I have an 'antique' early 90s Murray Hydrostatic with a 17HP twin cylender briggs. Bot it used, non running. After firing it up w/o the exhaust sytem on it- i couldnt hear any whines - if it did or didnt! Possibly the same goes for power steering in cars, when it whines till the air is bled out. Kidd

Hi everyone, Very nice, Ellie, that your county provides compost bins to its residents. Wish ours did that instead of spend money to collect yard debris. Alana, I love the sound of your orange-flowered garden. Orange colored flowers are some of my favorites. Shirley, great GLOW photo of the hot air balloons. What a shot that captures the moment! Jeanne, I watched the College World Series, too. I yelled enough to make myself somewhat hoarse. OK, so I admit to being a very "animated" college sports fan when I get into games... Although I am a die-hard SEC fan, I confess I was pulling for my husband's alma mater, U of AZ. Only fair, since he dares not pull against LSU. As for the cormorant chicks - When we band, we place a band on each leg. One is a small metal band issued by the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Bird Banding Lab. The other is a plastic, colored band that can be read from a distance using binoculars or a spotting scope. Throughout the breeding season, we spend several days sitting in blinds, observing for banded birds that return to that colony. That enables us to get much more info other than through someone finding a dead banded bird and reporting it to the Bird Banding Lab. We can determine breeding site fidelity, survivorship, age structure, and other population demographics. Last year we re-spotted more than 400 unique bands at the 2 islands we conduct our observations on. Here is a "digiscoped" photo I took of one of the birds. As to why we do it at night - that is a matter of reducing disturbance as much as possible. All the birds are calmer at night, so we try to only go on the island when it is dark. That means banding all night long. It also means on observation days, we leave the boat dock at 3:00 am and don't leave the island until 9:00 pm. Makes for a long day, and you have to stay in your 5' x 7' blind for the duration (and that is why we bring a "honey bucket" with us). Hahaha. Happy gardening, Katie

I knew it...I just knew it....I was going to get hooked on waffles after reading and rereading about waffles. I have never been a waffle person (I do like pancakes tho)....My husband is the waffle guy...have just decided I am going to buy HIM a waffle iron for Fathers Day and I am going to master the waffle world. I am confused about the difference between the Belguim and regular waffle. Can someone explain to me? No body could read all the waffle threads and not get interested. I am in and now heading to the Good Housekeeping reviews. Shirl

Neice gave me access to her account so I could "see" her photos and listen to her "great" music. I don't think she realizes I'm smart enough to navigate the entire site. I don't want to burst her bubble and let her know the music isn't really all that great, either. LOL I had to set up a dummy account of my own. I have a fake non-name user name; no personal info other than "married," "age" (was a default setting) and "USA", and have it set so no one except Niece can look at it. Nephew doesn't know I accessed his page. I used his email address, and BOOM!; there he was in all his pierced and tattooed glory. (Their tats don't bother me as much as the lip piercings; and neither bother me as much as the contents and comments.) The page was set to "public" so I could see it. For now, I'm just going to steer clear of the pages and continue to write, call, email, through the regular channels and try to encourage them to do the best they can. I never had children; but here I am, experiencing all the worry, anxiety, fear, anger, and hope "real" mothers are subjected to. Niece is, and has always been, my special girl and spent every summer with me from birth until she was 14. Her 15th summer was spent at home, and she got pregnant. Nephew lived with me two different times for a total of 4-5 years. I wish I could smack their bottoms, send them to their rooms, and ground them until they are 45. I have two other young nieces, three young nephews, and five great nieces/nephews. I better wear out the old knees praying there's hope for these young ones.