Gwynne, I don't know if I had RA's here last year or not, being that I was new to butterflies and didn't know one from another until later in the summer. I did have one here this year but haven't seen it here for a good month, maybe even two. I have what I think is false nettle coming up in places but didn't notice any eggs. Of course, I didn't go looking through all of the plants either. I've never seen a Mourning Cloak here either. I've never really had much luck with trying to attract any of those rotting-fruit butterflies, i.e. MC, QM, EC, HE...I saw the RA on it a few times. I have real good luck attracting blowflies and yellowjackets though. I get a lot of Tiger Swallowtails here too. I'd love to know where they're laying their eggs. We live next to a big woods, so it would be a real challenge to try to find where they're coming from. I also get pretty many Great Spangled Fritillaries, but I don't have as many as I did last year. Of course, I have lots of Monarchs. I have yet to see any Viceroys at all. There are lots of different butterflies that I'd like to be able to get at my place, but I guess that will be up to them. Cathy

Dandelions are packed full of vitamins and minerals, including flowers, leaves and roots. The leaves are delicious. Taste great fresh in salads. You can even toss in the flowers. You can steam them and eat them like "greens", and they are good, but are better for you raw. You don't cook away the vitamins (heat destroys vitamins). Many "weeds" like Dandelions, pump nutrients up from deeper in the ground. They are beneficial to your garden plants. Earthworms also use their roots as tunnels to access the surface. Two other examples are Pigweed and morning glories which are beneficial when grown in with corn. Pigweed really is a fantastic mineral pump. Anyway, try a leaf of a dandelion and you will see how good they taste. Very much like Bib lettuce or Romaine. Not only do I eat them, but they are one of the main greens I feed to my rabbit & now the goslings. The rabbit loves the flowers too. They have a light taste of sweet honey. Smell like honey too. That is why honeybees love them. They can be dipped in a batter and fried. The sticky sap in the flower stems contains a latex that can help get rid of corns and warts, like milkweed sap. You can crush the leaves and apply to wounds or sores to fight bacteria and help heal. The list of bacteria it can kill will blow your socks off. Remember the royal DANDY-LION. The roots can be dried and ground and used as a substitute for ground coffee. You can also make a tonic from the roots and use it to treat ailments of the stomach, gallbladder and kidneys, to name a few. Dandelions are power-packed herb. There are many herb books and websites that have information about eating and using dandelions medicinally. Looks like you have a veritable food larder and medicine cabinet at your disposal in your yard! :) Lucky you! Your daughter is simply adorable. Your photography is wonderful. ~ sweetannie4u And they are among my favourite flowers, too.

do it now! during the construction phase you can get it set up properly and vent the kitchen/bath/laundry areas through the hrv/erv. if you wait, they are normally just installed on the cold air return/hotair supply....which is better than nothing, but not ideal i know many people that have condensation problems, even mold on new homes because they didn't spec an hrv. building codes a few hundred miles away specify them, but not right here....but they should, so people get burned after the fact because the builders will cheap out every time

Kay, I'm so glad you grew up in a better place! You've done us all a good turn by posting. "We had NO IDEA there was a problem - we were just too young, and had never known anything different." See, I think this is a big obstacle in understanding people's actions. We don't know what they had or what they didn't have, or what went on in the houses where they grew up. A co-worker was telling us that she went to a child's birthday party & was disgusted to see that the parents, who were on food stamps, were grilling T-bone steaks for the party. That's it. no potatoes, no salad, *no birthday cake*. meat. Another co-worker, a thoughtful woman, said, "You know, my parents grew up in the Depression & spent their working lives in much more affluent times. They ate steaks & roasts as often as possible. They equated meat with prosperity, & potatoes with being poor. Maybe those parents on food stamps never had had birthday parties as children, & they were sharing the best they had with their guests." Speaking of children's birthday parties... My mother grew up very poor. Not only did she never have a birthday party, she never had anything else, either. When my brothers & I were *pre-schoolers*, my father's sisters urged her to have birthday parties for us, so she said ok. & here came my aunts to the house with little presents, usually underwear... & my mother served cake & coffee & chatted with the aunts while my brothers & I were sent outside to play.