Forgot to add, if they are sensible, they are out in their gardens instead of wandering the Web. :)

Dadoes ---- shhhhh I was afraid of that! It was sort of something I didn't really want to know. ;) (not really; thanks). Weissman: Goood Boy!!!! ;) [even if there's no stink, there's still decomposition going on and them bug's got poop too you know]. fori and Sean -- so you agree the frankenstein-argument to the enzymes is silly? I got roundly corrected about this last time. I wasn't really convinced by the convincers, but it wasn't worth arguing about. And I did try to make an effort to leave more grime on dishes before they get washed and truthfully, the whole load does seem to come out a little cleaner. Not sure how controlled that test is. So Sean - I am still super confused about this stuff. Dishwasher detergent consists of detergent or soap, and enzymes, right? The soap, I learned in school, essentially solubilizes fat molecules; it busts open cell membranes. You're saying then (?) that the enzymes make that reaction happen with less energy, or earlier. (As I recall, enzymes are proteins that bind to a substrate and in so doing lower the activation energy of a reaction with that substrate). What would any of this have to do with etching of glassware? There aren't any cell membranes to bust apart in glassware, right? So the image that's getting put out there, or at least that I took away, is that every, say, unit of detergent has a certain amount of energy available for degradation. And if it doesn't encounter, say, a food 'unit', it will instead degrade a 'glassware' unit worth of material. This is just such nonsense....well, or at least it seems so to me. What am I missing?

When the weather is hot days and cold nights it becomes the idea condition for downy mildew. This is the worst kind as it will overwinter on the canes and show up again when next year. Spraying at the first sign with a fungicide weekly until all signs are gone will cure it. Some roses will get it if their roots are dry so a mulch is a good idea. Too close planting where air cannot circulate is another reason for this type of mildew.

My gold finches mobbed the feeder 2 weeks ago and then all the snow melteda nd the small birds disappeared. I did note that a neighbor of mine who rarely fed birds put out feed during the Thanksgiving holiday and had several birds. Three days ago, all my birds disappeared which gave me concern for fear that something drastic happened to them. This afternoon, the weather was changing to colder and the small birds began to come back. About the sparrow: Approximately 10 years ago, a virus swept through the English sparrow population and nearly wiped them out in a region from the Mississippi River eastward and they have not recovered. They were the most populous bunch and a nuisance, but no more, Since that time, I have seen only one English Sparrow. Sometimes, when my birds suddenly leave during a popular feeding time, I have spied a hawk sitting high in a tree surveying the scene - this pretty much explains that absence. I do get concerned when my birds disappear for a day or more thinking they might have gotten into some bad feed or rat poison. I am convinced that something has happened in the environment because my bird visitors have fallen to half of what it was a week ago. Fifteen years ago, I did could spy on occasion gross beaks; Also red polls would frequent our feeder during the depth of cold waves. Gross beaks are grazers. They do not hang around one location. In winter, they flock together and will stop for a few minutes to do easy pickings and then move on. They rarely come back to the same place on the same day. Both gross beaks and red polls have disappeared. I have seen none for the past 5 years.