Tereza Okava

Nancy Reading wrote:I suspect that having a curtain would make the condensation issue worse unfortunately - ....
The curtain would make your room warmer though! Maybe if you had the curtain up at night and open in the day to let it dry out again, like with window curtains, it might be OK?

Oh boo. We already put in unholy amounts of effort with this room in the winter (dehumidifier/fans and window drying every single day). Too bad it's the room we sleep in (under lots of covers) and it's kind of necessary!! Unfortunately the outside of that wall is in someone else's yard, so there's not a heck of a lot I can do about it.

Leigh Tate wrote:I'm really encouraged to read this because I have a similar problem in the front room of our house. The southwest corner wall is either terribly hot or cold to touch depending on the season. Like R, I question whether there is insulation in that corner. I've been wondering if a fabric covering would help.

Indeed!! I also have one of these walls. It gives us more trouble during the winter, when it gets covered in condensation during the night (and then molds).
I wonder if putting a curtain over this wall would minimize the condensation (less direct 'shock' between the cold wall and our humid warm breath at night). Right now we're in a warm snap but the cold is coming back on Wednesday, I might have to experiment.

I would wonder about the comfrey roots being too big. BUT using comfrey leaves to cover the soil and keep it from running off (which is a problem for me in my container gardens) is a great idea. I also do the same with rhubarb leaves, which my animals can't eat. I find that when I put compost into my containers the birds tend to disturb it more than they do in the ground, and so covering it with large leaves keeps the compost where I want it.

Timothy Norton wrote:I have dealt with some level of lactose intolerance for a lot of my life. ....
The worst effect that milk causes me is bloating. It can be a bit uncomfortable but life goes on, you know?
.

This is my daughter. She has tried all the enzymes and the magical A2 (?) milk, and the various lactose free products, and in the end, everything other than hard cheese always leads to the same painful abdominal bloat. Her solution is to avoid dairy and, if she really thinks it's worth it, just eat the thing she really wants to eat (a friend's birthday cake, ice cream on a hot day, etc) and take simethicone until all the bloating passes. She grew up mostly vegan and so it's just not a big deal, we don't generally include dairy ingredients in everything.
(Her father is also lactose intolerant but "just powers through it" -- puts milk in his coffee every day and chooses to accept the running-to-the-toilet consequences every morning. Not how I would handle it, but it's his morning, not mine. But in his experiment, 50+ years of small-dose-every-day has done nothing to make his gut more accepting of lactose.)

I try to keep up with the general recommendations on prostate cancer, as my father died young of it (after chemical exposure) and a good friend of mine has been dealing with symptoms on and off for years.

The recommendations about blood levels and manual testing seem to change every year (not unlike breast cancer screenings). My husband finally got his first "finger" exam at age 50-ish and got blood testing maybe from age 40, but the doctor said that he shouldn't bother with blood testing or the manual test again for another few years in the absence of symptoms like frequent urination, feeling the need to empty the bladder but can't, etc.
As mentioned above, some of that comes with age, but the big concern seems to be if anything changes rapidly- sudden unusual peeing habits, blood in urine, etc. And anything that is problematic should be investigated, if only because life is too short to suffer in silence (and there may be solutions).

The big risk factors seem to be the same as everything else- lack of exercise, poor diet, lack of fiber, smoking, drinking. The only thing we do specifically for prostate is pumpkin seeds (zinc plus phytosterols): my husband eats oatmeal for breakfast every day and adds ground seeds to bump up his protein intake-- instead of just flax and chia for Omega acids we've added pumpkin too. I figure it can't hurt.

Like anything else, I think the big part is communication--- we have a rule in my house that nobody just ignores symptoms, we have an obligation to each other to not sweep stuff under the rug. We've had a few family members hide illness from their spouses to 'not worry' them and I've made it clear that is not going to fly here. If something is wrong, for the love of pete don't just ignore it. Does that mean we have awkward conversations sometimes? Oh yes indeed! But it gets easier the more you do it.

Verbena definitely is affected by powdery mildew, I was just noticing some on mine in my garden this morning (it is a very wet winter where i live right now and it will pass, so I'm not too worried).

Susan Mené wrote:
Does a flour sock war involve filling socks with flour and beating each other with it?

You bet it does!
When I was younger (I seem to think that you and I are of similar age and background) it was not an uncommon thing, especially on Goosey Night (or whatever they called the night before Halloween where you grew up) when many kids were out making messes with flour socks.
Back in the good old days when you could whack a car with a sock full of flour and 1) the car was made of metal and would survive it and 2) nobody would get too bent out of shape about some flour or toilet paper messes in their yard.

If you keep the hose outside of direct sunlight, it will last longer. This may mean coiling it up after use and putting it somewhere, or putting up a shade barrier (maybe later even planting something like a climbing vine) for where it's kept. But shading it from direct sun will make a big difference.

Good luck, Elia.
I live in Brazil and a lot of people from here are trying out Paraguay because of new jobs and lower taxes. They often stay close to the border though since the healthcare on this side is free and there it's not.
Looking at your original post and what you're looking for, I'm thinking about the large numbers of Mennonites that live there (many having moved from the US and Mexico in recent decades), but from what I understand they generally keep to themselves (and grow soy for export, which probably is not your cup of tea either).
I have a Paraguayan friend here who misses it dreadfully, but the standard of living is quite different (especially if you have kids and/or enjoy public services), which is why he stays here.  
The Spanish indeed is not quite the same, but if you speak a few languages and stay there a while it won't be too big of a problem.

And yes, compared to Europe or North America you need to be really careful about the wildlife. When I moved here I had to learn not to walk barefoot or hug trees, and to always watch where I walk and shake out towels/clothes etc before using. But like most aspects of moving to a new place, it's really not that big a deal if you pay attention to things.

Wow! I am realizing how lucky we are in terms of recyclable pickup here!

I separate our waste into 4 streams:
-kitchen waste that rabbits or dogs can eat
-organic/kitchen waste that can be bokashi composted
-recyclables that the city collects (glass, metals, paper and any plastic with a recycling number on it)
-true trash (anything else)
(we also have a service to dispose of toxic stuff like electronics and paint, where the city has a truck that has a schedule, you go there and dispose of your things where the truck is parked that week).

Trash pickup is 3 nights a week (!) and recycling 2. I generally put out a smallish bag of trash once a week and a big dog-food-sack type bag of recyclables every other week.

Our sewage treatment system is not made to support more than a single sheet of toilet paper, and that makes up a good portion of most people's domestic trash.
The remainder is non-recyclable plastic bag packaging (I buy most of our food in prepackaged bulk quantities, although I can use reusable bags for produce. I use these non-recyclable plastic bags for everything I can, like dog poop, but there are still so many).
I also have a large dog that can poop like nobody's business, and I haven't set up a good disposal system yet (into the sewage line would be ideal, but would also entail major construction. Bringing it into the house to flush is a non-starter.).

Recyclables I store outside on our porch for the two weeks or so it takes to accumulate enough to put out for collection. They go out every night before bed.
The rabbit stuff is accumulated during the day and served when I feed early in the morning. This stuff is usually veg/fruit peelings or stale bread- nothing that will get rotten or attract bugs (which would instead go in the compost).

Bokashi compost material is kept in a tightly-lidded compost bin on my countertop and emptied whenever it's full (usually every or every other day).
And the trash, since it is collected from a specific platform connected my front gate that street dogs can't access, can go out whenever I please. But in practice, I go around on the house on a trash night and gather trash from the bathroom and kitchen cans, add the dog poop bags that are outside, and put it all out right befor the trash truck comes.
My house and kitchen are tiny and I really don't have space for multiple containers or bins.