I would love to share photos of my two beautiful girls. Sasha was a stray who found me 8 years ago this month, in fact. I has just bought my home and had only been in it for a about a week or so. I was making my morning coffee in the kitchen, looked out the window and saw this tiny, 3-4 month old kitty curled up in some over-grown grass. She was in awful shape. You could see every bone in her body (hips, back, etc) and it appeared that someone had burned her head with cigarrettes. She had 2-3 round burn-holes on her head. I didn't want cat #3 and tried hard to find a proper home for her. But, I ended up so very attached to her and her sweet personality I couldn't stand to part with her. She was absolutely the most sweetest cat - always gave tons of kisses. The below picture captures her little personality quite well. Here's another one of my favorite pictures of Sasha: Below is of Sabrina, The Super Model. She was sleek, 100% jet black and exotic looking. She had a very strong will and personality. She despised everyone except for me- whom she adored. She went through alot healthwise - hyperthyroid, kidney disease and cardio-myopathy. Even my vet said she's never seen a cat with such an incredible will to survive. I think Sabrina hung on for me, knowing how devastated I would be when she passed. She is the only cat I actually picked out from the SPCA. They rest have all come into my life on their own. Actually, Sabrina picked me as well. I had spent over an hour looking at all kinds of cats and decided to 'think it over' and return the next day. Something made me turn around as I was almost to the exit. I looked and saw a cage of kittens that I had some how missed. All the kittens were asleep in a pile -- except for one. She was sitting straight up and staring intently at me and pressed against the cage. I "knew" she was the one. She was only 6 weeks old (they no longer adopt them out that young anymore, thank goodness...) and absolutely adorable. She grew up to be my most devoted companion and The Queen of the house. I sure do miss them both....

Thank you guys. It's not so bad today so I think I can do something outside a bit later. Air conditining??? Ha. We call them windows. We have to be careful because most of our windows don't have screens. It's not the bugs I worry about but Bo, the cat. There are rooms we don't want him in and he refuses to accept that. The screens are not 100% because he sometimes goes right through them.

Yes, we use this chimney. It has a flue for the fireplace in the kitchen and also for the oil furnace. It was very lucky that no one was hurt. The bricks rained down on a patio that we are having tiled and our tile setter had some of the tiles set out and we were discussing how it looks and the best way to put the design. We were just in the house to have lunch. Some of the tiles were broken, but when you think what could have happened, that is immaterial. Our tile setter does all of the work on our home and he is like family. We had that chimney cleaned last winter and the chimney sweep said it was clean and in good shape. Ghostbusters??

My plumaria expert says that blossom booster or anything with such a high middle number is useless. In fact some of the threads by Al will agree. I use "Dynamite" 13 13 13...Even numbers right across the board. In fact most plants don't like such a high middle number, because your throwing the abilty off for the whole plant to be healthy, even the colors of the leaves by forcing flowers on your plants when you don't have to. How come plumies flower from the ground outdoors withou someone throwing so much middle number on them? In the ground, they are getting an even amount of nutriets to sustain over look, vigour, and health. I will send you an excert of why the middle number is useless. The "dynamite" has worked wonders for me. It is slow release along with micro nutrients and a well balanced fert. Just some excerts... "Whatever nutrients are available in excess, will be absorbed by the plant to a certain degree, and in some cases, this may lead to toxicity or even symptoms of shortages of other nutrients as toxicity levels block a plant's ability to take up other nutrients. Too much nitrogen will lead to excessive foliage production and less flowering. Too much potassium or phosphorus will not lead to ill effect, but will show up as a deficiency of other nutrients as it blocks uptake". "What about the "Bloom Booster" fertilizers you might ask? To induce more prolific flowering, a reduced N supply will have more and better effect than the high P bloom formulas. When N is reduced, it slows vegetative growth without reducing photosynthesis. Since vegetative growth is limited by a lack of N, and the photosynthetic machinery continues to turn out food, it leaves an expendable surplus for the plant to spend on flowers and fruit". "The fact that different species of plants grow in different types of soil where they are naturally found, does not mean that one needs more of a certain nutrient than the other. It just means that the plants have developed strategies to adapt to certain conditions, like excesses and deficiencies of particular nutrients.." "Most greenhouse operations will follow pretty closely to a 2-1-2 ratio of the primary macro-nutrients on most greenhouse crops with minor deviations based on tissue analysis and the effect of the growing medium. Most post-greenhouse fertilization will follow fairly closely to a 3-1-2 ratio, with some deviation. Again, this very closely mimics the range of the primary macros found in plant tissues". Read the thread......type in search.... "Fertilizer Program - Containerized Plants (Long Post) very imformative article". I never use blosson booster, and all my plants flower Profusely.... Hope this helps and greens up the leaves along with giving you nice flowers next time around..:-) Mike