I do follow Hippocrates' idea of let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food and so I would rather have a tasty meal of healthful foods than "pop a handful of pills." Obviously there are limits to this because it isn't anything that will have quick, dramatic effects. It has a more gentle steering towards health but it is effective in its own way. Purslane is one of those healthful foods I noticed years ago. We like to nibble it straight from the garden or add it to the salad bowl. My youngest is a great fan of it and is often going through the garden to browse and pick handfuls of purslane to eat. I like the various "golden" purslane varieties. Grows extremely well in the vegetable garden. It is more upright (less clinging dirt than the prostrate wild variety) and it has larger, more succulent leaves. If you let some flower, it will self-sow or you can easily collect the seeds to sow more. It grows quickly and is tolerant of cool temperatures so it is a good one to try even in Northern zones for fall harvests. I also tried the "gruner red" variety and found it not as robust as the golden varieties. FataMorgana

Special? It's widespread around here - it's our normal soil. That was extreme during the 2011 extreme drought, but yes, it does that. It's TX black gumbo clay. You'll find about the same stuff in parts of Montana and, believe it or not, Hawaii. Nearer the coast where humidity is higher the cracking isn't quite as severe, but it still will get impressive in the drought periods. When it's wet it swells enough to be self-sealing. Rice farmers love that. Building on it is a bit tricky. To dig it you want it moist and plastic, then you take it out in slices working near vertically using a rice shovel. The funny thing about our coastal area is that soil like that is the widespread stuff. But there are sizable pockets of very clean sand. It seems there is a commercial sand pit about every 10-20 miles, and in those pits there is no sign of that clay. There was one ~ 60 acres in size being worked for years about 5 miles from me. About 10 years ago the remains of a Columbian mammoth were found in the pit.

More about our birds. . . How we came to have the parakeet is a story in itself. Mother was out in the garden hanging up the laundry one sunny day and out of nowhere a blue & white parakeet flew right down and landed on Mother's shoulder. She nibbled lovingly on Mother's ear and mother said, "Well hello there" and the bird said, "Ooooh. Hello!" And Mother said, "So, who are you?" The bird replied, "Pretty Bird!" So, she kept her name. She never flew away after finding a nice home, having no desire to try living out in the big free world ever again. We never did find out from whence she came. I would like to add about the Mexican Love Bird. . . . . .that after cursing out the preacher and telling him to "Go to Hell!", and saying things like "Well, -uck a duck!", our love bird never said any of the really foul swear words ever again. Mother said it must have just been a cleansing thing for her, but I have always wondered just what Mother did to make her "repent" and come clean.??? And as for our parakeet, Pretty Bird? After her jello bath, she began saying, "Oooooh, Pretty Bird. Pretty Bird is a dirty bird!" We kids got so much fun out of her. She loved Orange Jell-O, not just for bathing but for eating it as well. She especially loved it when mother made it into a salad by adding grated carrots and chopped walnuts. Yum yum! She would walk across the table and sample everything. If she found something she particularly didn't like, she would make a mess of it and have a fit! So afterward she had to kept up during meals. She would fuss and squawk at us from her cage, demanding to be loosed at once! As you said, covering her cage was helpful in quieting her down. She would then say, "Good night Pretty Bird!" which would then of course, set us all into a round of giggles. ~Annie

Squirt, thanks! The umbrellas are quite sturdy, I just leave them out all the time even when we have storms come through (although I do keep them folded and tied unless we're outside). The poles are wood and flex which seems to help in high winds. We did end up putting a heavy base under the one that is through the table because in really high winds it would blow the whole table over! Since adding the base it's been fine. They are Key Largos, link is below. They were 90 bucks for two and shipping was only 6 bucks. Zoo, thanks so much, I appreciate it! We still love the Polywood, it's great to have the look of wood but with no maintenance at all! Now that we're into triple-digit temps here I can say that the dark blue does heat up more than the yellow and white, but it's not uncomfortable to sit on even when the sun is straight up. Quote: "The way I understand it, is the chlorinated water from the pool recirculates (?) thru the pump so the water over the rocks will help eliminate stuff. " That's correct, when the waterfall is running it's just diverting water that would be going through the pool returns and instead sending it over the rocks and into the pool. It's already gone through the filter and chlorinator or SWG at that point, so it's freshly chlorinated water. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.patioumbrellas.com