I have two nurseries that I love to shop when I can. One is a very large, very expensive nursery that always has something unique. The other has a lot of mainstream plants that are kept very well and always very healthy. Now, that being said, most of my plants came from Home Depot. My Dragon Trees came from Ikea, and the others came from clipping of plants that were almost dead in some strange places. Check your local dry cleaners for some VERY old very unique plants. I think it might be something to do with the big picture window, heat, and humidity in those places that some great plants can live. I also prefer to buy plants from these two nurseries in the discount rack or the "NEEDS TLC" section. My Chlorophytum "Fire Flash" was all black with one green leaf when I brought him home. I just harvested a few hundred seeds yesterday. So in summary.... I love shopping at nurseries, but I will get a plant from anywhere I see something I like.

Gwynne, I'm not planning on limiting the amount of cats that I raise. If I get 100, I'll be happy. If I get 200, I'll be happier yet. If I end up with 300, you probably won't hear from me for awhile because I'll be recuperating. Ha. Honestly, I don't know how people like CalSherry do it. Maybe after more experience, I'd be able to do it, but I still think that it would be very time-consuming. Of course, as it is, mine are time-consuming if you ask me. I like raising them though. Maybe it's good that I haven't gotten any BST's on my parsley, fennel, or dill. Having to raise them yet just might put me in the looney bin. Ha. It's so hard for me not to go out and look for eggs. Last year I only got the caterpillars, but I'm collecting the eggs this year and also small cats if I'd happen to miss an egg and it would hatch outside. I guess do what you think you can handle. I don't have a job now, so I have the time to do this. Oh, and so far (knock on wood), I haven't had any problems with cats wandering off. Maybe I will have at some point, but for now so far so good. Garnet, I keep my cats separated so the cannibalism doesn't happen. I wouldn't have known about it without reading it here on the forum last year. So far I've been keeping most of the caterpillars on plants on our computer stand. It's a corner stand and has 3 big shelves and the speaker shelves. I shoved the speakers back towards the back of the monitor so I can have cats on those two shelves. I have the plants with eggs on the left side of the monitor, tiny cats on the right side of it. Then on the speaker shelves I have the medium sized cats. On the printer shelf I have the pupas sitting that will have butterflies eclosing today (after they eclose, then I'll move the upcoming ones on those shelves). On the very top shelf I have the big guys, some of which will soon have to be put in jars before they wander off to pupate. I sit the cups in plastic storage containers to keep the frass from dropping all over the place, and it's working very well. I can fit 5 or 6 cups in each container. Btw, I'm sorry to hear about your tiny cats being missing. I hope things go better for you. We're all new at this at one time or another and I think we all have mishaps of one kind or another. Aggie, It sounds like you're well-organized. No wonder you have lots of cats! :-) Do you have a limit on the amount you're going to raise or do like me and keep dragging them in? lol Susan, I wanted to ask you if you're using the tent that you bought? I think of that and wonder how you like it if you're using it. I know it was a really good price. This cat cage had better last a long time, as I probably have $150 in it with the wood, screen, and all of the hardware! :-O My husband got it screened for me now, but I'm not sure yet if I should have a bottom or not. I really don't want to put more money into it, so I think I'll just sit it on the lawn and hope for the best. I had been planning on putting it on our front porch but have decided not to because of the weight of all those containers. Whew, thank goodness you saw those Question Mark cats before they were history! I guess we can never be too careful, huh? I did a dumb thing last night. Well, on Thursday I found an egg outside that I must have missed before because it hatched yesterday. The egg was on one of my big milkweed plants that I have in the ground, so I pulled the leaf off of the plant and just laid it on top of one of the plants that I had on the back porch. Yesterday I noticed that it was all shriveled up and looked and saw that the cat had hatched and ate a little of the leaf. I thought since the leave was so dry I'd cut most of it away and just sit the cat with a teeny bit of the leaf on top of the plant again. Since it hatched, I wanted to bring it in the house instead of leaving it on the back porch. Well, somewhere between there and here that tiny bit of leaf must have fallen off and I can't for the life of me find it. So I guess that one is a goner. I try to do good and end up doing bad anyway...for that one anyway. It sounds like that BST cat wanted some coffee. ;-) I guess it's good that your daughter noticed that you had an escapee and you could corral it. Btw, if you think you losing your mind, don't feel bad...I feel like that most of the time. Sandy, Yep, I know I must have at least that many, maybe even 300. lol Of course, only about 150 of those will be permanent. I have Swamp Milkweed and Tropical Milkweed. The Swamp Milkweed will make it over the winter but not the TMW. So far my plastic cup system has been working. It sure beats keeping them all in individual jars all the time. I did that last year and I thought there's no way I'm keeping a lot of cats in jars again and having to keep after feeding them. I don't mind a few, but that was just ridiculous, and this year would have been even more ridiculous if I had done that. It hasn't been too hectic because I only had 15 and now 13 of those are pupas and 2 were released. Now I have 15 more here on the stand, but most of them are either real tiny or medium, and I have 22 eggs on plants in cups on our back porch that I just brought in from outside yesterday, so between those and these smaller ones, it's going to get pretty hectic within the next few days if I don't get some of these in the cage, which I just have to set it up. I guess it won't have a bottom because I can't figure out how to do that, so it's just going to sit in the lawn. I hope that there are no spiders in the grass at all! I know that the cats will be safe from the flies and wasps in the cage. I'll just have to keep my eye on things for spiders or other creatures that might be able to wander in there from the grass. I really don't have a good solution because I'm not putting any more money into this cage like to buy plywood. I wouldn't want that just laying there to rot, so I'd also have to probably buy blocks to sit the whole thing up on, etc. etc. and who knows what else. I just want to get the darn thing up finally so I can use it. I'm done fretting over the details. No, I haven't been trashing the cups. The milkweed plants will sprout out new leaves and I was hoping that they'd be big enough in time to feed another bunch of cats later on. I have them on a stand on the back porch.

This Fire Weather Watch has been upgraded to a Red Flag Fire Warning for Saturday.

Yes, there are many people growing veggies in central VA. I don't have as extensive a garden this year as I have in most years past, but I MUST have some vegetables growing every summer. This year the garden consists of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, and cantaloupes. Usually there is corn and at least a couple of kinds of beans and several squash varieties along with eggplants, kale, and okra. For a newbie, you are ambitious! Good luck with your garden! Sandy