After doing some more research on humus it's very interesteing. It's my understanding that humus isn't fully understood and very difficult to explain. Just to help understand I've broken it down a bit. Humus by deffinision from Websters is " a brown or black complex variable material resulting from partial decomposition of plant or animal matter and forming the organic portion of soil" comes from "New Latin, from Latin, earth" From Wikipedia is close to the same deffinition "Humus (Latin - "soil ") is the organic material in soil lending it a dark brown or black colouration" And the deffinition for Colloid from Websters is "2 a: a substance that consists of particles dispersed throughout another substance which are too small for resolution with an ordinary light microscope but are incapable of passing through a semipermeable membrane b: a mixture consisting of a colloid together with the medium in which it is dispersed" And from Wikipedia "A colloid is a type of mechanical mixture where one substance is dispersed evenly throughout another." " A colloidal system may be solid, liquid, or gaseous" Aparently if you can let any organic matter decompose basicly with out any dirt it will form a jelly like substance once fully decomposed and in a stable condition. Depending on how well you create humus you could actually end up with nothing. If your humus becomes so stable that it will not provide any help to your plants. I would say this guy just did some research and took what nature already does and is just trying to sell it. I would like to see him actually product this. He may have theroy behind it but no experiance or ability to actually produce this. Take a look at Wikipedia I think they do a very good job explain humus. As far as our own compost. Well keep it cook'n we are still breaking down organic matter into stuff that helps our soils and plants and will eventually allow mother nature to create her own humus. Here is a link that might be useful: Wikipedia Humus

I just did a bunch of wardrobe shopping on ebay -- I wear a particular brand/style of shorts and they are discontinued, so went on a bit of an ebay spree to stock up. I found the sellers all over the map. Some were doing auctions, charging a low starting bid and low shipping (the USPS has priority mail flat rate boxes and envelopes so shipping for a pair of shorts shouldn't be more than that rate (about $5, IIRC). Others were doing a buy it now, either with free shipping or a separate shipping charge. Ebay switched to charging final value fees on the total purchase price including shipping, about a year ago. Sellers had a fit, but ebay was finding too many people who were selling something worth $10 for $.99 then charging $9 shipping in order to avoid paying fees. Now you pay the same rate on shipping as the item, so it doesn't matter whether you fold shipping into your price and call it "free shipping" or whether you charge separately. And as a buyer, I just look at the total cost to see if it's in line with what other sellers are charging. Even for my weird obscure shorts brand, there were probably 20 listings total at any given time and 2-3 in my size, and if I waited a day or two, there would be more choices, so I was able to wait til I found the item at a price I thought was fair. I did like buy it now because I could get the item right then, but I didn't mind the auction either -- I would put a snipe bid in at a 3rd party site like auctionstealer and then forget about it til the auction ended. Often I ended up paying less for the auction ones -- I just had to wait a few days longer. If I found a pair I liked but the price was too high, I emailed the sellers and asked if they would take less (they have the option of putting a Best Offer option on their items and if they did, I would make an offer, if not, I would email them using the contact form). I would show them my auction history and what they typical price was I would pay including shipping and often, they would lower the price to be competitive. If not, I just moved on to a different item -- the beauty of ebay is that something just like the thing you just missed out on will come around again soon. That's not much encouragement for you as a seller though, LOL! I used to sell on ebay and don't anymore because, like you, I've noticed that the prices have gone down and fees/shipping have gone up so much that it isn't worth it to me anymore. But I know a lot of folks who are still making a good living at it, so the numbers must obviously still work out for people! Good luck with your sales!

Just finished Tick Tock, by James Patterson. I like his books because, they are so well written and I really like the short chapters. It seems like as I get older, my attention span is lacking. Here, in our small tri-town area when we put our name in at the library for a new book, it comes to the top of the list fairly fast. My daughter lives in a Minneapolis suburb of many people. She put her name in for the book The Help. At first, her name was number 1734, that was a couple years ago. When i asked, she said her name was slowly climbing up the list. So I ordered the book from Amazon, for her birthday. She and her daughter read it then donated it to the library. We both have done that when we get books as gifts.

I'm reading a Beverley Nichols book, Father Figure which gives his account of growing up with an alcoholic parent. His official biography by Bryan Connon, which I read last year, had raised many questions about the accuracy of his memories (BN wrote the book when he was quite old) so it's interesting to compare BN's first-person account with his biographer's POV. A quick read, and some interesting background on Nichols as a writer. I've also been dipping into The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You'll Never Read by Stuart Kelly. So far, I'm through the Greeks, and I'm amazed at how many plays, poems, etc., are referenced in other places, but the original text does not exist. I'm also amazed the author has spent so much time tracking down these sorts of things. Overall, quite interesting.