omg karyn, that would make the absolute most awesome pond ever. I agree with the elephant ear suggestion, too! rofl! marian! you had an indoor pond too? we just use a giant rubbermaid tub with a filter hanging on the side, LOL. we used to have three koi but my favorite one died about a month ago :( I think the spring temperature swing was too much for it. the tub used to be right next to my bed, and it would be the coolest thing when I was half-awake in the dark, I'd reach over and stick my fingers in the water and they'd be promptly nibbled by chilly friendly mouths. I love my koi, lol. I had a whole jungle thing going on, I dug up some huge ferns from the woods and got a pair of big taro, and I had (still have) a giant passiflora incense whose vines got so big I actually draped them across some 10 feet to the opposite wall like a canopy over the bed. and omg, you wouldn't beLIEVE how delighted I was when the ferns came back this spring after my friends were convinced they were dead XD ri

I cut everything to bagging size, and bag it. As long as it isn't overweight, they take it, no matter what I started with. Farmer's Branch has a "green grabber" service, that picks up stuff like that, but each city has their own methods. In Lewisville, we have contract service, so you can only count on pick up, if it is bagged. Otherwise, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

pjames might be on to something. I have collected manure from different piles. I always do a test of the manure before I feed it to the worms, but I only do one test, then assume the whole batch is good, even if the manure may have come from different horses.. OTOH, the die off seems to continue until long after I have fed horse manure. There is no clear consensus on whether dewormer is actually harmful to the worms. That is something I might experiment with when I have a healthy worm population. I would like to get a definitive answer on the dewormer question. I was reading an article yesterday (I can't find it now) that says that dewormer is 95% broken down in the horse's system, and degrades completely with exposure to sunlight. If the problem is dewormer, that would explain why I am only having a partial die off.

Hi all, We have a Pearl whirlpool bath/shower set up. Its about 10 years old, with very little use to the Whirlpool, which is on its second pump. The first one needed replaced around the 2nd year. :( Anyhow....I decided to clean the tubing/tub and use it again. I began filling the tub. I was to fill it 2" above the highest jet. I noticed the start/stop button began flashing, but thought I just wasn't remembering how it works. Then, when the water got above the highest jet, the jets started working. I pressed the on/off switch and it wouldn't respond. I let it run for 20 minutes, thinking it might turn off automatically (which it usually does).....but it didn't. I finally turned off the circuit breaker to that area. I opened the apron up and tried to test the GFCI that the pump is attached to, but its not working. My question is........why would the pump get stuck ON, if the GFCI was broken?? This is pretty disconcerting. I might have just been using the whirlpool, not noticing it was stuck on, and wouldn't have had the GFCI protection. :( Thanks for your help. P.S. Would there be a danger in using it for the shower now, as long as the pump is disconnected? How am I supposed to check that that GFCI is working? .........just maybe monthly see if I can trip it and reset it??