yep, the problem is that you used galvanized bolts and nuts. never seen one yet that did not have hard places in it. i usually hit them with a wire brush if i am only doing a few. this knocks it down some. you can spray them with PBBlaster or WD40 to ease installation, but it does nto always work.

I found that the Kohler-branded replacement anchors were exorbitantly priced @ $8.90 a piece. So, instead, I went to Home Depot and bought a box of 79 #14-16 1-1/2" green ribbed plastic anchors with pan-head combo drive screw, for a grand total of $6.58, incl. tax, based on a recommendation I had found elsewhere. My toilet is one of the one-piece, elongated, low-silhouette models, #K-3322, K-3489, K-14257, or K-14286, all of which are described in the same installation guide ... not sure exactly which one I have but they all take seat models #K-4636, K-4639, K-4713, or K-4732. Somehow, the seat had separated from this particular toilet some time ago and apparently the anchors had been lost or misplaced. So I snipped off about 1/8" or so off the tip of the Home Depot plastic anchors to shorten them a bit and gently tapped them into the two metal bushings embedded in the back of the porcelain toilet bowl. No problem, no damage thus far. Then, rather than using the pan-head drive screws that came with them, which seemed too wide, I used the bolts from the original seat installation which were present. While they, too, were a tight fit, they went in without a problem and without damage. I placed a metal nut under the head of each bolt to increase the standoff distance and everything now seems to fit snugly and securely. Time will tell whether this solution can be considered permanent or may have to be repeated, in which case I have plenty of replacement anchors.

Many plants other than succulents grow a stem with nodes from which leaves and branches develop and a space between the nodes called internodes. Many succulents mimic that same growth habit, but have very short internodes and differently shaped leaves. All living plant tissues synthesize a growth regulator called auxin, one of the functions of which is to suppress new lateral growth/branching off the main stem. The primary source of this suppressing growth regulator is in the apices (apical meristems) near the tip of stems and branches. When you remove/destroy the meristematic region, the polar flow of auxin (the term polar is used because of auxin's tendency to only move from shoots to roots) is significantly diminished. When this occurs, it allows a second growth regulator that auxin sort of shares an antagonistic relationship with to become dominant. This growth regulator, cytokinin, stimulates lateral growth (back-budding) whenever there isn't enough auxin to suppress it. Some plants do not naturally produce enough auxin to suppress lateral growth, so their growth habit runs more to 'shrubby', with many stems and lots of lateral branching - Colletia cruciata comes to mind for some reason. Essentially, by removing the source of auxin, you're manipulating the growth regulators/hormones that determine branching habits. This is the basis for pruning practices, and not anything particularly innovative, even though it might be a concept that's new to many growers who didn't yet understand what causes the plant to react to being pruned. Example: When I removed the apical meristem of this Aeonium, it activated dozens of new buds behind the pruning chop, which was only a couple of inches from the ground. By removing all the newly forming buds in places I didn't want a branch, I was able to manipulate the plant into producing a cluster of 7 branches/rosettes, instead of the long and sinuous single stem with an occasional branch and a rosette of leaves at the end of each branch stem, which is how it wanted to grow. You can use the technique Bernard discovered in his travels to manipulate the growth habits of thousands of different plants. It can make growing much more interesting if you're creating something unusual. Al

I'm just starting and learning, too. I've had my worm bin maybe 6 weeks, and I had to start with only about 50 worms. I overfed the heck out of those guys at first. They haven't come close to catching up, even now. I thought about maybe throwing the first couple of feeds into the outdoor compost and leaving them with just bedding for a while, but I decided against it. I keep hearing that worms thrive best with neglect, just stay out of their way. So I've been neglecting them, for the most part. I only check on my guys 3-4 times per week. All I do is maintain moisture level, look at worm behaviour for a minute or two, give it the sniff test, and add some clean bedding if it's beginning to smell bad. One time I broke up some junk mail bedding clumps that had solidified into two inch nuggets of hardened wood pulp, but that's it. The worms are doing fine with that treatment, so far. They're not trying to escape, they're active but seem to be calm and deliberate about it, they're leaving cocoons, and with their isopod neighbors they're slowly but surely wearing down the bedding and old feed. Smells are minimal, the bin usually smells like damp soil and that's all. I did sprinkle a little bit of crushed eggshell into the system after I got my makeshift grinder working, two days ago. I noticed about half of it has already gone missing. I wonder if my worms will eat faster, now that I've provided them with grit for dentures.