I was in Charleston near the Air Force base. I was working at a physicians office programming some equipment. One of the docs came in and got me. He took me to his office where he had a TV on. One tower was in flames. We watched for a bit and then he and the other doctors returned to seeing their patients. Minutes later I saw a second plane smash into the other tower and I heard someone scream........it was me. One by one the phones in the physicians personal offices began to ring. All I heard was "yes sir, yes sir" and then the back door closing. Within 2 minutes every doctor had left the office. I learned later they were all in the reserves. The office grew still and quite so I left Charleston for home. The roads were deserted. The memory of that day feels like a haunting....a cold stillness that comes back to mind every September 11th. Ronda Born and raised in Ohio. Current resident of South Carolina

I thought I answered this in a previous post. The salmonella was introduced when some fool crossed an eggplant with a tomato. Seriously though, what I got a kick out of was TV stations sending reporters to farm markets to ask the people if they were afraid of buying tomatoes there. To which the people there answered no. Well...duh. If you all remember the spinach scare from two years ago, it's the same deal. If you buy from a local farmer, or better yet just get the stuff from your back yard, you don't have to worry much about the same stuff that the people that buy from the grocery stores do. You want to know why they have a hard time tracking down the culprit...too many middle men. When people in New Hampshire want tomatoes in May, where are you going to find them? Well a long ways away. So you're going to have people growing them in Mexico, selling them to distributors in Texas who sell them to wholesalers in Ohio that the restaurants in New Hampshire buy from. That's a lot of places for the USDA to have to check out. As for the actual cases of salmonella themselves...the symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and the like. Now come on, I'm sure we've all eaten at Taco Bell or McDonalds before, and even if you don't have a taco or Big Mac with tomatoes chances are those will be the side-affects.

All liquor sales in NH are state controlled. They have very low prices, and that's how a tax free state raises revenue. Beer and wine are excluded, but hard liquor is available only in at "the Commission". Cops at construction sites? dunno. Beats hangin' out at the doughnut shop? :) Bars. Depends on what town you're in, kiddo. Where were you visiting? I can think of several in one resort community, but NH also has a reputation for being very tough on OUI. No one has gutters because we frequently have a lot of snow. It melts, refreezes and the gutter frequently are torn from the house; "ice dams" occur when the melt refreezes and the begins to melt again... the water behind the "dam" invariably finds its way down through the walls and ruins ceilings and walls. Messy, expensive, and a general pain in the a--. The inclement weather is also one of the big reason you see so many farmhouses attached to "bahns". No need to shovel snow to get to the animals! and plenty of "cold" areas to store perishables without having them freeze. Obviously, you're from "away"... where?

Pat, the only adjustments I've made over the years is switching to safflower seed for a few summer months when the sparrow fledglings out number the dandelions. Otherwise, I use a good blend, very light on millet, for the rest of the year and buy suet by the case in the fall when it goes on sale at Agway. I have just the one seed feeder, one suet cage and one hummer feeder. What I did do was plant extensively with native plants that attract everybody. Plus, we live in a somewhat wooded area. Feeding birds is all about me. They will continue on long after I'm gone. They are my entertainment as I photograph them mostly through my office windows. What I have learned even more so from observing them is that NONE of this is my design. Mother Nature never consulted Jane and we all know she doesn't give a tinker's dam what I think. So whoever, whatever, comes because I put food out, is all on me. If a hawk steals a mourning dove in my yard, I feel bad for the dove, good for the hawk. He will live another day. Many hawks do not reach maturity due to starvation. I've learned that birds do not have the greed gene. They take what they can eat, store what they can if that is their habit - like BC Chickadees - but nothing goes to waste. When the birds fool around on the feeder and seed goes to the ground, the chipmunks, et al, eat well. I have a wonderful neighbor who buys only shelled sunflower seeds, pricey stuff, and uses a feeder that is weight balanced to exclude blue jays, grackles and all the guys she doesn't want to feed. She likes little birds. She won't even look up when I say, "Oh, look! A red tail hawk!". She can't stand hawks. But she is a great, kind woman who gives and gives of herself - just not to big birds.But she too feeds all year long and is concerned when her regulars disappear. Long answer here, but yes, I keep the same feeders year round filled and have a ton of birds that are happy and fight among themselves - just the way Mother Nature designed it. Any bird here is okay by me. Pat, I say do what makes you feel good in your birding area because, to me, it's all about us watching them; not them depending on us. (I know that is a debatable subject in the current ranks of ornithology, but that's not where I am.) Life is easier if I don't hate anything. I have to work on the sn*ke thing, lol, that's fear. Maybe a trip to New Hampshire would help. :) Birds pay me back ten fold just for being themselves. This little guy is worth all the sugar I can give him: Link to Buddy being Buddy - - - Buddy Jane