My questin is, if your digestive system cannot brake down tomato skin, how can you benefit from it?. As I explained before, you don't peel tomato like a potato. You put them in boiling water few second, then in ice water. Only the though thins skin will be peeled off. Tomato itself has plenty of good stuff in it(vitamines, carataine,..) so what is the point trying to get just a little more which is not even available if the skin is not ground up before eating. Also from a visual stand point, tomato skin does not look very nice in your cooking(omlett, stew..). But peeling carrots, apples, potatos, cucumbers is not necessary in my view. BECAUSE their skin is digestable and beneficial and if you peel them (like most people that I have seen) you are actually MUDERing them. I peel any of those that has surface damage/is soiled or in case of cucumbere , it is very old... Finally, aside from facts and fictions, we all have ways and preferences in all aspects of life. So here too, I have no quarrel with anybody; Just expressing my view points. Cyrus

Ida, I think I've found them. Instead of searching on GW when looking for something old, I search it on Google instead and they usually turn up there. These may be what you're looking for. The bird poop thread appears to be a "missing file", but here is a related thread that talks about it. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/favorite/msg03161758594.html Here is a link that might be useful: You Know You are a Compost Whacko When.......

Thanks, bluebars, for your reply. I will try the other forums you mentioned. They are sparrows, roosting at night mainly. There are not nesting. I considered the owl idea, but suspected it wouldn't work . Birds are smart! Thanks for confirming my skepticism. My husband did end up pulling the vine down, but lovely man that he is, he didn't cut it, or dig it out, rather he re-directed it further upwards, to grow vertically, higher up the house, rather than letting it nestle itself along the garage roof line. So at least the vine is still growing, and if I ever figure out a solution to this dilemma, I can train it back to where I wanted it (It looked SO good there!). Thanks again for your help!

Yeah Lauri... I POOP'ed, POOF'ed, and POOG'ed that 12 quart chili pot within a 1/2" of the top. I ran all the tomatoes, spices, and peppers in the blender before pouring into the pot and boiled them good before adding the rest of the goodies. Made a really colorful looking chili with white, black, and red kidney beans and yellow corn. Finding my blender makes a good spice grinder so I blend whole peppercorns and whole cumin seed in with the tomatoes. Awesome smell... turned many heads when I warmed up my lunch at work today. The wood ear mushrooms worked out great. I've not used them in chili before and they were a good fit. Day two of the chili pot going so it needs to be perked up. Room for more cabbage and some onion. Edge is gone off the peppers so I'll add a couple to keep the fire going. I've got two chunks of tenderloin that I was supposed to grill... they will probably fall into the chili pot tonight. Feeling sick again and don't have the energy to cook them proper. Deanna's egg sandwich sounds really good... both eggs and bread to use up. Reminds me I forgot to buy butter. : ) lyra