Well, if the vines are dead, and the skin on the squash is hard enough that you can't dent it with a fingernail, then I'd say there's no reason not to bring them in and store them in a dry, fairly cool place.

Ace, We seem to be having a language barrier here. I used the words poison, toxic, and lethal somewhat interchangeably. What I meant was that if it caused death (by blockage, or any other means) it would be a poison, that is both lethal and toxic. So for the record, my opinion is that PoP is not a very effective means at killing squirrels (by intestinal blockage, or any other means). You'll recall before I did the experiment, I asked for suggestions on setting it up correctly. Although you haven't asked for suggestions, I might offer a few, as you move forward with your experiment. In general, the conditions you propose to do your experiment do not mimic natural conditions. Squirrels are naturally under a lot of stress when they are caged. You can observe their behavior. For the first few days, all they want to do is try to find a way out of the cage. Placing them in a cage in 15F weather seems to me, extremely stressful. Squirrels need to "hibernate" over night in those kind of temps. It's unclear to me whether a squirrel will be able to hibernate under the stress of being caged. I don't think packing the cage with leaves is the same as a squirrel being in it's own nest. On the water, I tend to agree with Hman, that squirrels will find water if they're thirsty. However, as you state, I do think it's reasonable to assume they can only find it in the form of ice and snow, in the middle of winter. If you do proceed with your proposed experimental setup, I would highly recommend a control specimen be kept under the same conditions, at the same time. If the treated squirrel dies, it would be reassuring to know it wasn't caused by the stress of being caged in frigid weather. BTW - I misspoke in my last post. I said, "The reason I mentioned the relatively low LD50 values of PoP..." That should have read, "The reason I mentioned the relatively high LD50 values of PoP..." When I originally wrote that, I was thinking low toxicity, which of course translates into high LD50 values. However, when I typed LD50, I had the word "low" stuck in my mind.

Bon, I agree with you. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the quakes years ago when they were 2s and 3s, but then there started to be some 4s, and then some 5s and then more 5s. The 5s certainly get a person's attention much more than the 3s do. I hope we never have any that reach the magnitudes of 6 or higher, but you know, that 5.8 was a wake-up call that the magnitude of some of the quakes seems to be drifting higher and higher over the years. I hope it doesn't happen to Pawnee or to your area or anywhere, but it seems to feel almost inevitable. Stockergal, Exactly! Let one quake do moderate damage in someplace like Bricktown and just see what happens next. I believe that quake would awaken the politicians and state employees who ought to be fighting to stop the quakes. I feel like a lot of what they do now is that they do only the bare minimum in terms of shutting down disposal wells. This incremental closing of some wells and slowly cutting back slightly on the volume of water injected into other wells would fly right out the window if a place like Bricktown had building facades collapsing into the streets. Every life matters. Every person's home and other personal property (including the businesses that are their livelihoods) matters, but it doesn't seem that way when the powers that be fail to protect the little people, does it? I am truly appalled at how little the people in Pawnee have received in assistance after the damage from the quakes. I'm not sure if Bon's area will fare much better. Insurance companies spend a lot of time denying claims, after all. I hate it that the rural areas and smaller towns are not considered as important by the politicians and by the bureacrats paid by our tax dollars, but we all know that it is true. Until a quake hits a well-developed urban area, many people will more or less ignore the quakes and will remain in denial about the danger they pose, including the very people who should be trying to help end them. Remember the horrible wildfires that swept across our state in 2005-2006 and then again in 2008? The volunteer and professional fire departments were hurting. Financially, it was costing so much more to fight the fires for months than any department had available. We had volunteer firefighters taking money right out of their own pockets just to put gasoline in the gas tanks so they could go fight the fires. Our communities statewide responded with all kinds of fundraisers and donations. Our legislators passed bills to buy each volunteer department at least one new brush truck for fighting fires. (Well, they bought each VFD a new flatbed pickup and the VFDs had to come up with additional tens of thousands of dollars to convert the flatbeds to firetrucks, but at least they had the truck part provided.) This was a major expense for the state and one they hadn't planned for but it was necessary, and just having that one new truck helped each volunteer department a great deal once they could raise the funding to pay for the fire equipment (tanks, pumps, hoses, lights, etc.) to turn a flatbed pickup into a brush fire truck. We also got additional state funding that year to pay our general operating expenses. The rampant wildfires put the firefighters in a financial crisis, and everyone responded. It also seemed like more grants to buy additional equipment were available for a few years. It was a wonderful thing to see. So, my question is, why isn't this state responding to the earthquake crisis in the same way? The only answer I can come up with is that it is because the earthquake crisis is only hitting certain areas, mostly rural and more lightly populated, so the politicians can give it a little lip service and otherwise not do much. The people in the earthquake-affected areas deserve a better response and more help than they're getting.

I'm glad it wasn't a big shaker at your place, Bon. Amy, My cats are always needy, so I don't know if I could use their neediness to predict an earthquake. If our cats see a human sit down for a second, they're in their lap. Our old daddy cat, Emmitt Smith, who is about 15 or 16 years old, will come and jump up on my back and just sit there, purring, when I am on my hands and knees in the garden pulling weeds. Apparently he thinks I am a piece of cat furniture. Dawn