TY Josh. I can't add to or improve your critiqué of the landscape link, except to ask a question. If the person who wrote the info does not know how long it would otherwise take a plant to dry, how much water it needs for the conditions in which it lives, how can a specific future watering (or NOT watering) schedule be prescribed? I would consider any plant taking a month to dry in the likely extremely dry air of a heated home in most parts of the US this time of year, in extreme peril. Fredman, when I said weirdness and strange rituals, I was referring to the amalgam of odd info out there in general about holiday cacti, in conjunction with the instructions about withholding water in particular in the link under discussion. I was vague about that, sorry. The sheet from the landscape company is a good example of how doing something badly is worse than doing nothing at all. And that staying within the focus of your business/knowledge is what makes an entity reliable. Why would anyone seek house plant advice from a landscaping outfit? The fact that this advice exists in this context is weird and inappropriate IMHO. Why spread bad/incorrect info nobody expects you to have anyway? Why not ask your mechanic or bank teller? I don't think it's necessary for you to apologize, but absolutely accepted. If you hadn't brought it up to discuss, there would be no chance for folks to supply specific, qualified disagreements. If you were following or interpreting the advice incorrectly, it's good to ask about it. TG, obtaining info is not being outsmarted, it's being smart, educating yourself. It sounds like you believe the concept that there is a difference in soil textures, and how plants respond to them, but not interested in experimentation for your own plants? When oxygen is not present, root function is compromised. If that's also while the moisture is present, it's going to be tough going. Folks aren't trying to tell you (or anyone) that your plants are doomed to fail, just that they could be safer, things could be easier, if one isn't worrying about rot/suffocation when watering a thirsty plant. Using these principles, any potted plant should be most able to be at its' best in the captivity of a pot, assuming other factors (temp, light, PH, etc...) are acceptable. I have one watering scheme for all (non succulent/cacti) plants, water before they get too dry while inside, everybody gets a drink every 2-3 days outside. Easy peasy. Here is a link that might be useful: The above link, clickable, *Care and recognition of holiday cacti*

The weather this year in Oregon was so bad! My brugs(salmon) and purple and yellow datura and white moonflower started great then it got cold and rainy for weeks and really wessed them up. Month and a half of summer, blooms coming on them several weeks of cold and rain again basically wiping them out (except for moonflower) got nice again,more buds then winter killed them. Then their was the mole and gopher plague. They tipped over and ate almost all my plants. They even tipped over all my sunflowers. Gophers pushed ALL the daturas out. ate the roots off the hibiscus and pulled the rest of the plant down the hole! Just spent a $100 on a mole cat after trying every trap known to man. Now I am woken up at night by a very satisfying boom almost every night. I highly recommend one.

BEST TRAP, will cost you few pennies! our little mouse showed up for the first time in November 2015. It was small by then and extremely fast. It's hiding place was behind the washing machine and the furniture in the kitchen. It has stayed with us until grown when I finally caught it in April 2016 (we haven't become friends by then). So these are my attempts that failed before finding the method: -humane traps that close automatically: haha, I don't think the mouse ever noticed them (there were at least 5 and they are annoying as they keep closing through vibration when you walk past). I even added peanut butter, nutella etc, on the wall near the traps to attract. Never a sign that it had been licked off. -a strong rat trap given by my landlord (it doesn't matter what bait I would put (researched them all on these forums and tried them all). It only caught up dust and served nothing. -increased number of rat traps and put them in the right position (90 degrees to wall) or in slightly hidden places which these little friends like - even in boxes with holes as they like to enter them. No sign ever of the mouse having been close to them. -I also added many smaller mice traps (traditional) but during the months it became increasingly clear that they were only another piece of decoration in the house. -I tried the sound repellents (cost me a lot of money). I put one in each room. Haha again! We could often hear the mouse under our bed chewing wood for long periods of time despite the sound repellent being very close... -My method of preference would have been humane in the first place but since nothing happened, I increasingly resorted to more inhumane measures: I added two boxes with poison (one at the very entrance of the hiding place. The mouse never touched it. Guys it was horrible! Nothing worked. Kept reading methods in forums and spending money, money, money… Very frustrating and the little excrements were everywhere. More methods that did not work AT ALL!!!!: -peppermint oil (put loads and loads of them. Seemed to disappear for one day but was soon back and got used to the smell. -pepper: the whole house floor was full of pepper at some point (out of desperation) Softener sheets. Put them everywhere as well. -Glue pads (at least 6-7 at the time of maximum desperation and at location where I thought the mouse had to walk over. I even spend a whole night trying to catch the mouse when I managed to keep it in the living room. One of the worst night in my life since there was no result and I was absolutely tired the next day. I wrote all of this so that you don’t make yourselves too many illusions on the above methods. They may work for some mice, but I just felt at some point I had the smartest mouse ever. So what did work? -Prayer (please keep reading). Honestly, it was one early morning when I had enough of it that I praied intensely and finally caught it a few hours later! What is important is that you observe the patterns and behaviours of your mouse so that you become aware of escape routes/wholes, etc. I noticed in my kitchen that the little fellow once escaped through a small whole in the very corner of the kitchen (which was leading back to its hiding place behind the furniture). Now you also know that the entrance to its hiding place was between the washing machine and the furniture ( a gap of 4cm). Plus of course there is the door to our small kitchen. So 3 points of escape strongly imprinted in the mouse’s brain. What I did is I sealed the small whole in the corner with clay and strong sellotape. I left the gap between wm and furniture open (I needed the little one to come out from somewhere) and put all my glue traps in front of the door to the kitchen. My initial plan was to force the mouse to get through our kitchen door and get stuck on the glue (I still thought the glue traps would work). If it wouldn’t have worked, my hope was at least to catch the mouse as it was unsuccessfully trying to escape through the little whole which was now sealed. Now this happened: my wife had left a simple shopping bag (tied with a knot) with an open pack of balsamic vinegar flavoured crisps inside in the kitchen (hanging at one meter from the ground. The mouse managed during the night to climb up to the bag, make itself a little whole to get into it and start munching at the crisps. This is a very important detail since the mouse makes noise when eating the crisps and is unaware of movements outside (the bag was colored and not seethrough. We were in bed and heard the whole dinner feast going on in the kitchen: time for the patient soldier (me) to walk as silently as possible in the kitchen (I was surprised that the mouse, usually very alert, kept eating despite me making some inadvertent noises. The crisping crasping is so loud next to its ears that it won’t pick up any dangers. Ok, so here I am, I managed to get into the kitchen, position myself before escape route 1 (gap between wm and furniture) and turn the light on (at that point I didn’t know the mouse was inside the bag since we didn’t know where exactly this noise was coming from). I was surprised, as soon as the light was on everything went quite for a moment and I didn’t see the mouse enywhere! I thought it had escaped once again God knows how. But then a quick and noisy movement of the bag (AHA!) The mouse jumped out of the bag in a second, onto the floor, at which point it was at 20-30 cm from my feet and I noticed the millisecond of indecision in his (her?) eyes: it was pointing direction towards the little whole in the corner but as it must have realised earlier, it was now closed, so by the time it looked back to point in a different direction (maybe the door but again there were glue traps there, haha), my big sized foot was already coming down with full force unto it squashing it once and then twice and then trice while with cavely manlyhood and a strong feeling of revenge for all the shit in the house I screamed ‘get this!’ I literally squashed his interiors out with my blows…. By that point you don’t care about being humane anymore. We have a small child and there is a limit to everything and besides I am a man, not an effeminate hippy! I would therefore suggest: buy a few cheap glue traps, get a not-seethrough plastic bag and buy a bag of balsamic vinegar flavoured crisps (yes I think the flavour IS important). Once you know the entrance to the main nest or the main escape route, place the bag even on the floor at a distance from this entrance/escape route. Seal or put glue traps on all evident other escape routes so that if you don’t manage to kill it by stamping on it while it is in the bag, if it manages to come out, it should still feel trapped so that you can put an end to it outside. REMEMBER: position yourself between the entrance/escape route and the bag to give you maximum control. Hope this makes sense. I will definitely use this method always again when/if I encounter a similar issue. Good luck and have a crisp yourself before bidding the little friend goodbye.

Hmm.... Autumn, I may have to rescind my "I'm good at (hanging art)" statement. Took me 3 tries to get one painting hung. Granted, it's one of the hardest situations for hanging art: one painting directly inline with another, in this case, one painting hung directly above another. Turns out that even though the paintings are the same size, framed with the same frame and at the same time, they aren't exactly the same width. One is slightly narrower than the other so trying to line up one side meant that the other side was off and I didn't realize it until I'd pounded the nails in. And that was the 2nd try. I forgot to add in the the amount of painting above the wire to know how high up to hang the other painting and didn't realize that the top painting would be too low until I went to hang the top painting. Felt rather stupid when I realized that. Don't hate me but .... The sun is not cooperating for photos. It's supposed to be sunny all day but clouds have moved in. I took a few sample photos and they didn't come out as well as I'd like. I'll try again later. If not, I may not get photos done until Tuesday, which is forecasted to be our next sunny day. Did anyone notice if today is Friday the 13th? I'm running into one hiccup after another. I hope this isn't an omen of how dinner will turn out tonight, especially since I'm trying a new recipe for the main course tonight.