I'm sorry about your Otto. I loved your tales of his exploits...reminded me of one of the episodes of All Creatures Great and Small with the cat who showed up at any and all functions where people gathered - a true social butterfly who just wouldn't stay at home. In our rural area, the biggest danger to cats are the coyotes. After losing 4 cats in a row, my late DH went out and adopted an entire litter - 4 female kittens. His theory was we might end up with one or two lasting a while. Well, here I am 14 years later with all 4, and a bunch of more scaredy cats you'd never find. They're terrified of everything and always have been. My 5th cat is a free spirit much like your Otto. I adopted him from a co-worker who told tales of this cat sleeping out on the warm pavement of the road despite cars driving over the top of him (tires straddling him, luckily!) We thought a quieter setting might help him survive and so it has - he's just turned 9. He is aggravating as all get out sometimes, but his antics are never boring. I guess what I'm saying is give me the Bon Vivant any day over one afraid of its own shadow. Otto used up all his lives in a fast and furious fashion, but he sounded like he surely had a passion for life. I know how you must miss him. I second the suggestion of telling "the kiddies" to get out and get their own patch of earth to design and plant. I don't believe gardening by committee can be successful; I'd have no trouble telling them where to get off, LOL. I hope the new garden turns out to be something you love.

Sheri, During the last week I have begun watering my garden heavily because at this point it is either water heavily or close the gate and walk away and let it all die. For the last 6 days, I have watered every other day for up to 2 to 4 hours each time. My soil remains bone dry. If you go into the garden an hour or two after I water, you can stick your finger into the soil and it is moist, though certainly not wet. Eight or ten hours later, it is bone dry. The next day is it dry and baked hard, even under mulch and you can't pull the weeds. This is in raised beds. Obviously the pathways and grade level beds are even worse. It is not uncommon for our clay soil to shrink/contract and crack in hot weather. However, this is the first year ever that I have had cracks in the ground IN THE GARDEN where I am watering every other day. So, if watering every other day and mulching can't prevent the ground from having 1" wide cracks in it, what will? I am rapidly giving up on my tomatoes because the spider mite population is exploding. I am about to the point where I can't see the point in watering the tomatoes any more because the spider mites are so heavy on the plants, the stink bugs are hurting the fruit and there is no rain relief in sight. Yesterday I was in the yard when the water company guys pulled up down alongside the road to read the water meter and I remember thinking "Uh oh, a heart-attack-inducing water bill is going to arrive next week." However, I did pick about 60 nice tomatoes last night, with about half of them being pretty large ones from varieties like JD's Special C-Tex, Indian Stripe, Dr. Wyche's Yellow and Gary O Sena and the other half being from Goliath, Early Goliath, Heidi and Cluster Goliath. Sixty tomatoes from 22 plants isn't bad and most of the plants have several green tomatoes still on them, and I need to check the other tomatoes this morning and pick fruit, including cherries. I already picked squash while outside turning on the water. When spider mite levels get this high (even some of our bermuda grass has the stippling typical of spider mites), if you leave heavily-infested plants in the ground, the mites begin to spread from the tomato plants to everything else. So, I think it likely I'll soon begin removing the most heavily-infested tomato plants in the hopes I can save the rest of the garden. So far, the mites are mostly on bush beans, which are winding down production anyway, and on the tomato plants. I don't want them to spread to my squash, peppers, melons, southern peas, okra etc. You just know it is going to 'hurt' to start yanking out tomato plants. Normally, my container plants are my fall-back plants if the ones in the garden are declining, but all my container grown plants had mites first, so I'm yanking them. So, I think it is possible your soil is staying far too dry, but I also think it may be impossible to water it "enough" unless you have a bottomless well and don't have to pay for municipal water. I have been watching the rapid increase in my county's Keetch Byram Drought Index, a fire index used to convey how much moisture is in the soil. For firefighters, it provides insight into how intensely fires will burn because at a certain point the soil is so dry that duff/humus layers burn and even roots burn underground. We had a lot of trouble with underground roots burning during the 2005-06 fire season. After watching the KBDI for years and comparing its numbers to what I see personally in our garden, I know that it isn't worth my while to try to keep tomatoes alive in our specific soil if the KBDI is at or above 500. The last time I checked it a day or two ago, it was at 467. I know that the "Decision Day" is coming soon and so I need to be making plans for what varieties of southern peas I'll use to replace the tomato plants. I don't think I'll take out all the plants at once, but rather will start by yanking those with no fruit, then those that are most heavily infested with mites or whatever, and eventually they'll all be gone. I might try to keep a row or two of bite-sized tomato plants going. It just depends on how hard they're being hit by the mites and stink bugs. Usually in a drought year, I stop watering the garden in early July, but have stopped in mid-June once or twice. In 2008, some lifelong gardeners who live near us stopped watering their garden about a week after I did, and they told me it was the first time they'd ever "given up" and stopped watering. It just got to the point that it didn't make sense economically and also wasn't making enough of an impact to justify spending the money on the water. I'd say that in our neck of the woods, most folks are about at that point now. I've already been watching some gardens wit soil that's not nearly as 'improved' as mine, and either they've already stopped watering or the watering doesn't appear to be helping at all. A few folks that often have gardens that are a half-acre or an acre or larger planted cool-season crops and then had such poor results that they didn't even plant warm-season crops. The weather is always a cruel taskmaster here, and this year it is so much worse than usual. I don't think my garden is about 'done' but I think my tomatoes are. Loretta, The news out of Medicine Park this morning isn't good, is it? The last report I saw says at least 5000 acres burned and about 15 homes destoyed. They have roughly 25 fire departments onscene and should get more help today from regional fire managers, Forest Service personnel, and maby air support from tanker choppers or planes that can drop water laced with fire retardent. I hope they can stop this fire before it destroys any more structures, and let's not even thing about all the wildlife displaced when their habitat burns. We have religiously removed all cedar trees within 100 yards of our house because when they are burning they can literally 'explode' and send burning sap flying through the air. Wherever that sap lands, it starts new fires. However, our next door neigbors have tons of cedars on their acreage, and some of those are only 10-15 feet from our southern property line. There's nothing we can do about those. I was looking at our unirrigated aceage yesterday and everything is dead or dormant out back of the house, which is west of the house. Down along the road east of the house, the only real green remaining is the Johnson grass and sumac in the bar ditch. How sad is that? I hadn't been watering the yard around the house, but because of the prospect of wildfires, I've started doing that, so we have a little bit of green around the house. Not a lot, but a little. You can easily tell what has been watered and what hasn't because of the sharp difference in color. The good thing about drought is you don't have to spend a lot of time mowing, because there isn't much to mow. Dawn

Not sure what the deal is with pork - all of our dogs have always been given table scraps that include pork and since they live to ripe old ages of 13 or 14, it does not seem to have been a problem for us. Our vet is aware of everything we feed our dogs and has issued cautions about several of the things on the list linked above, but those are things we know to avoid. When I mix any vegetables in with food for my dog, he manages to pick them out - he's allergic to green, it seems! Oakley I'm not seeing cattle dog in that mix - doesn't mean it's not part of the mix but just curious what part you think is cattle dog-like? Boone looks to be 100% mutt to me - not a bad thing at all. I read somewhere long ago that if all dogs were allowed to interbreed until they were all the same, they'd have markings like your Boone, be about 45 lbs, and have an upward curled tail. No idea if there's any basis in fact in that but it stuck with me! One other thing - we've had success training our dogs in regards to food by taking it away while they are eating. The breeder of our Dalmatian told us to challenge our dog with food regularly - while he's eating, reach down and take the bowl away - if he gives it up without any challenge, praise him and give it right back. We also had our sons do that when they were very little so the dog treated them as alpha, not just us. We give our dogs a treat, then reach to his mouth and take it away - the dog should not fight. In training our dogs, my DH and I and our kids take turns and get down on all fours, shoulder to shoulder with our dogs as they are eating and lower our heads to their bowl - nudge them out of the way and pretend to eat their food. They have to know from day one that we are top dog and submit to us and we've never had an issue with a dog challenging us or someone else. It's important to get them used to kids and never challenge them, but kids also need to learn 'dog manners' and not pull tails or ears, jump on them, etc. I have a hunch that Boone is a gentle soul and you're not going to have a bit of trouble with him. He just won the jackpot landing on our doorstep and doesn't even know it!

I take soy isoflavones twice a day - no night sweats - a few mild hot flashes, no problems with dryness - my skin is fine, now and then I get hot flashes - usually when nervous or stressed - never been on HRT's....really never considered it. I know many women suffer much more than I do...I do have problems sleeping, but always have and I rest when I need to....really menopause has not made a huge impact on my life - maybe a little dent once in a while but that is all. I do not want to be on any medication of any kind unless I absolutely have to....I had a bone scan earlier this year and I have no sign of or projections for osteoporosis. I'll just keep taking the soy - I'm 55 and have been in menopause for 5 years.