Agreed. If you can plant for a fall crop, why not try butternut or some other c. moschata? All of the squash in this family are pretty resistant. I grew Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin, last year (and am again this year). It's now carried by Sandhill Preservation Center. Anyway, we have borers here, real badly. But this one never suffered from them. Plus, it withstood 9 weeks of 100 F + temps and never wilted. Most of the c. maximas and c. pepos are not good at resisting borers. I've tried a couple of c. pepos which are okay with borer problems. Scarchuks Supreme, an acorn squash, was specially developed to resist them. It still gets attacked. But generally, it survives and produces. Another is Dolma Kabak, a vining summer squash, from Turkey. It puts down roots all along the vine, and can survive being "hit." But the c. moschatas rarely are penetrated by borer larva. George Tahlequah, OK

Elskunkito, tomatoes generally don't like temps below 50 degrees at night or day temps above 95 degrees. I know they won't set fruit unless they are in that temperature window. I'm in zone 5. In a good year, I've picked tomatoes until mid-October. This year was not a good year. My plants got early blight & I couldn't get it under control with all the rain we had in July. I had my plants ripped out by Labor Day.

This is a NOVEL. Sorry... But I know you're frustrated and since we've dealt with many of these issues with quite a lot of success, I'm going to share it all. A__ has pulled stunts like the paper thing too. We stopped giving a big response at the time, and he can go sit in his room until he's ready to pick up his mess / eat his supper / be nice / etc. Then we talk about it afterward, calmly and rationally. For awhile, A__ was going to his room AT LEAST once a day, often more. Once he went to his room five times in one day! He stayed in there until he was ready to correct whatever behavior, so it was totally up to him to choose to behave. Once he was in there for an hour and a half! I know that all the parenting logic says to address a problem behavior immediately, but for a kid who is seeking negative attention, that's just feeding the problem... So we wait until after, when A__ is calmed down and he has had a chance to think about what his bad and good behaviors were. It also gives us a chance to mellow out about whatever he did, so that we're not mad when we discuss it. Now, A__ has come a looooooong way, and has only been sent to his room once in the past two months. He was in there for about ten minutes and then he was ready to come out and apologize/talk. "Sometimes his anger is so big he doesn't care what the consequence is he just keeps it going." This was a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem for A__. If he got angry, it was the end of the world. He would yell, and say he hated us or that his dad was the worst dad in the world. He would scream that he wished he was dead because he was being tortured. He would throw things or hit or kick at whatever was near him. He would get so enraged that his face would turn purple and his pupils would fill his nearly whole iris. It was awful and scary. He is still struggling with anger management, but things are a million times better. He hasn't been mad like that in a good four or five months! How did we do it? We started giving anger management ideas when A__ was totally calm, or a little peeved about something minor but not MAD. We'd suggest things like deep breaths, picturing your anger like a big red balloon that you don't want to pop, running the other way to get the 'burst' out, tell/ask someone to stop whatever is making you mad, say that you're getting mad when you feel it coming, let out a quick yell or scream to get the 'burst' out, etc etc. These alternatives were very gradual coming into effect... He "knew" them in his head, but it was awhile before he could really put them into action. So when he'd get mad we'd talk about what else he could have done, how else he could have reacted, how he could have prevented a freak-out. Gradually, very gradually, we saw him begin to use them. One day when he was getting mad, he took a few deep breaths, said "BIG RED BALLOON!!!", turned away for a few moments and was OK when he turned back to us - that's when I realized we were getting through on anger management. Keep on keepin' on for this one. I thought we'd never get through to him, but we are. When A__ says something like "I hate you and I wish I were dead!" or "I'm the worst kid in the world!" we don't go into 20 minutes of undivided attention anymore. We quietly say "That's too bad, because I love you and am glad you're alive" or "That's too bad, because I think you're pretty great" and quietly tell him that when he is ready to be calm, we are ready to talk about why he is upset. If he keeps up the drama, we just repeat "I only want to have a nice conversation, without all this drama. We can talk when you have calmed down. Please go to your room to calm down and come out when you feel like talking." Sometimes, when we are talking about his anger or bad behavior or whatever the problem is, he doesn't want to look at us. So as long as he is speaking clearly enough to understand, it is OK by us if he wants to hide his face behind a sweater or pillow, or if he wants to crouch behind the chair, or hide under a blanket. It makes him feel more comfortable and he is more likely to talk openly than just say "I don't know" over and over. We do usually ask him to look directly if he has to apologize for something though... for more accountability and ownership of your actions. "He just stares past me like we don't speak the same language and he has no idea I was speaking to him" This sounds familiar to me, but is one that we haven't had as much success with. IMO, we haven't been successful because I don't think it's something he really realizes he is doing. He realizes it when he is getting mad, he (usually) realizes it when he has a bad attitude; he may not realize it when he isn't acknowledging someone. I honestly think that A__ gets in his "bubble" and doesn't notice what is happening around him at all. The bubble is more impenetrable if he is hyper-focused on something, such as a computer game he enjoys or something that is bothering him. I've found that he is more likely to snap out of his bubble if more than one sense is activated... So I speak to him while moving around in his line of sight or touching him and he is more likely to notice. He is also more likely to react poorly, but you've gotta take the good with the bad... As for the distinction between positive and negative attention... We had a little "workshop" on it. We chose a time when he was relaxed and was having a good day with good communication skills. We started with that we weren't upset with him and that he was not in any trouble, but we wanted to talk about looking for attention. We call it "good and bad attention" but we sat down to talk about it, and went through examples of real recent behaviors, and hypothetical behaviors, getting A__ to identify which it was. Once he appeared to understand the difference, we got him to come up with "good attention" alternatives to "bad attention" examples. We talked about that doing things to be nice, helpful, polite, mature, responsible etc - anything that someone might give you a compliment for - is "good attention". We talked about that doing things so someone will tell you not to or to make someone mad/sad/annoyed is "bad attention". We talked about how to identify if you are looking for attention - that if you are bored/lonely/mad/sad and want someone to notice or entertain you - and how to get their attention. If you are bored, a "good attention" way is to tell them you are bored and ask them to play with you please; a "bad example" way is to throw things at them until they get mad at you. If you are mad, a "good attention" way is to say that you are feeling mad and ask to talk about it or excuse yourself to your room to calm down; a "bad attention" way is to stomp and shout until someone asks you what's wrong. Now, all we usually have to say is "Are you looking for good or bad attention? Can you try again with looking for good attention, please?" and he does. Sometimes it takes more coaching and work, but at least half the time, he can figure it out himself now. "Eric sits there acting like he's listening and then he'll come up with something WAY from left field" A__ does this as well. It usually indicates that he is at his max for this particular thread of the conversation and it is time to change angles or ask for his opinion. It helps to keep him on topic by asking him frequently to rephrase what we said into his own words and tell us what he thinks about it. I find it frustrating and tedious, and FDH can hardly do it... But it helps keep A__ on the conversation instead of wandering off into left field. Of course, we praise praise praise until we are blue in the face when he makes good choices and shows good behavior. It feels like I tell him 500 times a day that he is using nice manners, or being thoughtful, or listening well, and so on... But even though I am sick to death of saying "Thank you for doing what you were asked the first time!" or giving high fives for little things like tidying up his own mess, I keep doing it. I figure that if I'm not sick of praising him, I'm not doing it enough to reinforce the good choices. Some other posters (mostly those with "easy" kids) think that our incessant yammering at A__ about good behavior and our many approaches are stupid and too complex... But like you, we are turning puzzle pieces, trying to find what fits. It's hard. People whose BKs or SKs have had no major behavioral problems don't understand the conscious level and planning that it takes to approach a child with behavioral problems or disorders. But don't lose hope yet! We've seen amazing, astounding, exponential change in A__ since we decided to develop a parenting plan, and started looking for the puzzle. Eric sounds so much like A__ of a year ago, and had someone told me how he'd improve, I doubt I would have believed them. I never dared hoped for this sort of turnaround - all I was hoping for was to not be on eggshells all the time, wondering when the next eruption would be... But now we have a wonderful and pleasant boy 90% of the time, a slightly surly boy with a bit of an attitude 9%, and a little monster 1%! It's amazing and I've been surprised by A__'s commitment to behaving better many times. I've also been surprised at the amount of work it's been for us, the amount of help we've needed from friends/family/GW, and the amount of tears I've shed... but so worth it.

maureeninmd I am pretty frugal and have this odd idea that everything I buy will be with me forever, so it better be perfect in every way - useful, beautiful, good quality, etc. I worked with a lot of design engineers. You learn to satisfice by learning to define requirements: what is the real problem you are trying to solve. Few things can be simultaneously useful, beautiful, durable, high-quality, affordable, and fit in the alloted space. You have to decide which of the qualities are most important at this moment, for this problem. The second part of satisficing is that when you have found the item you needed, you QUIT LOOKING! I found tile for a bathroom re-do that fit all my requirements: porcelain, in budget, blended with existing tile, and right size at the first of about 20 tile dealers. I bought it right then and tore up the list. Maybe out there was one that blended just a tiny bit better, or was a few cents cheaper, but it's not worth spending three days looking just in case. For my ski boots ... I went from one end of town to the other, and tried on every danged brand in my size in the entire resort area, because the ONLY thing that counted was comfort and I wasn't having much luck finding it.