I have started several seeds also. I listed them on the if I moved to Georgia post. Some tender veggies, I started too early. The seeds germinated in a day, instead of several days. I started some flower seeds also. I listed them all on the if I moved to Georgia thread. Sorry to hear about your shoulder. I don't want to get nosy, but I will add that they should have shown you how to do some exercises to gradually get you back into shape, as far as your shoulder. Well, in other words Therapy. If you couldn't afford the therapy after surgery, they should have shown you how to get your muscles back into good condition. My mom had surgery, she tore her rotor cuff. After wards she had therapy for 6-8 weeks. If you couldn't afford it, they should have tried to tell you a few exercises, or something to help you get your muscles ready to, well for lack of a better word, to work as they once did.

Carol, I ordered the row cover from FarmTek. It is a 500' x 10' row. The only row cover available in stores here is small 10' a 12' sheets aimed at garden beds, and I needed it for long raised beds. The shipping 'hurt' but I'm in an area that is shopping-challenged so I've just learned to accept that for specialty items not easily found in local stores, I'm going to have to pay shipping. Suzie, You're welcome. I watched for hoppers for a month and saw none. Then, one day I saw one, the next day I saw 2 or 3 and the next day they were everywhere. Because of that and their more-mature size, I think they migrated in, probably from west Texas where wildfires have been a daily occurrence for weeks and weeks now just a handful of counties west and southwest of us. Moni, We have chickens and we used to have guineas. However, as you might remember, a couple of years ago we had issues with two cougars wiping out all the poultry and other small animals all along our rural road...over 120 birds gone from several different country homes in just a few weeks' time. We didn't replace the guineas last year because the bobcat population soared and everyone was losing their birds to them. We even had bobcats sitting on top of our chicken coop and on top of the fenced/roofed chicken run trying to figure out how to get the chickens. So, our chickens can't free-range like they used to. I try to let them out for an hour or two before dinner time so they can free-range, but that's such a brief time they never make it to the garden because they "eat their way across the yard" and run out of sunlight before they make it to the garden area. I thought we'd buy more chickens and a lot of guinea keets this year, and then a cougar was spotted in our yard, crossing our driveway near the garden, by one of our neighbors a few days ago. Knowing that "it's back" has altered our poultry plans. Grasshoppers infest rural rangeland like ours by the thousands per acre at peak infestation times, which normally are in July-August, so the best I can hope for is to fight them in the garden as long as I can in a bad year, knowing I'll eventually lose the war. When I lived in the city, I might see a dozen or so grasshoppers in the yard and garden each day at the worst. Here in rural grassland area near the Red River, both the grasshopper levels and predator levels are incredibly high. During the peak hopper season, I can see between 4 and 10 or 12 hoppers fly up out of the grass with every single step I take. It is hard to iamgine how bad it is if you can't see it for yourself. I'd have to have 500 chickens to make a real dent in the summer population, and for every chicken there would be hawks, bobcats, foxes, coyotes and worse trying to eat them and take them out. This winter, the hawks were so bold as to sit in the pecan tree that shades the chicken coops and chicken runs, and having me there in the yard didn't deter them. They've never been that bold before. The rule of rural country living I've had to learn to live with since we moved here is this: everything living eats something and is eaten by something, and it makes gardening a lot harder than it was in the city in Texas, or even at my brother's semi-rural place in Texas. It's a real "jungle" out here. lol Dawn

Ah, lynn, thanks--but it's family only :) Seriously, I do know someone whose mom was extremely into spinning/knitting and she made a sweater out of their collie's fur. WAY too hot to wear, but fascinating. I'm thinking a scarf? It's so soft. And justgotabme, we have three cats but only one really sheds visibly and collectably. Even though he's a shorthair. He seems to have a very thick coat and I comb him to keep him from getting hairballs--and just think it's a waste of -- something -- to throw the fur away. I'm sure I could wash it too. They're really soft felt-feeling little balls. Maybe a pillow, but then the softness would be lost. There are lots of things to do with lint--wish I could remember any of them! But it's basically clothing-grade fiber...I'm not as attached to it as I am to the cats' fur, so we put it outside for birds, pretty much.

Plant Love, I think most Korean maples are seed grown, those I previously had seen at the nursery varied in habit and fall coloring and some hardier than others from what I've read. I'd sure love to acquire some superior clones! Okay, just went out and snapped some photos, the growth of 'Taylor' matures to a yellowish brown that gives the appearance of being attacked by spider mites, in which these have not. Don't know if I just have a poor specimen or what, it had been obtained from Greenland a good number of years ago now. 'Medora', is one of my favorites for narrow form and coloring. 'Medora' The below are 'Moffat Blue', awkward in its juvenile years, though pruning makes for nice compact landscape punctuation marks, these have been sheared rather hard to obtain a desired slim profile, they will show some browning in the worst of winters.