thank you for your thoughts. im just desperate to try something, because the old bucket thing hasnt been working too well. yes, i have a nice pallet composter out back. i took a course on composting quite a few years back that the province was giving. it turned out to be this intense 40 hour thing, but i really did learn alot. what bothered me was the toxic run off they spoke of. that all that wonderful organic material would mix up with just a little bit of battery acid or mr kleen or something toxic and the whole darn thing would become toxic. that really bothered me, thus, i worry about every crumb and drop. i know there are simple ways to do things and complex ways to do things. i know there are cheap ways and expensive ways. some people drive beaters some driver beemers - its personal. im so tired of the mess and critters and with a new reno i want to do something drastic to change the messy and dirty way we were collecting our compost. the 5 gallon kitty litter pail just isnt working for us. worms. yes, i have a gazillion red wigglers in my pallot pile outside. every fall i bring a handful in and keep them through the winter. (just incase something kills them off over the winter i will have a big plate full of them again in spring) one year in the handful i had mosquito larvie and we had skits hatching all year! my small worm bin sure wasnt enough for our family, though i have seen the worm bins available for larger applications. i guess i have just been thinking of something really simple and easy and ... i dont know just easy, it seems like life is just going crazy this summer and i need simple in my life. again, thanks so much for your imput, i do love this site and i have learned so much over the years. even though i havent posted much in the past few years, i do lurk and see what folks are saying.

We have life alert, but even with that I'm paranoid about my purse being stolen. I always though having one stolen when I was in ninth grade made me overly vigilant, but in the last decade or so I've realized one can never be too careful when it comes to things like this. Because of a neck injury and now my shoulder and arm, I can no longer carry my purse for long periods of time on my shoulder so I use the child strap to run through the purse handle. If anyone tries to grab it they'd pull the whole cart with it. My wallet is safe in a zippered pocket. The most valuable things in the open part of the current purse, is my cell phone. I no longer carry my Craftsman tape measure for fear of losing it as they no longer make them. Hubby bought me a five dollar one that works just as well when I'm away from home and need to measure something. When I'm at a restaurant my purse hangs from my knee. When I go to the rest room I hang it over my head. Yeah, weird, but no one can get it without taking me with it. As the economy gets worse, these type of thefts seem to increase. We just heard of one that happened close to us and we live out in the country. Someone stole 35 bales of hay and some tools.

Okay, I have had a Bosch 800 series Evolution (SHE68M05UC) for a little over four years and am not terribly happy with it. First, it has had an odd chemical smell since day one. I've read reviews that mention this smell and often it just goes away in time. How much time? Will it take another four years? It is indeed gets the dishes clean and runs very quiet but unfortunately is punctuated with a most annoying beep beep beep that goes on incessantly until you get up and open the door. Well, a lot of good it does to have a quiet running DW that wakes you up or otherwise interrupts conversation, TV time or projects because the dishes are done. The dishes are clean, they will keep until *I* decide it's time to put them away. Sheesh. I've contacted Bosch twice about disabling the beep. They claim it can be done but the instructions they sent me did not work because they sent me instructions for another model even though I sent them a photo of the control panel and model number plate. Instructions I found online did not work either. So, we can only do dishes when we have nothing else planned, like sleeping. yawn. We also have Bosch wall oven and microwave and they too have annoying beeps that cannot be disabled unless you don't mind losing the timer beep sound. Found that out the hard way when I put something on the stove, set the microwave timer and went into the next room. The smell of smoke alerted me that something was burning. The timer had been set but did not sound off because I had disabled the bleeping beep that indicates whatever you are cooking in the microwave is done. And it reminds you every minute or so, again, until you get up and open the door. grrr. On the up side, I do love the nice clean European lines of Bosch products which are perfect for my simple, zen-like kitchen. Just wish I could get rid of the bleeping beeps. Jodi-

Electronic pH meters seem to vary hugely, and give only a very rough indication. I used one recently and found it had no correlation with the results I got using rigorous chemical analysis, so I would recommend using a full-blown chemical-based soil testing kit before pronouncing on your garden's pH. The general rule is that a clay soil is acidic. I used to garden Wield clay in West Sussex, which was criminally acidic (let alone badly drained and heavy to work). But then it does depend a bit on the parent material  a chalky clay may be alkaline, usually only slightly so. However, poor drainage, usually associated with a clay soil, can increase acidity. The part of the garden which has been regularly worked has probably had lime added to it over the years, which is why your preliminary results are reading as alkaline. Liming helps to create a good soil structure in a clay soil, and needs to be continued to be added if you regularly manure your soil in future to counter any increase in acidity which almost always ensues. Be sure to test your soil pH before liming, however, as it is possible to overcompensate. I have known old boys who have limed their allotments routinely annually and have ended up with a soil which was excessively caustic.