I would take apart that branch and start a new pot. The main plant probably needs to be repotted. Clean out as much as the old potting mix you can, trim the roots a bit and put it in a new fast draining mix. You can search 5-1-1 mix here and repotting. There are lots of explanations. If you are on Facebook there is a group called Holiday Cactus Lovers group with lots of helpful people. Most of them prefer to repot using a fifty fifty mix of potting soil and perlite. If you repot, tale your time and read up here. I'm happy to answer specific questions if you need it. My weekend will be busy so it might take a bit before I respond. If the clades on the fallen branch are withered, sometimes they can be saved by putting them i a ziplock baggie full of water for a day or two. Just flip the bag every day. I actually forgot about one for about two weeks and it had sprouted roots. Good luck!

Our indoor shelter is a separate room and has a big heavy metal door that opens to the inside. Once you are inside with the door closed it has big dead bolt type locks in three places on the door. The door frame was in when the concrete was poured so it is imbedded. The outside dimensions are 10x12 but since the walls are 9 1/2 inches thick the interior is much smaller. From inside out it is 1/2 inch waferboard, 2 inches of rigid foam insulation, four inches of re-enforced concrete, 2 more inches of rigid foam insulation, 1/2 inch of wafer board, and 1/2 inch of concrete board. The walls and ceiling were poured in one pour but the ceiling is 6 inches of HEAVILY re-enforced concrete then has a metal roof over that so it looks just like a regular room without windows. We have a small dorm size refrigerator inside where we keep drinks and meds that have to be refrigerated. In the small freezer we keep frozen cold packs which would continue to keep the refrigerator cold for some time if we lost power. We have a small generator that we could move to the outside and use for lights and to cool the refrigerator if we had damage to our home and no electricity. We have ready to eat food, a small portable Coleman toilet, water, ready-to-drink juice and emergency supplies. We decided today that we are going to switch some things around so that we have room to store at least one dutch oven. We also have a large pan that works like a slow cooker and runs off a propane bottle which we are thinking of putting in there. Much of this can't be used inside the shelter, but would make it possible for you to survive on your own property in the event of a disaster. We don't have a place to sleep inside, but the refrigerator sits up on a shelf and on the opposite side are 6 folding chairs. The generator rolls under the shelf where the chairs are stored. We have a filing cabinet inside with our important papers, birth certificates, passports, marriage licenses, taxes, property files and genealogy records. We aren't alarmist, but I like to be prepared and my husband has a terminal case of Boy Scout. LOL We still don't have everything like we want it but we are making progress. We feel like if we are at home when one strikes then we should be able to protect ourselves from the storm and we have enough supplies on hand that we could "stay put" and not have someone out looking for us. I guess we have had good training for this. In the cold places we have lived, like Colorado, northern Michigan, and Alaska, we had to keep our car stocked with winter emergency supplies. In another country where we lived, we keep a suitcase packed at all times so we could be ready to leave if needed. No matter where you live there are possible emergency conditions and everyone needs to think about them before they happen. People that we don't even know have asked if they can come look at our shelter. We just had an elderly man and woman this month that came with our contractor to take a peek so they can decide how big to make the one they plan to have build. More and more people are feeling the need for a home shelter.

Sat down for a few & saw this. Wow! Anyone watch the video from 2009? Have to say that something needs to be done. I bet he is also on gov't assistance because he's not left with enough to survive. I wish the story said how many each woman has with him. We don't know if the women are married & where they get help from. My guess would be there are 4 women that he's regularly had in his life & he keeps going back to them. He claims to know their names & birthdays. The one said he's good about giving her milk money even though she doesn't get support. My guess; he's getting some sort of help; probably gets food vouchers. Reminds me of Cody Brown. It's in the video; "they know what they're getting into" or what ever he said about them knowing that if they get knocked up; they can get in line with the rest. Something needs to be done. The government is broke; yet I know more people that are on public assistance then when I applied in the 80's. How I did not qualify is beyond me; yet I see all these people being reckless & somehow getting it. They trade food vouchers for cigs. They have more kids. There should be some kind of law that people go on long term birth control once they enter the system so they do not pop out more kids while on it- IUD or the Essure & in his case; they should offer vasectomy. They will cry it's against their rights to deny them having more children while on public assistance. I've seen this with my own eyes. Actually know of one that has been popping out 1 a year; is now on #4; husband is laid off; last kid has some sort of disability & won't be 1 until the summer. Apparently she's applying for social security to have gov't assistance for him. They don't have health insurance through his work so she gets medicaid. Some how they got a nice sized tax return & spent it recklessly. I don't talk about our situation; cancer killed us financially. When my hub went back to work 4/2010 after being out 7 months; he was on light duty until he was physically able to haul cars again. He worked slow & was just getting back into the swing when his company lost our bread & butter; about 6 months after he went back- 10 months after treatment ended. He was dealing with a bad immune system still; had MRSA; his Lupus was flaring & he kept getting thrush. He was exhausted; my private hell was that his cancer would return in his lungs. He went back to the light duty work & in March 2011 his company lost every other account they had except 1. With 28 years in; he was forced to jump ship to a job making 50% less. People that did not have his years in; somehow cut a deal when their company went under & they slid into my hubs board; keeping their original hire date with the old company which pushed them ahead of my hub. Friends of our have lost trucks; filed bankruptcy. We've tried to get my hub out of the new job since August 2011 & it finally happened in March; then he was out of work 3 weeks. I don't know what the future will hold. His old company was forced into bankruptcy the other day; so a few of his friends that were lucky to keep their job will be laid off tomorrow. It really ticks me off that hard working people like us can't easily get help; yet people like this keep getting hand outs. Something is seriously wrong. 2009 video Father, 29, in child support court says he has 21 kids KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- On paper, he has 20 possibly 21 children. With a minimum wage job, he can't afford to support them all. What is the state to do? Desmond Hatchett, 29, told WVLT he wasn't out to set a record, though he certainly holds it in Knox County Juvenile Child Support Court. Hatchett's children range in age from newborn 11. There are at least 11 mothers; probably several more. Constitutionally, there is nothing the state can do to limit him from having more. "I had four kids in the same year. Twice." Desmond Hatchett told Volunteer TV. On Friday, his name appeared on the docket 11 times; Representing about 15 of his 21 children. "Can you keep up with it all?" WVLT asked Hatchett. "Yeah," he said. "You know all their names, and ages and birthdays?" "Yeah." Hatchett's name is pretty controversial at the old courthouse. "The children can't be supported all by Desmond, so the state of Tennessee has had to step in," Hatchett's attorney Keith Pope said. It's your tax dollars at work. WVLT spoke with one mom who has two children with Hatchett. She is supposed to get $67.50 a month. But many times, she gets a lot less than what she's owed. They all do. "It'll make it through half the month," the unidentified mom said. She told Volunteer TV, Hatchett is the father of her two sons. And she says her 4-year-old is expensive enough on his own. "He's a heavy milk drinker. And milk is not cheap," she said. "It's frustrating, but usually, when I ask he give it to me," she continued. It's due process-- the state is only allowed to take 50% of Hatchett's paycheck. That's 50% split multiple times. "You look at when they filed, how many children they have-- he has several mothers that he has two children with. And, it's tough" Pope explained. Still, Hatchett says the women knew what they were getting into. They were all aware of his large family. One said, she doesn't like it but she deals with it. "It's about the kids. Not the parents," she said. Hatchett agrees he should do what's best for the kids. "Do you intend to keep having children?" WVLT asked. "No." Hatchett replied. "You're done?" "I'm done. I'll say I'm done." "What made you say that?" "I didn't intend to have this many. It just happened," Hatchett said. Desmond Hatchett spent part of Friday afternoon jailed while a child support referee decided how to split up the $400 he brought to court. If he doesn't pay what he owes, he will go back to jail because he is on an automatic jail order. The mothers of Hatchett's children are supposed to get anywhere from $25 to $309 a month, but when his paycheck is garnished amongst them all, some women only get a $1.98 a month. Here is a link that might be useful: Father, 29, in child support court says he has 21 kids

beginner's eye, "...your assuming the person apologizes and accepts your apology. what if they don't. is that the fault of the parent as well..." I'm going to take....fault of the parent out of this equation and provide another example here. Perhaps a non-apology was given. I have an older sister, who I'm estranged from. She was given to periodic calls out of the blue. Usually, she would rage at me, criticize, judge, etc. Sadly, she just could never connect to my feelings. The point is that it was all about her and her feelings. I got used to her negative judgments and criticisms. She was very aggressive, although I'm convinced that she never saw herself as an aggressive person. She always framed me as the problem. Once, at the urging of some therapy group she decided to make another call. By this time I equated all phone calls and every interaction with her as emotionally painful. As charastic of her, she demanded to know why I avoided her. My sister could never, never see how hurtful her behavior was. EVER! Then she said to me, "...If I apologize, will it make things better?" This took me by surprise and there was a long history of her emotional outbursts, anger and denial. I responded saying I guess so. Then she got mad. Then immediately after she made another very telling comment, she said,"I DON'T GET ANY OF THIS." I was in therapy at the time and discussed her non-apology with my therapist and why I felt it was insincere--it was a very telling comment to me. She was apologizing for behavior that she didn't UNDERSTAND, because as she said, "She didn't get any of this." Neither could the rest of my family and the rage, anger and blame continued from them. My response was to distance myself even further. The concept here is that if someone truly doesn't understand how hurtful and destructive their behavior is (and will not own it and don't understand it), then I'm certain that the behavior will continue and there will be repetition. This may not be the best example, but think of a wife-beater who abuses his wife, then profusely apologizes with flowers, gifts and she reconciles. Then he beats her again, even more cruely than the first time. Then her well-meaning friends or relatives say, "she allowed herself to be manipulated, abused," or they may encourage her to "forgive and forget". Plenty of people MINIMIZE emotional abuse and the damage it creates, because unlike physical abuse you can't see it, therefore if you can't see it, it must not exist. I can assure you my estrangement from my sister is NOT TO PUNISH her. It is 100% about PROTECTING MYSELF and PROTECTING my emotions. It is not because I do not want "...resolution/reconciliation/closure/healing". Of course, I want that. I also want change and I want her destructive behaviors to STOP. I want her to demonstrate AWARENESS and I want to be convinced that she UNDERSTANDS why she is apologizing. I'm not interested in prolonging the conflict. I'M NOT INTERESTED IN PROLONGING EMOTIONAL ABUSE with someone who DOESN'T UNDERSTAND my feelings. I am also not looking for perfection of character. Responsibility and awareness, YES. That is what I am looking for. My intest is in preserving some sense of myself and protecting myself. I posted on another thread about the Art of Apologizing.