In the midst of all the grub and cannibalism reports, one little thing about voles stood out sharply to me in one of the posts, and was unremarked upon by others: The relationship of mulches to voles: I have very large gardens and serious vole problems (not moles), but this year I was keeping careful notes and it is the beds with the mulches that had the worst damage. Also the beds with plants that had been carried in large pots with a loose composted-bark laden potting soil for a summer. (I moved three truckloads of plants from my VA garden several years ago. In order to do that I had to pot them up in large pots, so they still have reservoirs of this transitional soil around them.) My native soil is a gravelly loan but I have expended a lot of effort to incorporate huge amounts of organic matter in the beds and been rewarded by the damned voles. In the newer areas which haven't been in cultivation for as long I had much less damage, even for similar (meaning identical) stock plants. So I'm going to be rethinking this. I make and apply dozens of yards of compost every year, a big component of it is composted wood chips which leave a wonderful texture but are apparently heaven for voles. Aside from my six cats (who easily kill a vole apiece per day), the only other things that seems like a good bets to me are paying much more rigid attention to removing scruffy areas late in the season and making a final big push to remove every vestige of landscaping fabric which provides cover for the voles. Has anybody made wire fabric or screen vole guards around the bases of shrubs? I only see above-ground damage up to about 6 or 7 inches, so that might be feasible. Do you think they would go over and then down in? My poor Exbury Az. had a hard time of it this year. Makes you want to cry to waste three or four years growth! But they don;t seem to have done thier usual damage to the Sib. Iris. I suppose thay are saving that for late April ....@#$%^&(*&?! Molly~

To return to the the "delayed decomp of moldy bread" thing: ** (If you'd prefer to skip to the Readers Digest-like summation paragraph at the end, feel free to do so under advisement) The primary reason delayed decomp of moldy bread happens some/most of the time is also a good indicator of the overall "health" of your bin. It also is a pretty good verification of what worms really eat most of the time. Most of the time they eat whatever materials are broken down enough to be consumed by a creature with a really small mouth, no teeth, no arms or hands, nor utensils. Usually that happens to be the biology in the bin that is eating (breaking down) stuff not breaking down....like tbone steak or unmoldy bread (mold BEING the biology eating the bread) So, if the worms have decimated the biology populations of the bin because of a lack of other good edibles to a point where the moldy bread will lie there being attacked by only a tiny army of the scared silly into appetite-inhibiting but lucky, uneaten biology lying low to avoid the hungry worms, the bread will take longer to achieve complete moldiness, hence edibility by the wormies. On the other hand, if you, the gatekeeper of RockHard Cafe, has a menu of worm-worthy entrees not dependent upon little pre-processors, those little micro-critters will attack that bread with vigor and unafraid of being eaten by the wormies who are busy with the melon, or stuff pureed by you, or anything else that they happen upon while out for a wriggle. When wide and varied menu selections are provided all the creatures dining have tough choices on what to chow down on. He who hesitates is both lost and not causing that bread to totally mold enough to take the wormies minds off all the other stuff they're busy with. **For those who skipped down to the meat of the matter: It's a food cycle, and Garbage In Garbage Out applicable, and generally speaking, the worms don't eat the food...they eat what's eating Gilberts' Grape. OR, worm-worthy food deliverers like you will cause much different bin conditions and eater populace than chunkers of stuff not ready for worms like everyone else except you who will then turn their wormies on their former allies in food processing, cannibalize them thus creating a vicious spiral of complaints to this forum about unsatisfactory results with bins. I await the ensuing uproar with no small amount of trepidation, if not downright dread. chuckiebtoo Moderation, Patience, Diversity, Obedience to Mother Nature BTW, if you continue the food chain cycle all the way to the top....or us, as we like to think...unless we find ourselves shark or bear fodder, that chain has us baiting a hook with a worm, catching a fish, and either eating it or baiting a bear trap or shark hook. BTW2: I think maybe that whole chalkboard mathematical equation you've seen in B&W photos with Einstein standing there looking frazzled is saying the same thing. ...

Ok, that was fun. Winemaker brought his 2007 Barbera and 2002 Merlot Reserve. We finished with one of his 1999 Merlots from my basement. Impressive, that '99 spent a few years in a box in my garage - which, even in Northern California, got hot at times, and then has been sitting in my Portland basement. Not proper wine storage at all. But it was excellent. So the wine was great. Dinner was so-so. Sad, but I'm pretty objective about my cooking, and it's true. Someone started a thread asking about ''flops'', so here are a couple. On the good side, the rib eye steaks were very good. Trimmed and salted the meat, stored unwrapped on a rack in the refrigerator, then brought to room temp. Heated cast iron pans dry for five minutes on high flame, then a pat of butter and put the steaks down. About 4 min per side, to deep brown. Pulled them off the pans at 115F then rested them. For service, charred the tops with a torch and melted the tops with bubbling herb butter. They were perfectly medium rare. On the not so good side, the creamed spinach tasted great, with Amaretto, crispy panchetta, deeply browned mushrooms, toasted almonds, butter, cream, and melted Brie cheese. But it wasn't creamy enough. My carbonara was mediocre. SWMBO makes a much better carbonara than I. Her salad was great, which I forgot to mention. My hazelnut ice cream was not good. I tried a different way of making it and also had a problem with the ice cream machine so that it didn't churn properly, tasted good but wrong consistency. Fortunately, Two Guys brought a dessert so full of sherry that my daughter got tipsy. Well, there was plenty of wine and red meat so dinner wasn't a total flop. Now, it's Sunday morning, and on to eat . . . Nothing.

Kathie .. Your skellies and decorations look awesome!! Thanks so much for sharing a picture :) Joey, I love your witch ring .. Happy dancing witches, the kids will love them! Everyone thanks for the nice comments, I love Halloween .. Always have, I've been hard at work finishing stuff up .. Dead line is near .. I have more to post, try to in a bit ;) Carving head .. Pumpkin king .. Large funkin, painted, carved, distressed .. Pumpkin patch guardian put together .. Next comes haunted pumpkin patch .. At night : Carving and painting sign .. Sign and greeter go up .. Fence going up .. Behind this goes singing pumpkins, I'll try to put our trail run video of that up below. And .. The pumpkin ghouls .. Starting to make hands and legs : This is just a trial run .. Faces will be carved in and arms drilled in in the next couple of days. Argh .. Making safe candles .. The cow says boo! Making faux beams. Starting to dress the scene .. Those three pumpkins are the singing pumpkins .. Projecton. Monster holding candle .. Think I heard him yell Freebird ;) more monsters in works, waiting for arms and legs to dry so I can dry brush them .. Corgi in a coffin .. Ernie says I can rock this mom .. This is still a work in progress, just a quick scene to cover fog chiller/machine .. Still painting on it and need to install green string lights to glow out the cracks ..