Thanks. Great job. I enjoyed the info on digital TV and the switch to digital, HDTV. Bill Hill

My experience with this MTD variable speed drive is that the drives don't slip until the belts are real bad or you have a loose mount. It is best to replace both belts at once, but as the rear belt wears much more quickly, you typically can just change that belt. If the front belt is noticeably worn or is chunking, then it gets replaced obviously. If the front belt gets replaced, for sure do the rear or you may have a low speed issue. You absolutely have to use the OEM belts. The linkage was set up properly when it was new and should not typically need adjustment unless it has been fiddled with or damage occurred. The adjustment is an adjustable end like a tie rod where you pull the pin, unlock the jam nut to make the adjustment. Look for binding linkages and that the transaxle mounts front and rear are secure. The VS pulley should both turn freely and the center sheave should move up and down freely as well.

Molasses is great stuff! I recently read an article shown to me by Louis from Midlothian, TX. I'll go dig it up and post it here in a new thread. It makes for great discussion. I use liquid molasses, Grandma's Unsulphured Blackstrap when I can find it. Otherwise just any unsulphured. Some may argue that others are better but to me it's all sweet and I think the bacteria feel the same. I'd like to try the dried molasses but have never been very aggresive about finding it. I always forget when I'm making the trip to the feed store (it's almost an hour away) and usually just grab some Grandma's when I'm at the grocery store. I mix four tablespoons molasses in my hose end sprayer along with a half teaspoon of powdered seaweed concentrate and 1/2 teaspoon of humic acid. Mix 'em up with warm water and spray it all over everything. Usually right before I do a foliar application of ACT. I like to do it before I apply the ACT so I'm not knocking the freshly applied bacteria off the leaf surfaces, and it gives them a nice sticky food to sink there feet into. What better way to keep foliar bacteria applications in place than to paste 'em there with molasses? LOL Actually they create their own bio-film which helps them to adhere to leaf surfaces. The benefit is they're outcompeting any disease organisms for food on the leaf surfaces so it greatly reduces the risk of common airborn diseases. It worked on my crabapple trees for Cedar Rust this year. Last year they were horrible, this year it's been drastically reduced to just a few leaves. Next year I suspect it will be even better. Good soil soaks of ACT reduce the risk of soil born diseases, but keep in mind that's only going to work if your soil is aerobic. If you've got compaction it's not allowing enough oxygen to penetrate and the soil can and will become anaerobic. These anaerobic microbes is where pathogens and diseases come from (not all diseases are anaerobic, but all soil born pathogens are). Make sure you've got good organic matter deep in your soil and not just at the surface. Use a tree root feeder to inject Efficient Microbes into the lower layers of soil so they can start to make it inhabitable for the anaerobic guys. Follow it up with Nitron A-35 injections to further the cause and then give it a shot of good fungal dominant ACT. Once these microbes get in there and start working on the soil they'll make it there home and compaction will be a thing of the past. You'll see your soil change colors and texture as the seasons pass. You'll build a soil that your hands easily penetrate. Imagine planting bulbs in Fall or annuals in Spring without needing a spade or trowel. Imagine walking past a weed and snatching it from the ground with no effort. Imagine growing vegetables that are sweeter and better for you than anything you can buy at the store. Did you know that a vegetable or fruit becomes sweeter and taste better the more nutritious it is? Many of us have never tasted what is really possible with growing vegetables in soil laden with elements and minerals that our bodies crave. There's a way to measure these nutrition levels through the brix in the plant with a refractometer. An inexpensive little device that uses the liquid from a crushed leaf or fruit of a plant to measure the amount of sugars in the plant. The higher the brix levels, the more nutritious and better tasting the fruit of the plant will be. Well, I've got work to do. Good talking to you guys and hope that gives ya'll something to think on for awhile. Fescue Planter I'll be around. If anyone has any questions I do answer my emails if you don't hear from me. Greenjeans Here is a link that might be useful: Inexpensive Refractometer...

I'm convinced that ants are farmers. They bring foodstuffs to the colony underground and then they farm the fungi that grow on the foodstuffs. They then eat the fungi. With that in mind, anything you can do to disrupt their farming operation should take out the colony. My first experience with this approach, long before I realized what was happening, was with a mix of sugar, molasses, and yeast. The ants were in my house but they came from X houses away. All I saw was the ant trail disappearing along the fence of my neighbor. I mixed 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of molasses, and 1 package of bread yeast. That made a lot of goo. I smeared the goo onto a piece of cardboard and dropped it into the middle of their trail. It took them a day or two to investigate the cardboard, but once they found the goo, they were all over it. I put it in the trail on my fence and watched. Every day more goo was gone, and the ants looked like cattle at a feed trough. After about a week I noticed the were not enough ants to completely surround the goo. I put out more goo and the ants soon disappeared. So my interpretation, today, of what happened is that the yeast disrupted their farming operation. Certainly sugar and molasses was their main food. Yeast will consume sugar and convert it to alcohol, so maybe that is what happened. With that in mind, for individual ant hills on your property, you might mix a batch of sugar water with a pack of yeast in it, and pour that into the mound. Another element that might disrupt an ant farming operation is salt. Most fertilizers are salts, so you could try mixing 30 ml of Epsom salts or other fertilizer into 2 liters of water. Pour that into the mound.