Well, the eggs under the broodies turned out to be duds, but I think I had too many broodies fighting over them, and they either got jostled too much or always had a hen on them and got too hot! I'm trying to rig up an online webcam for the incubator hatch this weekend, and have invited a bunch of my 8 year old daughter's friends to come over and watch baby chicks hatch. :) newchick, what brand and model incubator are you using, do you know? If you don't have the instructions for it anymore, lots of places online, including the manufacturers, often post the instructions online. You need to follow the instructions as closely as you can for your brand and model. Mine is a Little Giant still air, and mine says to stop turning the eggs and leave the incubator closed for the final three days of incubation--I always make sure and top off the water wells at the final opening & turning before the last three days, so the eggs won't be in danger of drying out. Make sure you have a brooder box, a heat source, chick food and water ready to go for the babies. You've got some cool breeds there, Anconas and Marans are beautiful! Hatching chicks is an amazing experience for kids, I'm glad you are doing it! :) Velvet ~:>

Intro courses can cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. Its not surprising you feel overwhelmed, and I'll bet a lot of other students feel the same way. If you can find other students to get together with to review notes, you will find that very helpful. If you get stuck on something, the professor should be able to help during office hours or after class. Just stick with it and you will be glad you did. Good luck. --Bob

It's growing extremely slow. Checked for root root, it does not have that. I'm thinking that it is growing slow because it is indoors? I keep lamp on it for most hours of the night, and put it in the window in the south-east part of the house first thing in the morning. The reason that I am concerned, is because I cut one of those fronds off very low. I'm hoping that this does not effect the plant. My questions are; My sister lives in Palm Springs, CA and she said that I should not use soil. However, I came across some soil, should I use it, or should I listen to her? The main question is, Is this palm even still alive? Fronds were cut within the past week. Comments: The reason that I am concerned is because at the base of the new frond, it's pretty white/tinted yellow an extremely light green, it looks like it is turning darker green but I guess only time can tell.

Nightcrawler: "I live in a 32 family building. The LL has no keys. He has everyones phone numbers and can get in touch with them if need be." "I live in a mega apt neighborhood, huge tenements, most LL do not take keys." If that is true, then the property owners in question are idiots. Nightcrawler's solution if there is a problem is for the property owner to go up the fire escape, smash the window, and get in like that, or just wait until the tenants show up (if ever). Last week we had a complaint of considerable water coming in through the ceiling of a bathroom in a multi-unit (55)apartment building. There are four bathrooms on four floors immediately above the one with the leaky ceiling. We had to go into each unit to find the problem, which was the goofball tenant on the top floor was washing clothes in the tub, left the water running, and then went to work. If I followed Nightcrawler's technique, I would have had two choices: 1) track down four different tenants, and wait until they showed up (some might be out of town), with potentially thousands of dollars of water damage occurring in the interim; or 2) climb up an ice encrusted fire escape, smash four windows ($100+ each), climb over broken jagged glass without slicing myself open, and then have the tenants complain that there is broken glass & a broken window in sub-zero temperatures. Of course it would then take days to get those windows fixed (for example, try to get a window fixed over a holiday weekend). Let's look at some other reasons why it is a good idea for the property owner to have keys, instead of doing hundreds of dollars of damage by smashing a window or door to get in, or paying a locksmith $100 or more to come and change the lock: 1) Tenants losing keys; 2) Tenants leaving for the christmas holidays to some other country, leaving a window open that cannot be reached from the outside (potentially causing pipes to freeze & thousands of dollars of damages); 3) Surprise fire inspection from the city (resulting in a fine if the inspection cannot be completed at that time); 4) Surprise housing code inspection from the city (also resulting in a fine if the inspection cannot be completed at that time); 5) Tenants asking for a specific repair to be completed, we arrange for a plumber / electrician to come, tenants are not there at the appointed time, cannot be reached by phone, and the plumber / electrician charges us $150 just to show up and do nothing; 6) Tenants ask for a new appliance, we agree, arrange for a specific delivery time, tenant is not there, so we have to pay a delivery charge for nothing. We make sure we have keys, but each of these examples actually happened with tenants who thought it was a good idea to change the locks on their own without giving us a copy. In each case they were either charged the full cost of their action plus double penalty, or were evicted. We change the deadbolt locks for each new tenant. Your property owner is exposing himself to significant potential liability if he did not change your deadbolt locks, and you should insist on them being changed. But if you change them yourself without giving him a copy, you are exposing yourself to significant potential liability if a problem arises and it is difficult to get in, and damage to the building (or to persons) occurs as a result. We also do a full criminal / credit / background check on maintenance personnel. If they would steal from the tenants, they'd steal from the owner, so it is in our interest to make sure they are 100% ok. Dreamgarden: The property owner does not want to take your crappy stuff (kitchenware? old CDs? I don't think so). You are much more likely to get robbed by someone you know. If you don't like property owners who are proactive and try to maintain things to a high standard (ie fix stuff before it becomes an emergency, or install brand new windows in your case), then there are many buildings where you can move to where the owners never fix anything, and could not care less if you had a leaky faucet or drafty windows. Nightcrawler "If you lived in a house would you let a real estate agent bring prospective buyers a tour through your house while you were at work?": Of course, that is standard practice.