You're right about everyone wanting easy-prepackaged foods and not knowing what to do with something like a squash, jicama, turnip or any other vegetable that requires skinning/cutting and preparation. I always notice the people shopping at the grocery stores and what they buy. Except for at the produce market, I rarely see anyone shop like me. Most are full of prepackaged foods, boxes,junk, junk, junk with maybe a token apple, orange and ice burg lettuce thrown in. The other day I went to Walmart's food department and my local produce market. The four families in lines near me at Walmart were all obese, from parents down to the youngest toddler. Carts loaded with cheap cookies, hamburger helper and white bread. I was buying canning jars and pectin or I wouldn't have been there. One lady was all concerned over the prices of her apples and other nasty looking produce. She was taking forever checking out because she was having Walmart price match produce of the other big grocery chains. When she took a breather and looked towards me I mentioned to her that the nearby produce mart had the same produce she was buying for 1/5 the price and fresher looking. She said "that won't work for me, I don't have time to shop like that". Of course, she was obese and her kids were too. I didn't mention to her that I shopped like that, even when I was a medical student, intern and resident I shopped like that. She's probably much busier than I ever was with 3 jobs in residency and a small horse/cattle farm to run, I'm sure. At the produce market, most of the people in the store except for me where either ethnic or elderly. They were all quite slim and healthy looking. I wish I could get my husband to enjoy squash and sweet potatoes more. This year I'm growing them so I hope that coming from our garden will make a difference. They are so full of nutrition! I have gotten him to enjoy a spicier squash or pumpkin soup and he also likes the pecan/sweet potato crunch that I make as a substitute for his families sugar/grease covered sweet potato marshmellow casserole at the holidays. If someone's only experience to squash and sweet potatoes is what is served at Thanksgiving, and they happen not to like marshmellow casserole (yuck!) or pumpkin pie (why is that not more popular?) then I can understand where it wouldn't become very popular.

Hi, I'm not a real authority on phrags- I'm actually just beginning to get seriously interested in this genus. There are some slipper forums that can give you better, proven advice than I can offer, and here are some links that you should check out- http://www.slipperorchids.info/ http://www.slipperorchidforum.com/forum/index.php http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/index.php I can't seem to find the link which lists the water lovers vs the drier-preferrers, but the folks at the above links can easily help you with that. fman- AFAIK, yours is water lover. And many phrags want higher light levels. 1-2 ft from an eastern window will *not* do it for your plant. If that's where you want to keep it, you should add supplemental light (some CFLs would be nice). A saucer of CLEAN water (as Komi pointed out) is a good idea, but be dedicated about the 'clean', and change it 2-3X/week. I can't help but to fuss, so I am willing to dump the water daily (I don't but I would). What else do you grow and bloom? Do you like to water or forget to water? Do you have a preferred media to grow in? Clara- My adult phrag mix is a little larger than a seedling mix, and it has a little bit of everything: CHC, chopped sphag, small lava rock, med perlite, chopped tree fern, ground cork, med/sml bark, tiny sea shells, (maybe lime or bone meal), charcoal, and maybe/maybe not other stuff. It's a mix that drains well, holds some water (but since my phrags sit in saucers of water, the media doesn't need to retain much water on it's own). My seedling phrag mix is the same, just smaller pieces of the same stuff. As Brooke said, many people grow theirs in s/h. I haven't tried that, but might soon. If you're having problems with your phrags, my experience is to add more light if you can, but also make sure that they have the water level appropriate for your plant. I can't bloom catts, and I know that my light is clearly less that catt-level, FWIW. But phrags typically need a lot more than paph light to really succeed. Carolyn

Been thinking about this thread and the thought came to me that those wanting everyone to show pictures of themselves are always handsome/attractive. I ain't never seen an old ugly man suggesting people show pictures of themselves. Now whatever caused Ms. Brooke to get all upset. I just showed a picture of her in which she looked like a human instead of a speck on the landscape. Yeah, her face was a little red, but everyone knows that is just a reflection from the red coat. If it would make her happier, I have another where her face is not red, but she is looking down at the dog and she does not have the look of elegance as in the picture I showed. Now, this is the same person who suggested I needed a housemate in case I get injured by some of my stupid equipment.. Then she pitches a hissy fit because I posted a picture of a very attractive, elegant woman. Geez, I think I drudther just get a cell phone. At least you can switch them off. Oh, and as promised, I have deleted the picture. Rain forecast for tomorrow, but looks like another beautiful day today. Guess I better do a little (probably very little) work. Mud

Windows on Washington, Thanks for your comments. I've had replacement window Reps in my home who offer Lifetime warranties on their windows, Reading through Angie's List in my area there seems to be many complaints from customers who can't get the company who sold them the windows to honor the warranty or they make the process so difficult customers give up. Nor can some customers get the manufacturing company to send a rep to access the problem. More attention is paid to the selling side than honoring the warranty side after they're installed. And the older the replacement window...the harder it seems to get some companies to come out to inspect it or they come out and find a reason to not replace the replacement. I've read quite a bit of that on Angie's List for my area and online even for companies like Marvin which surprised me. The replacement window companies would have fewer complaints if their Lifetime Warranty side of the business was just as eager to honor the warranties as the sales side is to sell the windows. In addition, the online complaints never disappear. So, even if/when a window company cleans up it's act and starts addressing their Lifetime Warranty promise new prospective customers will run into those negative reviews which cast a bad light on some companies. Marvin seems to have a lot of complaints. We love our house. Our goal is to age in place for as possible. We don't want to go through replacing the replacements! Experts say, vinyl does not last like wood and it will need to be replaced 7 to 10 yrs, or if you're very lucky you may get 15 yrs useage on some of them. I know people who've replaced vinyl windows after 10 yrs due to the clouding problem which they experienced on too many windows. Maybe the reputation of replacing the replacements for various reasons is why some vinyl companies offer the Lifetime Warranty. We have spent countless hours doing the pros and cons. Our biggest concern is our huge cottage picture window and 2 matching large companion windows on each side of the pic window in front of the house. The picture window takes up almost an entire wall in our livingroom. The light is wonderful especially in the winter, it's a southern exposure all day with no obstructions. We use to have trees but they're gone so, we can see why they built the these big windows across the front in '63, all 3 had shade from 2 trees. We also want to replace the small single pane wood grid windows on all with a no grid double pane large window that is designed for full sun on the picture and the 2 companion windows with a double hung double pane with grids only on the top window. All the local window companies are only as good as the sales team, installations team and fulfilling the warranties especially, in a timely manner. Failing to do so in any of those 3 areas means I'd be less likely to buy windows from them.