He is of mixed origins. I got the eggs from a neighbor. The hen (can't remember the breed) has feathers on her legs and is a real sweetheart, that being a dominate trait he has a few feathers on his legs - just enough to be ugly. I'll have to check to see what the rooster possibilities were at the time. One possibility that I know could have been a Rhode Island Red. (I gave away the Rhode Island Red out of the same hatch, gave away the wrong bird - I see him occasionally and he's a good rooster.) Our daughter is home this weenend from college, if she has her digital camera with her I'll take some pictures of him. He eats out of our hands - all summer when I'd find a worm or grasshopper I'd yell bug and he'd come running to eat it out of my hand. At this point he is not the least bit aggressive to anyone or anything except the little girls. When he is finished with his business the poor things don't have a feather left on their necks and he claws out the feathers on their backends and as soon as he is finished with one he goes to another and then another. I haven't had the courage to leave him in there long enough to see if he ever plays out. Our game rooster is such a gentleman when it comes to his hens I suppose I expect all roosters to act the same way. I'm off to look at your page. Thanks

That's a good point Joe, I use it to lower the ph of the tap water prior to adding dry soluble nutes. I believe this may assist in preventing any of the mineral elements from locking out while dissolving. It's quite likely that once dissolved, the elements provide additional buffering capacity to the solution. My ph does begin to slowly rise after about 1+1/2 weeks at which time I begin making small bi-weekly adjustments to keep it down. I usually go 3 weeks between change outs, at which point the ph is quite jumpy and can go either way almost overnight. Keep in mind that many plants can adjust to out of range ph over time but large & sudden ph changes are likely to shock plants into displaying a host of deficiency/toxicity symptoms. In any event it works for me, so I'll stick with it until I can afford those Ion exchange resins posted a while back. However I would still adjust ph before mixing nutes. Ken

I have a Kodak EasyShare, it's my second one. My first one didn't do closeups very well. My new one is a Kodak EasyShare CX6330, actually lower mega pixels than my first at 3.1 versus 3.2 but exceptional picture quality and very simple to use. Not sure about football field pictures, but otherwise it's a wonderful camera, dead simple to use, and I bought it used on ebay for about $60! There are quite a few comparison and rating articles on the net similar to this one I've linked to - you may find that helps you make a decision on what's best for you. Suzan J Here is a link that might be useful: Digital Camera Comparisons

One of my thermostats recently died after 10yrs so I started looking for a "smart" thermostat. After browsing the web I concluded I'd try the Nest (crowd fav) and the Ecobee3 (newest model but ecobee seems to have a very good reputation online). I wanted to share some of my initial thoughts between the two since there isn't much out there yet. Before buying these stats I realized I needed the 24v common wire connected and luckily our house was wired with 6 strand wire and all I had to do was hook up the 5th wire to the C terminal. This made life easy for me. I bought the Nest from Lowe's so I had that immediately. The Ecobee3 was bought direct a week later and it was 2 day shipping. The Nest had more heft and solid feel. It felt like it was worth the $250 whereas the Ecobee3 is very lightweight plasticy cheap feeling like my existing stat was. It was a bit hard to believe it was more then the Nest. I did have some cosmetic damage on my Ecobee3 and am in the process of exchanging the unit with them. Installation was similar on both. I had 5 wires and both units started right up after I turned the power back on. Ecobee3 has more initial questions than the Nest if I remember correctly. Once setup the Ecobee3 definitely has more things configurable for your HVAC system vs the Nest. The Nest app is smoother to operate. Ecobee3 app is a little clunky but has more settings to customize. Ecobee3 doesn't show the energy savings/usage yet but it says that feature is coming soon. The one thing that really interested me was the remote sensor on the Ecobee3. This stat is on our 2nd floor. We primarily occupy 2 bedrooms and if this thing can average the two rooms to better even out the temperature that would be great. We have tried adjusting the vents but there is still quite a bit of difference. Its a bad time to review these stats right now because my HVAC system isn't really running much. Just a tad at night to keep the house warm. I've decided to keep the Ecobee3 and return the Nest based on the more configurable settings and the remote sensor with comfort in mind.