Flaming wok, Well if eating your own doo doo looks appetizing, imagine what a fig looks like? Don't tell them I told you, that's their dirty little secret. Figuratively and literally! Hehe Seriously though, one day I made the mistake of picking a raspberry and feeding it to them. As soon as they figured out they were edible it was all over! Now you have to look high and far from the fence to get berries. Needless to say they then observed me picking and eating figs and next thing you know, it's an all they can eat buffet. I never even fed them a fig. Good thing I love em! Tim

Eric, While I in no way consider myself an expert, I know enough about propagation to have some thoughts/questions/comments..... 1.You are using the term "cloning" pretty losely. I believe you are propagating "asexually" by cuttings. The chance of a branch sport or "deranged" genetic material has a much higher probability in what you are doing compared to say "tissue culture"...which is about the closest plant people have to "cloning". 2.In the shrub/tree/plant world, I have often heard propagators, who have been in the buisness for many years, comment on over a long period of time...a plant loses its vigor/root-ability and is more prone to propagation "issues". I have never seen work or research on this...but it is normally referanced to plants that are popular, produced in large numbers and have been around for many years (Weigela Java Red comes to mind). No consistancy to the comments...just a few species/cultivars here and there. But back to question/comment 1...the chance of changed genetic material is a lot higher in what you are doing. 3. It is hard, in my mind, to compare sexual-vs-asexual propagation and how it effects genetic material.....two different worlds and sciences. Schmoo

We did not have a construction loan during our build so the bank did not require builder's risk insurance, but our homeowner's insurer does not cover homes under construction. So, we removed our homeowner's insurance and took out a builder's risk policy through Zurich Insurance (which I found online and was much cheaper than going through an agent). This policy is also known as course of construction insurance, and it covered all kinds of damage and theft but no liability issues. So, if the house burned down during the construction process, we were covered up to the amount that we had paid for construction until that point. The policy had increasing value up to the amount that we projected our build would finally cost, and was for a set period of time (in our case, 12 months although we could have instead purchased a 9-month policy). The policy also covered theft during the construction (on our job, the painter's paint gun got stolen and other subs had various tools swiped, but there were no major thefts and our GC never asked us to cover the thefts so we didn't put the claim through our builder's risk insurer). We were concerned about liability so we made sure that our GC carried liability, workers comp and all subs carried workers' comp. We put a clause in our GC's contract that he was responsible for checking all subs' for valid and up-to-date insurance and licenses. We also spoke with an attorney friend, who gave us a generic "hold harmless" clause covering us on all liability and stuck it in our contract. In addition, we found that our homeowner's policy would cover us through our umbrella policy (also known as Personal Excess Liability coverage) for most liability on the jobsite. Although we did not have our homeowner's policy still in effect, the same insurer that was covering us for our PEL policy had our renter's insurance policy (which we took out to cover our posessions during the time we were renting during construction) and they put the umbrella policy over both our renters coverage as well as the house under construction, even though they didn't have the homeowner's policy. As you can tell, cobbling together this coverage was a little complex (and probably would've been easier with the help of a knowledgeable agent, but unfortunately I haven't found the right agent). I'm a bit obsessed with making sure that we have the right coverage in place. None of this is very expensive and, in my opinion, is critically important. I spent most of my career in the insurance industry and have heard enough horror stories of people going bankrupt simply because they didn't pay the (relatively nominal) premiums or were unaware of the importance of having appropriate coverage. Best of luck.

"For one thing, they have a specific focus on Parkinson's Disease (the founder's husband is at high risk), and are involved in its research. They offer a free test kit to anyone diagnosed with the disease." alisande When I read that I went to their website and requested a free test since I have Parkinson's. Just received it earlier this week. After I went through the whole registration I found out I will only have access to ancestry information and not any health information. I would have liked to have had access to that health information but can't complain, it was free after all. Hope my DNA helps with the Parkinson's study. December 2013 – Pending an FDA decision, 23andMe no longer offers new customers access to health reports. Customers who received their health information prior to November 22, 2013 will still be able to see their health reports, but those who purchased after that time will only receive their ancestry information as well as access to their uninterpreted raw data.