Cara Cee

Mike Harari wrote:

Cara, do you deal with any mold issues due to humidity? My father in law was raised in Miami with no AC, but their house was made completely of concrete block (interior walls as well).

Mike, sorry I missed this question before. Sometimes in the summer, if it's particularly rainy, we do get a "bloom"  of something-mildew? on our antique furniture, and I admit that fabric stored away in closets and not used  for a long while, will get musty smelling, but people with AC often have mold growing within the system, and leaks of which they're unaware until too late.
I figure I can wipe off the bloom and just wash and hang, or if not too musty, simply hang the  material in the sun and the smell goes away. Every climate has its challenges!

Byron Gagne wrote:Ducks, ducks, and more ducks.  

I've heard this but we have feral Muscovies for whom we put out drinking water and a shallow container they can bathe in.All will become teeming with mosquito larvae, so I have to say this duck solution in our situation is a canard!

Kathy Gray wrote:Linen hankies are the way to go, they last a lifetime. .

I sometimes find fine linen ones, mostly white ones with the impressive and beautiful embroidery, but I prefer the colorful prints that are usually on cotton. I have a favorite that's a map with sights in Florida. Lots of mine have flowers but there are abstract prints and days of the week and many others. It's too bad handkerchiefs are another nicety that has gone by the wayside in favor of the disposable and ugly.

I love old handkerchiefs and buy them at estate sales, thrift stores and wherever I can find them. The older ones are beautiful with colorful prints and amazing embroidery. I buy the men's ones for Gary and am particularly happy when I can find them in colors, too.
I dislike the feel of paper tissues.
If I'm sick, I just soak them before washing and hang in the sun.

I only buy used clothing from thrift stores, estate sales, or ebay and recently have decided only to buy 100% natural fabrics. Previously if it had a bit of spandex, and was in a thrift store, I might be OK, but not now.

I did this primarily to avoid contributing to the microplastic problem. For anyone interested there is a bag you can buy for washing your non-natural garments and it will collect the plastic lint. You still have to discard that, but at least it isn't going into the groundwater. www.guppyfriend.com

It's not easy to find pants, especially, that are all natural, and 100% cotton jeans are few and far between, but if one just pulls on the fabric to discern stretchiness as one walks along the rails, it's fairly easy to rule out about 99% of the bad ones (sometimes there's polyester and it doesn't stretch, so you have to read labels). I find the most annoying thing is that there are so many obese people that it's not easy at all to find second-hand small sizes!

Also one has to make sure to smell the clothing because some fragrances will never come out, but after a while in a store, one's sense of smell becomes dulled, so be careful!

"The strategy that works for me and many of my friends/family is to gift myself some kind of much needed tool then develop skills using the tool to make gifts. For example, one year I bought a set of wet stones (1000 and 3000 grit). I gave gift cards to sharpen kitchen knives. This was a big hit because (I knew from visiting) no one had cared for their knives. The next year, I bought a wet stone grinder. I had learned the previous year that many knives were chipped and needed preliminary preparation on the concrete sidewalk! The grinder really helped shape the worst knives. The third year, I bought some honing compound and rubbed it into an oak floor board. This gave the knives a razor sharp edge.
Each year, I expanded my tools for my own uses then practiced on terribly neglected knives. Everyone went away from the holidays happy."

This is a great idea. I would love to have someone competent sharpen my knives as a gift!

Nutritional yeast is usually more tempting to dogs than Brewer's yeast. Some dogs like a bit of spaghetti sauce, sardines or other fish, and some even like spirulina!

There's an excellent high-caloric supplement from Wysong.net called PDG. It can be sprinkled on top of food, or, instead of that nasty petroleum nutri-cal paste allopathic vets recommend, it can be mixed into a thick paste and fed to keep an animal's strength up.

There is no nutritional requirement for carnivores to have grains or starches.

Any part of that stem will root easily. Just cut a piece with a couple of nodes and lay it in a pot covered buried in  about 2" of soil. You don't need any leaves. You could also tie the whole stem to a larger support in a larger pot if you wanted to keep the tall plant. I used a thick piece of bamboo, but you can use a 4 x 4. Old nylon stockings work well.

Most of my  Monsteras are in the garden, but one is in a pot. The aerial roots travel far and wide!

If you think the biting is psychosomatic, perhaps Bach Rescue Remedy would help.

Lucrecia Anderson wrote:[

Course if people live in the burbs then running a generator to keep your food frozen for weeks on end presents other issues. If it is Florida during hurricane season that is fine as people are used to going weeks without power, but  in many other populated areas a loud generator would be the equivalent of a sign that says "Rob us! We have lots of food and other stuff!".

I have also heard that generator thefts are a problem in some areas. Apparently the thieves will steal/crank up a lawnmower or similar machine and leave it running as they shut off the generator and haul it away. Guess the people inside the house spend a little while checking appliances/cords before going outside since they can hear their "generator" running.

This happened to someone with whom my spouse worked! The victim said he was impressed by the ingenuity of leaving an old lawn mower running after the chain to the generator was cut and the generator taken away!