Please, please be careful with what you offer for sale. The FDA has regs about what you can sell to the public (including open-air markets and farmers markets) and they are really VERY tough on the little guys if caught. I abide by the regs because this is my hobby income and I would not want to be shut down permanently, let alone sicken anyone because of my ignorance. Just because you serve it to your family does not mean it is OK to offer it for sale. One of the biggies is that home-canned food prepared in a pressure canner can never be offered for sale in any State, Nationwide. Reason is they can't certify that the proper pounds of pressure and length of time was used when prepared in a home canning kitchen. There is also no way to water bath can low acid foods safely unless pickled (acidified) and PLEASE NO CANNED GREEN BEANS - they've killed enough people already. To offer ACID and ACIDIFIED (pickled) LOW ACID canned foods the FDA (Nationwide) requires you to complete a course and become an Operation Supervisor, or have one supervise your entire process for each batch. It is called "Acidified Foods Processing and Packaging, Better Process Control School" that is offered through County Extension offices in each State. This would include water bath canned foods like pickles, salsa, mustards, chutney, vinegars, and all tomato products. REFRIGERATED PICKLES cannot ever be offered for sale either (not shelf stable)! You must also register your "facility" with the FDA under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 if you want to sell acidified foods. It is free to register. The reason is that they want a chain of contamination if something nasty breaks out - remember the bags of spinach, canned mushrooms, peanut butter? And, if you sell acidified low acid foods, you must file a Process Control sheet for each product, also free. I would be very, very worried about offering the Sicilian Pickled Eggplant recipe posted here without it being tested by my States Food Science Lab, not having an Acidified Foods approval, and, that it is not shelf stable. OK for family, but really scary being offered for sale at a Farmers Market. Each State has regs, as do some Cities and Counties. It would be wise to research them for your location, and not go by what the neighboring vendor says, or sells. Here in NC I have to have a Dept of INSPECTED KITCHEN and have my well inspected against E. coli every year. They can come in at any time without announcement to verify that their regs are being followed - just like they do for inspecting restaurants - and have the power to shut you down if not up to par. Another item you want to consider is the risk of botulism, molds, and bacteriaÂs like listeria and salmonella when foods are sold that must be kept hot or kept cold  which are not "SHELF STABLE". I would not want to take a chance that your customer leaves it in the car all day, eats it the next week, and sues you when they get sick. It does happen. BTW, do you have Mil$ liability insurance on your offerings in case it does? I do, for $125 a year. And, with TAKE AWAY foods, you may need a City, County, and/or State Health Department permit, usually called a "Concession Stand" or "Catering" Permit. It is hard to abide by their regs because of the risk of airborne contaminations outside of your kitchen. The FDA also does not want you to sell fresh meats, dairy products, frozen treats, sandwiches, cream pies, baked goods with meat, juices and hot coffee, for example, without the correct permits added to the shelf stable regs. For any MEAT OR DAIRY product, the USDA gets a say with their regs. I would not want to mess with them either. These regs are nationwide, not just State regulated. Selling EGGS also has regs so just out of the back of your truck is not a good thing to offer. I would really, really worry about those postings suggesting meat stuffed peppers, curry, pizza, fresh sandwiches, grilled peppers, and even that peanut butter (oil based). Your Market Manager should also be up on the regs since he/she would be held liable even if ignorant of the regs, which is not an excuse. Consequences are severe. As for BAKED goods, there is little regulation except that you should not offer anything that is not shelf stable. This includes no-no's like meringues and cheesecakes, very juicy pies and creamy tarts that are unstable in the open air. Breads and cakes, cookies and candies are shelf stable and are good sellers. That is why the Amish have such a nice variety. Pies are iffy  it is the water activity that the FDA is most concerned about - higher than .91% invites microorganisms to grow. http://www.foodtechsource.com/rcenter/tech_data/td_water.htm It is very difficult to ascertain your products water activity without expensive equipment. Suffice it to say that if your pie is very juicy and needs refrigeration to be safe, it is not good to offer it for sale. As for DEHYDRATED foods - there is little water activity so they are not regulated. Go ahead with jerky, dried veggies, fruits, and herbs, even dried soup blends. They are very good sellers and safe. As for JAMS AND JELLY - there is little possibility for growth of botulism with their high sugar content and the natural acidity of most fruits. But be careful - bananas, figs, peaches, persimmons, pears, plums, mangoes, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, apricots, and tomatoes are low-acid and MUST have bottled lemon juice added to bring up the acidity levels when jellied or jammed. Molds are a problem if not canned properly (you must use a water bath canner for proper sealing and for long term safe storage). As for anything using OILS - don't go there. Especially low acid foods like garlic, peppers, onions, and herbs. There is a very high incidence of botulism contamination in the totally perfect environment oil packed foods contain. I personally would include nut butters in this group. A week in the refrigerator is not going to inhibit the growth of botulism. LABELING is very important. First of all you want your customer to come back to your booth, or call you with special orders. The FDA has labeling regs  it is just common sense to include them with your product. Fancy name of product, common name of product, ingredients in descending order, facility name, location and phone number, weight, preparation date or code. Be sure that you note on everything canned that it must be refrigerated after opening, and include an expiration date, and that should including fresh baked goods. That is for your own protection from lawsuits. If you are looking for more information about preparing home-prepared foods for sale or personal use - please visit the HARVEST FORUM here on GW. It mostly concerns home-canned and preserved foods and has a wealth of information in current and past posts, plus, lots of recipes and discussions about recipes found on the web. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/harvest/ Another resource is the National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP). It is our go-to for any type of food preservation and even includes many great tasting and safety proven recipes. I also suggest you peruse the University of GeorgiaÂs book "So Easy To Preserve". FDA blessed. Recipes are not copyrighted, even yours, so it is totally OK to use the safe ones, just donÂt expect that GrandmaÂs recipe, or the one youÂve used for 50 years is OK to sell to the general public. Nancy the nancedar

Sounds very good. It is definately true that plumerias can be forced to stay growing. I think that it is probably best for seedlings to stay actively growing during the winter so that way it gets large fast. Im sure everythng will work out well, and since they are under grow lights you can probably treat them just as you would when they are outside and give them lots of water, and maybe some plant food once a month. Im still new to pluemrias and this is my first full winter that I will be over wintering them indoors. Dont forget to post how everything goes! And if you do as good of a job with your plumies as you do with your palms, they will be blooming like crazy in no time! Good luck!

You keep mentioning the cold weather and several people has stated that its a non-issue. 10 degrees is not a problem for a bunny... it may be hard to believe but if a bun has proper shelter and is dry, bunnies do just fine in the freezing cold. THey have a thick fur coat and a circulation system that is meant for cold weather. Just last week, when it was 10 below zero, I saw a wild bunny hopping around my front yard, looking pleased as punch because he found the veggie scraps that I had put out for the birds. The number one complaint about the lack food and water is valid, the number two complaint about cold weather is a non-issue. When we mix a valid complaint with an uninformed complaint, it tends to trivialize the entire complaint.

Here's my experience: I had 3 cats, two yellow males and a yellow female, all from the same litter. They showed up here as feral kittens. After feeding them for awhile, we finally tamed them, got vaccinations, spayed and neutered and started keeping them inside. About 5 years ago,when they were about 9, one male got sick. I took him to the vet, he was diagnosed with renal failure. The doctor said we might try giving him fluid and trying to keep him alive, but she didn't sound very hopeful about the outcome, so I had him euthanized. I had bloodwork on the other 2 done then, and they were normal, although the other male was in the high normal range. The vet didn't suggest that I should have him rechecked after some time had passed, so I assumed I didn't need to worry about his kidneys. After about a year and a half passed, the other male lost weight (down to about 8 pounds from about 11) and I suspected he had renal failure too. I took him to the vet, a different doctor saw him, and it was renal failure. He convinced me to do the fluid and see if he would improve. So I did. After about 3 days of force feeding him canned Hills AD, he started eating dry Hills KD and gained weight. His appetite was fine once he started eating. He eventually gained weight to 10 pounds, and maintained it until a few months ago. He started out with fluid every day until his creatinine and bun went down some. Then every other day. Then every third day. Early on, he was anemic, so the doctor started him on EPO injections. That took care of the anemia and he didn't develop the antibodies that some cats develop. After a few months I asked the doctor (this time it was the doctor who had seen the first cat) if I needed to be concerned about his blood pressure, and she said that she was sure his blood pressure was fine. (They couldn't check it anyway, no Doppler machine.) One evening about a week later I realized he was blind. I took him to the emergency clinic in Charlotte, NC and his blood pressure was so high it wasn't readable. They kept him overnight, got his bp down, and sent him home with a prescription for Norvasc and told me to give him Pepcid daily, as well. That took care of that problem. While at the emergency place, which is also a specialty veterinary clinic, he was transferred to internal medicine, and was fortunate to get an excellent doctor who told me his specialty is nephrology. I started taking him there for his regular bloodwork and checkups, even though it was more expensive. There's no doubt in my mind that taking him to the specialist made a big difference in how well he did for so long. As time passed, and his creatinine started rising as his remaining kidney got worse, I increased the fluid to 200 ml. once a day. His creatinine never did go down near normal. It was always over 5, and even when it was around 8 his appetite was good and he seemed to feel fine. That's how I gauged how he felt, by how he was eating and how he acted. About 6 weeks ago his creatinine had gone up from 6.6 to 10. I could tell he was not feeling as well, and he wasn't eating as much. I increased his EPO injections to once a week, from every other week. Dr. Jaeger said EPO seems to help lower the creatinine in some cats. When I took him back about 10 days ago his creatinine had only gone down to 9.6 from 10.1. His blood pressure was a little high, too. He wasn't eating much at all, so I got Cyproheptadine (appetite stimulant). That was on Friday, July 6. He was scheduled for another appointment on July 26. When I brought him home that Friday, I persuaded him to eat a little canned Hills AD twice that evening. Saturday he ate a little more of it. Sunday he wouldn't eat it, so I tried no salt added canned tuna. He ate just a few bites. He also was not drinking much at that point. I was still giving him 200 ml fluid daily, and his medications. Monday he wouldn't eat at all and had not drank more than a couple tablespoons of water. Thinking it might take a while for the appetite stimulant to work, I put off calling the vet. Monday night I opened his mouth like I would to give him a pill and popped a little tuna in. He swallowed it but wasn't interested in eating at all. Tuesday I called the specialist and he said to bring him in. We had discussed at the previous appointment that he was near the end, and the doctor and I agreed that I wouldn't force feed him since he wasn't going to get any better, but the doctor thought he'd be ok for another 3 weeks or so. Our objective was to keep him comfortable if possible. By Monday night I had already made up my mind that it was time to end it before he got in worse shape. I had also realized Monday that he wasn't urinating as much as he should have been for the past couple days, so his remaining kidney function wasn't enough to produce much urine. I weighed him and it looked like he had gained about a pound, but I know it was fluid because he hadn't eaten enough to put on any weight. So when I took him to the doctor Tuesday morning he examined him and said that there was nothing we could do to help him at this point. So I had him euthanized. I hated to do it but I know it was the right thing to do. I feel better about it knowing that he only seemed to feel really really bad for a couple days at the most. Monday night, before I took him to the doctor Tuesday, he jumped up on the bed and I petted him for a good while. He purred while I petted him, even though he hadn't purred for at least a month. Now, here's what happened with his sister. She had some spells of vomiting, starting 6 months ago. The regular vet couldn't find anything wrong with her. Her bloodwork was fine, although her calcium was a little high. After a couple days she'd be fine, and start eating again. She had gradually lost some weight, but he attributed it to her getting older (she was obese at 15 pounds for a long time, and even when she got down to 10 pounds she looked chubby, because she was a small cat). After one of the vomiting spells, I took her to the emergency clinic at night because I thought she might be dehydrated. They did bloodwork and it was fine, but the specific gravity of her urine was not quite normal, and could possibly be an indicator of early renal disease. They didn't suggest she needed to be transferred to internal medicine, so I didn't worry about it. That was in April, I think. She seemed fine for a while. Then about 6 or 7 weeks ago, she was sick again so I took her to the regular vet, mostly because I thought she might need fluid and I couldn't tell if she was dehydrated, so I didn't want to do fluid at home if she didn't need it. They did bloodwork and her creatinine and bun levels showed renal failure. Other than the urinalysis being somewhat abnormal earlier, we had no clue that it would be renal failure. I don't remember how high it was, but she needed IV fluid at least overnight, so the new young female vet at the regular vet's office said that if it was her cat she'd take her to the specialty vet, and since he was already seeing my male, I knew he'd see the female too. They took her as an emergency patient, hospitalized her, and kept her for about 4 days. He said her kidneys were worse than the male's. Her creatinine didn't go down much, but I brought her home and started the same routine with her, fluid, blood pressure meds, pepcid. She seemed to do a little better, and started to eat, so I took her for her followup appointment around the first of June. Her creatinine wasn't going down much, but we didn't think she was in any danger of getting worse quickly and her appetite had improved. That afternoon when I brought her home from the appointment she went to the bowl and ate some food. I thought she was ok, but from then on, she went downhill fast. I had an appointment for her about a week later on Tuesday, June 12, but she got so sick I took her to the emergency clinic the following Saturday night instead of waiting til Tuesday. She wouldn't eat, I was forcefeeding her canned Hills AD. She hated getting the pills but got too weak to object much. She couldn't even walk to the litter box. I had to carry her. They called Sunday morning to say she had perked up some, but wasn't ready to go home. So I thought she might be ok. Then Sunday night the emergency doctor called and said she wasn't doing well at all. She wasn't producing urine and had fluid in her chest and abdominal cavities. That doctor had called the specialist (who had not been able to see her that time because of an out of town conference, but had just got back into town), and he agreed that there was nothing they could do for her, so I had her euthanized. It was harder with her, because with the male, I had about 3 years to know it was going to happen eventually. She had seemed ok (except for the occasional vomiting spells) up until a few months ago. The specialist said that the male had done much better than he would have predicted when he first saw him with the high blood pressure, and the female went down much quicker than he expected, although he knew her kidneys were worse than the males. The male was diagnosed in September of 2004, I think, and he lasted until this past Tuesday, July 10. The female was diagnosed this past May 21, and I lost her on June 10. Exactly a month apart. One thing the specialist said early on was that you never can predict how long the cat will live or how they'll respond to treatment. He didn't think my male would live much longer from when he first saw him in Dec. 2004, and he's had a lot of renal failure patients.