Well what a great report from you, pitimpinai!! The last I heard you were still very low in energy and still on a ton of medication and little appetite, and listen to you, helping the neighbor till up a lawn! LOL What a nice neighbor you were to plant tomatoes and Dahlias. :-) I am happy to hear that you've also benefited from a shorter work day. Great that you had all that time off saved up. I bet you really needed it to get your energy back. We have gotten pretty much back to what is normal for us here. The weather has been stupendous in the past month! I have never seen the cover crop in the veggie beds so high. We've also gotten all the leaves mowed and collected in bins, ours and three neighbors. [g] We have gotten somewhat cleaned up for the year in the garden, but I keep adding to my list of what I want to get done before the weather turns. Still have a small amount of bulbs to plant and three shrubs to get in the ground, some pots to clean and put away and that will just about do it. I am actually looking forward to a break from the garden. Not that we don't get outside and enjoy it, but it's nice this time of year, to focus on other things. During the gardening season, the garden seems to push out other priorities. [g] I enjoy the winter garden and by the time spring comes, I am just itching to get back to a new growing season. Glad you are able to enjoy gardening again and hope you stay well this winter! :-)

Yikes- careful! Really depends on how big your bin(s) are & how much you'll feed. I have a very large tray-type bin that I keep indoors (4 trays). We are only two people, and don't actually produce that much worm food. I constantly have extra in the freezer. I bought 1 lb. of worms to start, and my population exploded very quickly, so much so that I started having an overpopulation problem. Worms were escaping from the bin due to overcrowding (had eliminated all other possible problems). Had to give A LOT of worms away. Right now I have a very small population (due to a sad mishap; boo), but I have no doubts that the population has already started growing again (as I'm seeing more younger (smaller) worms), and will be a strong vibrant community in a reasonable amount of time. Yes, you need more worms to compost more food, but a pound or two of worms will reproduce quickly & exponentially in the right conditions; so I highly recommend not overbuying! I highly suggest under-buying, using your outdoor heap for scraps that you can't use initially so as to not overfeed in the beginning, and let your population grow on it's own; once that has happened you'll have PLENTY of worms to process all your scraps. They'll probably also be better adjusted to your particular bin environment that way too.

I didn't just come across this article I actually googled "i'm sick of people telling me their dog is a rescue" and this article was the first to pop up! That being said, "i'm sick of people telling me their dog is a rescue"! Here's why... probably 75% of the time when I ask an owner "what kind of dog is that"? they answer "its a rescue". It drives me crazy because they know I have asked them what breed they have but they insist in on first letting me know that they are a wonderful person because they have rescued a dog. Wait.... the question wasn't did you get your dog from a breeder or did you get your dog elsewhere (naturally if it didn't come from the breeder you have rescued a dog from somewhere, hence making most dogs rescues). But the actual term "rescue dog" is very misleading so I always ask them to clarify with the following question.... "Wow, a rescue dog, that is incredible, you must be so proud of him/her... I just read about this rescue dog that pulled a little baby out of a burning building.... what exactly did your dog do?

My Dane was not showing signs either we had been fighting a sore on his back leg that would not heal, well it would heal go away then come back. It was during this process that I noticed one of his lymph nodes in his rear thigh was about the size of an egg, he had had that happen before and gave us a scare several years earlier but upon biopsy it was not lymphoma and it reduced on it's own. Once I found the one this time I took him to the vet and she did a full body lymph node inspection and all of them were very enlarged, she took biopsies immediately and sent them to Texas A&M oncology, we got the answer back in just a few days it was positive and it was already in stage 4, they gave him 3 to 4 months. He did not act sick, he had a great appetite, but he began to not be able to get up and down and then would lose control of bladder and bowel, which embarrassed him so much he was such a good dog. When his face began to bloat up and he could not get up we decided it was time. Our wonderful vet and her entire staff came to our home to do it so he would be at home and surrounded by love. It was very peaceful and he is now buried under the big oak tree out back. It was hard on us for a while but knowing it was the right thing to do made it a bit easier. That picture I posted is shortly before we had to put him down he had lymph nodes at that time about the size of oranges all over his body. but he was still playing with little Mia. I know this will be a devastating time for your family, you at least have some of her still with her offspring that is so fortunate. Remember all those great times you shared! I feel your pain and am shedding tears with you.