OK just set the rotary mower 1 or 2 notches lower than you intend to maintain at. DO NOT mow so low that the blade hits dirt. That IS NOT not what Scalp means. Scalp is a notch or two lower than normal. If it is a bagger, use the bag, otherwise be sure to rake up the clippings and debris. Then fertilize and apply AMAZE. Since you are new to Bermuda, think real hard how low you want to maintain the grass. At 1-1/2 inches you are looking at mowing about twice a week. I do not recommend you go any higher than 1-1/2 inches. FWIW at 1-inch or less and you looking at 3 or more times a week mowing. So be careful what you ask for. Good Luck TW

The reptile specific expo that is in my area is very professional and has breeders and retail stores that sell supplies and animals. There are certainly some shady people in the hobby but that can be said for any hobby. If you ask the right questions you can usually avoid problems. I see a lot of wild caught native reptiles from the United States being offered for sale on American websites and personally I can't stand it. It is illegal to remove animals form the wild in Canada, reptile populations are in enough trouble without people collecting and trying to make a buck off of them to. You can easily order live feeders through the mail but if you live somewhere where it snows in the winter you can obviously run into problems. Just a few minutes of exposure and every one of the crickets will be dead and absolutely useless. Another problem is that by the time you get half way through the pinheads they are no longer pinheads because they have grown. To tell the truth fruit flies are not hard to breed but it can be difficult to get a nice even supply so you have to have a back up plan in place. Your frog sounds like a cross between Epipedobates tricolor and Dendrobates auratus. Who would have known that they would even interbreed? Epipedobates tricolor was the species I was interested in because they are not terribly difficult to keep, they vocalize and are active during the day and they are able to eat larger prey items than some other Dendrobatids.

It's really none of my business, but when you say the house sold for twice what you paid for, you mean twice what you paid for the house originally, right? Not twice the cost of the house itself plus your real-estate agent's commissions plus the furnace you put in and the paint and carpeting and appliances you replaced and the new lawnmower you needed because the one you had died of old age? That's correct. The price we got was more than twice the original price we paid. But even after subracting the realtor's commission, the hot tub and the fenced yard we added, (and enjoyed over the years), the lawmmower we bought,etc., we still cleared a sizeable amount of money. Which we would not have had we rented for those 14 years. In addition, every year we had a tax deduction for the interest and property taxes. And we would have had to live somewhere. Because the home was new when we purchased it and because DH is very,very good about maintenance, the roof was in great shape, the appliances in excellent working condition (we took the washer/dryer with us and still have them). We busted our chops designing and landscaping it ourselves, but we enjoy gardening, so it was not considered a hardship. We enjoy owning. It's very hard to make an accurate $$ to $$ comparison on the own vs rent question. There are so many variables. And not everyone is cut out for the maintenance that home ownership demands. When I was single, I knew I could not/would not maintain a sgf, so chose to purchase a condo (before marrying DH). I enjoyed many of the aspects of home ownership, but there were also some downsides. There is no "one size fits all" answer. (Thank goodness - as a landlord, I LOVE folks who prefer to rent)

The trouble with LTC insurance is that it is like health or auto insurance - carriers enter the market, and some of them price poorly and end up leaving the market. A good carrier may close a book of business (e.g., stop selling a particular type of policy) and come out with a slightly different policy calculated to provide a better profit margin or improved mortality. This is the way insurance works, it's just good business to them. LTC is not a new product at all. Met Life has been selling LTC insurance for 25 years. Lincoln Benefit (I think I accidentally listed it above as Lincoln National, which is a different company) has a huge block of LTC business and for many years was the low-cost carrier. They are owned by Allstate and are in no danger of going under. They closed their current book of business to bring out a completely new LTC product, one of the new hybrid LTC/annuity policies. None of their existing policyholders will see any raise in premiums or adjustment to the terms of their current policies; the "book" is merely closed for new business. That's how a GOOD carrier works, as opposed to a bad one. Where do you find a good carrier? That's the difficulty, you need to find a good agent, not just a "friend who works in the insurance business." Hard to find, just like trying to find a good car mechanic, LOL! Nursing homes around here vary from $3500 to $6000 month. Even if our policy does not cover all the costs, a drain of $1000/mo is a lot better than $72,000 per year, I'm sure you'd agree. The reason I don't rely on the statistic about nursing home care only being needed for an average of 2 years is that as the Boomer population ages, I believe that length of stay average will rise rapidly. And in fact, the largest growing age group in the US is the group over age 80. Since our policy pays for at home care as well as convalescent or nursing care, we feel we have done what we can to MINIMIZE risk. You cannot eliminate all risk; it's impossible. A recent article in the WSJournal calculated that someone with a net worth of at least $5M wouldn't need LTC insurance. Remember that these days, being worth $1M or $2M is so commonplace that the government statistics don't even track it any longer; the bar is now at $100M+. There is no way my DH and I could afford long-term care without insurance. Even though our net worth is well over $1M we simply don't have that kind of liquidity without having to sell the house. My DH had a minor stroke at 50 -- not only is he virtually uninsurable now, but his mortality got halved right there. His chances of being disabled as he ages are considerably higher. Had we waited to obtain LTC insurance for even a few years, we would never have been able to afford it even if we could have found a carrier willing to write a policy on him. I agree that not having health insurance is foolish; on the other hand, if you can stagger along until age 65 (and assuming that somewhere along the line your employer or spouse's employer paid the Medicare A costs) a Medigap policy with zero-doughnut drug benefit is available at a relatively reasonable cost, certainly a lot less than the $900/mo cost (for an individual; $1200/mo for a couple) for my husband's current employer HMO plan. But it is almost a certainty that somewhere down the line, if you and/or your spouse live long enough, one of you will need LTC. And right now, nobody will pay for that except you. With all the disadvantages of private insurance, the fact remains, waiting for the government to take care of your LTC needs is a very dicey proposition indeed. What I point out to most younger people I know is that if they are going to buy a home and have children, they really need term life insurance. Nowadays with most couples dependent upon two incomes to make it, it is disastrous to consider burdening your lives with debt and obligations without buying life insurance. As mortality has improved, the premiums for term life have dropped substantially in the last couple of years. $40/mo will buy a $500K level premium term for 20 years on a 40-yr old in good health. When I worked at a financial planner's office for a while, it was interesting to see that there were quite a few clients who were widows, from ages 50-75. Their major assets were the home and insurance proceeds. Without the latter, some of them would have been in serious financial difficulties. My apologies for seeming to get OT here, but my point is that if you are going to own a home, there is not just health insurance but other insurance issues which are just as important for long term financial planning. To ignore them is being penny-wise and possibly pound-foolish. Thinking that "the odds are it won't happen to me" is taking a big risk. Nothing wrong with that, but I often wonder why people are willing to take such huge risks with their personal retirement finances when they are so often vociferous in proclaiming they want minimal risk when investing in the stock market.