Carol, I don't like to use much of anything in my garden either. This year, when I sprayed the entire garden with Bt during the massive cutworm outbreak, it was the first time I'd sprayed the whole garden with anything since we moved here. If I "have to" treat something, I usually only spray that specific crop, and not the whole garden. I also used neem once or twice in the spring, but only on specific plants. I've found cabbage worms and cabbage loopers on cole crops this past week. I was going to spray all the cole crops with Bt 'kurstaki', but instead, I've just been hand-picking them. I hate spraying anything. Like you, I do drown a lot of pests in a bowl of soapy water--usually it is either cabbage loopers or imported cabbage worms, or sometimes it is Colorado potato beetles. The cold has finally shut down the grasshoppers for the most part, and I haven't seen a scorpion in about 2 weeks now, but the garden is full of butterflies, bees in all sizes, yellow jackets, predatory wasps, green lacewings, lady bugs and several kinds of flies (like tachnid flies and Southern robber flies, both beneficials) but also a few cucumber beetles and stink bugs, which I just ignore. There's been a little bean beetle damage on some of the remaining beans, but I just ignore them. It isn't enough damage to warrant action. We also have oodles of butterflies. I am glad I took the time to cover up a few zinnias and verbena bonariensis along with the southern peas and beans because everything else froze and the little flying critters fight over the few remaining flowers all day long. I left some henbit in the bean bed when it sprouted there in early October, and now it is just starting to bloom. That's a relief because once the beans are finished, the bees and little winged insects and butterflies at least will have the blooms of the henbit. There's also some chamomile that sprouted about the same time and it is about to start blooming, so that will be a few more flowers for the wild things. I don't get too concerned about fall pests because the cold weather pretty much takes care of them anyway. I have dug up a surprising number of cutworms in the fall garden, and have killed every one. Maybe I'll have fewer of those suckers this spring than last spring, which was epic in its horrible-ness (I know that likely is not a word) but it is appropriate. There's still tons of spiders too, so at least all the beneficial critters are hanging in there, and there's both toads and frogs lurking in the garden every day. With the salt issue in self-rising flour, it is a much bigger problem for those of us who have certain kinds of alkaline soils that are more sodic in nature, so I never would use flour in my clay for that reason. I used flour in about 2002 or 2003 when the grasshoppers were so bad, and it just ruint all the foliage of my beautiful tomato plants. They looked crappy the rest of the summer, long after I'd hosed off the flour....and we still had tons of grasshoppers too. A friend of mine doesn't have chickens, but she has an old mother coyote who has raised many dens of pups in an area near her pond, and she always puts out the stale bread and stale crackers for that coyote. I also have used an organic fungicide (Greencure) and once or twice have used insecticidal soap, but I'd rather flick the pests into the soapy water in a bowl than spray the soapy water on my plants. I don't think I've sprayed a lot of garden plants with a soap spray in about 10 years, though I have sprayed an occasional single plant in a pot. Our chickens are having garden withdrawal because the fall garden is doing so well that I haven't let them into the garden yet to dig and scratch and hunt for bugs. At the rate its going, the chickens may not make it into the garden until January. This evening we came back from a fire (it has been a very busy fire week since about Tuesday) and had some unhappy chickens in the chicken coop. They were up roosting but were chattering even though it was dark. Usually that means a snake is in there, but this time it was a little possum curled up in the corner of the coop. Tim showed him or her the way out and then closed the door. I guess the little possum thought he'd found a nice place to spend the winter. Hawks have been trying hard to get the chickens so they haven't been out free-ranging much, but I planted 5 rows of winter greens in the big garden for them, so every day I cut them a bunch of greens and toss them into the chicken coop. The greens might make being cooped up a little more bearable. When I let them out to chase bugs around the yard, I stay with them as much as possible to keep the hawks away. In this drought, the hawks are having trouble finding enough food and it is going to be a long winter for the chickens with those hawks hovering over the yard. Dawn

I have heard of it but don't know that it would make a lot of difference one way or the other.If it eases your mind then why not. We had dogs and cats when all of our kids were babies and they all seemed to adjust to the new presence in the house.Never had one to snap or bite.Cat's never bothered them either.One cat liked to curl up in the crib but only when the baby wasn't in there.Dog were never allowed to lick the little ones(or anyone for that matter)on the face.In fact I have never allowed my dogs to lick.If any of them acted inappropriately around little ones they were reprimanded and removed from the room.They soon learned what they could do and what they were not allowed to do.I would never allow the dog to be in the same room alone with a baby.I think a lot depends on the temperament of the dog as well.Many people spoil their pets and treat them like children so I could see a possible problem in that case. We have a big dog here.She is a Boxer/Dalmatian mix and weighs about 70 lbs. They got her when she was 4 months old and she had obviously been abused at some point.She was a little babied by DIL and DS for 2 years before the twins arrived and I was a little nervous about how she would react to a baby in the house,much less 2! LOL She sniffed and licked and was very aware of new sounds and such but never showed anything but love for these babies.They love her to death and she loves them and is very protective of them when strangers are around.They can do just about anything to her and she just sits there like if she ignores them they will go away.LOL The only problem she has is that killer tail! When she wags it they had better get out of the way.LOL

After our 2 yr old water heater failed, we had to replace it with a new model that required $1600 in parts and service. Grand Hall refused to pay any. We purchased a brand new home in 2010 that had an Eternal water heater by Grand Hall. Two years later the heater failed and had to be replaced with a new one. Eternal no longer manufactured the model we had, so they sent us the newer one that replaced it. The problem is that it cost over $1,600 in parts and labor to reconfigure and install this new model -- and Eternal (Grand Hall) refused to reimburse any of it. They said that the warranty only covered the unit, which they sent. But it was so different from the original it was very expensive to install. After only two years of use, we feel very strongly that Eternal (Grand Hall) should have backed up their product when it failed. It is ridiculous that we are out $1,600 for replacing a brand new water heater we only had for two years. If they changed the model so drastically, they need to pay for the installation when they replace a defective unit. I had multiple phone and email conversations with Eternal representatives, finally getting escalated to district manager Shawn Bacon. I emailed him the receipts for the expenses we incurred in replacing the unit. He told me since their warranty didn't cover the extra parts and labor Eternal was not going to reimburse us.

Rhipsalis are very cool plants (but then all tropical cactus are, aren't they?). I don't know how many there are, and I've only grown the chicken foot cactus (I agree, an excellent common name that should be adopted by ICZN immediately) species, but I hope you get to collect them all, Shenue, and recreate the dryish-sometimes jungle for them. BTW, most cactus which have been in cultivation for a while often have several names - Rhipsalis is one of them, and as you've seen, there are several others.