pot from the store for Christmas. So Yeah, Clivia probably love it there. They do have some native distant cousins. Some Crinums [ cousins?] range up along the states of the gulf coast and up the east coast to the carolinas, a couple are a little hardier. Every few years, like oranges, they might need a sheet over them in a really cold snap, or maybe some extra [pine straw?] mulch? It's so funny to think of them as woodland plants, The big clumps, probably do, tolerate sudden cold snaps. See, I did look at quite a few of your links. Please, do a Clivia growing in the woodland habitat thread, with pictures, if you could. What do they like when they're at home? Who are there favorite neighbors,? etc.. Florida has some great websites for care, and nurseries for tropical and fragrant plants. South Florida is the most jungley part of the US, especially if you have a yard. Try the Florida forum. There's a Florida native plant society, with knowledgable folks too. Wish that I could be more up to to date. Someone is going to have specifics for you. Good luck, Florey

More about our birds. . . How we came to have the parakeet is a story in itself. Mother was out in the garden hanging up the laundry one sunny day and out of nowhere a blue & white parakeet flew right down and landed on Mother's shoulder. She nibbled lovingly on Mother's ear and mother said, "Well hello there" and the bird said, "Ooooh. Hello!" And Mother said, "So, who are you?" The bird replied, "Pretty Bird!" So, she kept her name. She never flew away after finding a nice home, having no desire to try living out in the big free world ever again. We never did find out from whence she came. I would like to add about the Mexican Love Bird. . . . . .that after cursing out the preacher and telling him to "Go to Hell!", and saying things like "Well, -uck a duck!", our love bird never said any of the really foul swear words ever again. Mother said it must have just been a cleansing thing for her, but I have always wondered just what Mother did to make her "repent" and come clean.??? And as for our parakeet, Pretty Bird? After her jello bath, she began saying, "Oooooh, Pretty Bird. Pretty Bird is a dirty bird!" We kids got so much fun out of her. She loved Orange Jell-O, not just for bathing but for eating it as well. She especially loved it when mother made it into a salad by adding grated carrots and chopped walnuts. Yum yum! She would walk across the table and sample everything. If she found something she particularly didn't like, she would make a mess of it and have a fit! So afterward she had to kept up during meals. She would fuss and squawk at us from her cage, demanding to be loosed at once! As you said, covering her cage was helpful in quieting her down. She would then say, "Good night Pretty Bird!" which would then of course, set us all into a round of giggles. ~Annie

MDC is indeed controled by foward thinking individuals by today's standards. I have never worked for them but have worked with them a couple of times through TA&M and found the department to be top shelf. In this very thread I shared a bit of philosophy held by MDC and was accused of being "judge-y". By the included lecture I interpitated that to mean judgemental because I told her something she already knew. This is copy and paste of the first three sentences on MDC site under General Species Information. " Some people have such a dread of snakes that they actually avoid going outdoors to fish, hunt, hike, or picnic. Others kill every snake they see. This is too bad, both for the people who let the fear of snakes keep them from enjoying nature, and for nature itself." As to relivance,I believe that is a glimpse into one reason it's so difficult to inform many citizens on impending action about to effect citizens. Far too many believe they know and understand all they need to and are therfore insulted you should assume otherwise or simply reiterate important information. How many times have those willing to to hear a person out thought at the begaining,I know what this is about then learn one or more new details? I am in agreement with wisconsitom, heads up and eyes wide open friends,this same show may come to your neighborhood soon.