I have an 8x4 raised garden. ... I lost my cucumbers and squash and my tomatoes quickly followed ==>> you are severely overplanted ... i have seen squash .. one plant.. cover 10 sq feet ... a tomato.. 3 sq ft if not caged and tended perhaps a pic would change my mind ... in overplanting.. you are affecting many variables .. such as sunlight on plant... sun on soil causing water management issues ... and reducing air movement complicating disease issues ... with so many issue perhaps out of kilter... i am loathe .. to think you have a clinic/bug/disease problem ... we often find with newbs.. that they want to attack the EFFECT ... while not considering the CAUSE ... and i think the CAUSE of your problems is the over planting ... rather than the EFFECT .. which is the resultant problems you are finding .. solving the EFFECT .. does not address the CAUSES a term for you to research.. would be SQUARE FOOT GARDENING ... wherein there is all kind of theory as to how to maximize a given space ... while addressing the issues i mention ... and go figure.. i just checked.. there is a forum named such ... who knows how active it is ... soooo... whether you cant live w/o a squash ... the issue would be.. if you really need to grow it .... though you might be better off.. using the space for more manageable plants.. always consider.. what a harvest costs in season .. and i was just talking to ma.. and she said they are nearly giving away such at the market ... so one would ask themselves.. do i really need to strangle my space.. for a veg that costs near nothing in prime season ... i recall a readers digest joke.. that said.. the only time they lock their cars in newport RI ... was in zucchini seasons.. for fear that strangers will leave bags of such in your car.. if you dont.. lol ... and for me.. that kinda sums up ... the gourd/zuki season ... when in season.. they are giving them away .... why should i bother growing them .... good luck ken

I'm sorry to hear about your cat, Alaina. I never knew cats had strokes before this happened; but I assume that like human strokes there are different extents of brain damage. Do they know what caused your cat's stroke? In my cat's case it was the parasite that interrupted blood flow to part of the brain causing areas to die. Did your cat have seizures too? The prednisone she takes daily is to reduce brain inflammation. If my regular vet had been open I would have taken her there first. But since they were closed their service sent me to an animal emergency room. I sometimes wonder if this made the outcome different. This emergency clinic has a neurologist on staff and he was the one who took charge of her care. (I didn't know there were animal neurologists either!) Even if I had been able to take her to our regular vet, this would have been beyond him (not the treatment but the equipment needed for the diagnosis). Knowing she was having seizures, and the fact that she had no symptoms before they suddenly appeared, made diagnosis faster; though finding the cause of the stroke took longer. This clinic was really expensive. I put down a $1000 deposit against charges on the first night. I think I was so shocked at what had happened to her and the suddenness of it that I didn't question anything they were doing. The room where they were working on her and the other "patients" was just like a human ICU in miniature. She was originally given a whole battery of meds and shots to kill whatever possible infectious agents were causing this (like bacteria, fungus, parasites), plus something to stop the seizures. My cat looked really bad for maybe the first week she was home. Hardly able to walk or crawl. I would stand there looking at her and wonder if I should just put her to sleep. But she didn't seem to be in pain, and still seemed to enjoy being with us, so I just prayed and waited. I was rather surprised that she was interested in eating especially since she was hardly moving around enough to need the calories. Someone later told me that one of the meds (as a side effect) stimulates the appetite. I'm not sure if it's the prednisone or the phenobarbital that does that. We brought the food to her too: it was too hard to see her struggle towards it. Even when she was looking much better she was not using the litter box. The vet said to retrain her as though she was a kitten. To watch how long after she ate came the pee or the poop (was about 20 minutes); then to place her in the litter box several times a day at about the right time. Also to put the litter box right next to where she was resting (but not next to the food), and use one with very low sides so she could step into it easily. Peeing in the right place came several days before pooping in the box. She has been quite good in the last few days but still had a major accident on the foyer floor today. At her follow-up visit 5 days ago the vet said she was recovering faster than usual, possible because she's "young" (eight) compared to most cats with strokes. But the pattern of damage and kinds of impairments she was having were a textbook case. I hope your cat will continue to improve and will pray for her. I hope these details have been helpful.

Thanks guys. I had them in closed zip-lock bags that I blew air into. I also have them on a heat mat for seeds. There is lots of humidity in there. The mix is a combination of peat moss and perlite. I just took them out of the bags, rinsed them off and watered them. A few are obviously dead and I pulled them out. A few look green though so there is hope. I took the bag off them for a while to let the stems dry a bit. I may cover them loosely again so they do not dry out too much. I'be never successfully rooted a citrus cutting. I have rooted other cuttings in water though like Vladimir. It really would be nice to get this down since I am trimming down some trees a bit...

I can't believe he did this with the OP's adult son in the house and was allowed to act like nothing happened. For a very long time my father was physically abusive to my mother of his eight children, six of which boys. It didn't happen all of a sudden, but he eventually realized that we would no longer tolerate it. Our mother wouldn't be the only one walking around with bruises and abrasions. If she got them we all got them. He resorted to walking around the house with a pistol in his pocket, and expelled all of us as we reached the age of majority. She left him when my youngest sibling was about fifteen.