Thanks for the responses. There's a large body of thought (and evidence, actually) that "juvenile spaying" is the way to go. I did a LOT of reading on the topic before taking THE BABY in for the procedure, and all of it was very in favor. It's only considered a juvenile spay if they're 16 weeks or younger and she was right at 16 weeks. In shelters, they're spaying them at six weeks old. The new anesthetics (I'm told) are a world apart from the older anesthetics - which was the main reason for delaying surgery until a dog had some age on her. The pros are, the puppies heal much faster and there are fewer complications. The cons are (this is my own opinion), it's not pretty to lock a puppy in a crate with an e-collar for most of her 24-hour day. This is precious socialization time, and she *has* to be quiet so she has to either be on drugs, or spend a bit of time in the crate - for the first few days, anyway. And now with this complication, she's in there until the infection heals (which I hope is no more than a couple days away). She can not be running around and/or jumping - which is what she longs to do. Prior to this, we had a lot of fun, taking long walks and going to the dog park every day and playing catch in the back yard. She was a tired dog and a good dog. Now she's been cooped up for six days and is all fired up. I dunno. The juvenile spay is supposed to be THE thing. I thought it was the best thing to do for my little dog and I spent a whole lot of time doing my research before I made these arrangements. We got into trouble when she licked her stitches and/or when she insisted on jumping up and down like she was a coiled spring. Rose

You mentioned Orange County, CA in another thread and concerns over humidity. I lived in the city of Orange in my early twenties and don't recall anything excessive. Prolonged periods of high or low humidity is what can cause issues and not four or five days here and there. Looking at the past year in Orange itself doesn't ring alarm bells. Averages are in the 60’s from my glance. I didn't see 80% I did most of my work in SW Florida where humidity was much higher. The work was anywhere from beachfront, island, to twenty miles inland, but before the days of five inch wide solid planks. Then it was more three inch solid. Yes there were a few issues here and there especially with stilt homes that had no climate control underneath (open to air). That’s all changed now with nearly all homes using those areas for game rooms, guest bedrooms and the like. As far as concrete slab sub floors, which I’m guessing you probably have, engineered floors are all over the place. No issues. Be careful with the reviews you read. Many are probably a matter of installation related failures and lack of awareness, especially with DIY’ers and inexperienced installers. Think about these three M’s Moisture testing - material, subfloor Moisture awareness - in, and around the home. Before and after Moisture control - barriers

I also have that soil acidifier. It has elemental sulfur which is slowly converted to sulfuric acid via soil bacteria. I think if you have a soiless potting mix it may take a very long to time to be effective and may get washed out. If you have soil in your container I think it will be more effective. Elemental sulfur does take a while to get going but it offers long lived pH change. If you want something faster use dilute vinegar. You could also use iron sulfate, or aluminum sulfate, or dilute phosphoric acid. All of these are used in soil to decrease pH. Honestly you could likely put dilute amounts of any acid in the soil to reduce the pH. Be careful though you can also hurt your plants by adding too much acid or salts. The yellowing looks like water stress (too much water) though just my opinion. ~Mick

I keep meaning to Terry Gross's interviews because I only catch them now and then. I used to listen to Thom Hartmann on the radio until they moved his show to late night, darn it. So occasionally I listen to his podcast. This American Life and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me are both good.