Ronnie Ugulano

Ben Zumeta wrote:I get 20lb bags of "wild bird seed" for 8$ and sprout them for my birds and also grew some bird seed from these as well. I do not know how much organic bird seed would be.

My husband used to have a pet canary. "Anthony" loved sprouted seeds, so we did the same, spouting wild bird seed for him. We ended up calling them "Bird Sprouts".

I learned to use a pressure cooker by helping my mom make dinner - in the 1950s. Stews, swiss steak, pot full of potatoes, corned beef hash etc. My mom in turn gave me a (4 qt.)pressure cooker when I was first married (1970) which I still use today.

This was something like my experience, except it was my grandmother that taught me. I don't have the same pressure cooker she gave me, but I can't live without a pressure cooker. I use it far, far more than my slow cooker.

I have to give another shoutout to using stove pellets, aka pressed sawdust. Less than $10 for a 40lb bag, and the sawdust kills urine smell! We used it for our cat for several years, it was da bomb!

Soil can be thought of as a buffering agent for compost,

This is true even when worm composting. Sometimes you can put too much food in there for the worms to eat and the bin will get unbalanced. One of the things that will help in these situations is to add some soil, or even plain dirt. Dirt will bring in with it bazillions of bacteria that will get right to work trying to clean it up so the worms aren't run out of their own bin by too much of a good thing.

Yeah, you might have to remove some food, add some bedding (coir, sawdust, paper, leaves, what-have-you), but dirt is often part of a good recipe to correct an unbalanced bin.

Ten Acres Enough by Edmund Morris

Thanks for mentioning this book title. I found it at Gutenberg Press as an ebook!

If there's no worms in the manure does that indicate that it's not as good a soil improver as manure that has worms in it.

There are a few reasons why there are no worms in the manure. One reason is that there are no worms in the soil to move into the manure. Another is that the worms are on their way, they can tell there's a food source there, but they haven't gotten there yet. A third reason is that the animal that the manure comes from has been on antibiotics/dewormers and so the manure is actually rejected by the worms as unfit. They might circle around later, once there's enough bacteria to make up for how it started, but for now, it's inhospitable to the worms, and they are uninterested.

There is a difference between "decomposing" fruit and "fermented/fermenting" fruit. Decomposing involves the fruit being broken down by various bacteria. Fermenting involves primarily the sugars and turning the sugars into alcohol. In a worm bin, fermenting happens when there is a lot of fruit, and the temperature is warm. The same amount of fruit might not ferment if the temperature is cooler or cold, it will more  likely rot or decompose before it ferments. If you have a lot of fruit in your bin and it's fermenting, try to spread it out to allow any alcohol forming to escape and to encourage rotting instead of fermenting.

1. Can the apps(?) use internet data when I'm not using the apps?  This has already been answered, but yes, you can keep apps from accessing the internet. Make sure you have someone show you how. Different phones have different routes to what you want.


2. Is there a new technology on the horizon for cellphones that will be amazing and available in the next year or so? Not really, from what I think is your standpoint. New, faster phones, using 5G are coming, but you don't need 5G to do what you want to do. When those 5G phones come out, the prices for 4G phones will begin to drop. This is always a good time for people new to smartphones to buy a phone.

3. Can I take print-ready photos on a phone or are they only internet-ready photos?  I don't know what the difference is, but some photos print well, and some don't.  I want to take ones that do. "Internet Ready" images are usually only 72dpi. Some website images have been optimized to be pretty skinny on the megabytes, and rarely print well. Current printers can print at far higher resolutions, and phones can offer printing at those high resolutions. I think my phone will capture at least 12 megapixels.

4. Is it true, you can't turn a smartphone off? Not true. You can easily turn a smartphone off. In fact, a smartphone will charge much faster off, than if it is on. I rarely turn my phone off, but once in a while I do just to clear all the circuits. Sometimes, if my phone starts doing funky unexplainable things, I'll turn it off, and take out the sim card, and leave it out for a minute or two. This totally discharges all of the working circuits, and when the sim card goes back in and is turned on, things often right themselves.

5. What is the battery life of a smartphone?  My friend charges hers twice a day.  My flip phone, I charge once every 6 weeks.  I charge my phone once a day, sometimes twice a day, depending on how much I use it. If I'm using Google Maps a great deal, or going online often while shopping, I'll use the battery faster and It'll need a recharge by midafternoon. One thing to remember: Always get your phone off of the charger as soon as it has been charged. So, for example, don't put it on the charger when you go to bed and unplug it in the morning. You will weaken the battery, and it won't be able to hold a charge in less than a year. I can wake up (around 6am) and charge my phone in an hour or less and it'll be ready before I leave the house at around 8:30. I also keep a USB charging wire i my car, if I need to repower while I'm on the road, but usually the morning powerup does it fine.

And remember, I'm a 100 megabyte/month plan, which some people on here seem to think is impossible

Yes, it can be done IF you have reliable access to wifi wherever you go, and IF your phone recognizes the Wifi access types. I have had some phones and tablets on my workbench that will only connect to my 2mhz wifi. Some places can't offer both 2 and 5mhz. Some older phones will hardly connect to wifi at all, anywhere. If you can do it, that's awesome!

My credentials: In my day job, I'm a computer nerd, and I regularly volunteer my time to help older ones get their first phones and tablets, and teach them how to use them. In the past 6 years, I've probably taught about a hundred people, mostly over age 50.

You are describing plans with megabytes. You will not get very far with 100-250 megabytes of data. You might be able to download a single program with that much data, but you won't be able to use it until next month with that much. Next month after it gets here, your megabytes will be used up in less than 10 minutes. I actually had a friend that bought a phone on a phone plan like this, and we couldn't even update his phone (always a first step after getting a new phone) on that amount of data. We could have used wifi for that, but the phone he bought was so cheap, it wouldn't connect. He was frustrated with his phone because of it, and I don't think he uses it at all now because of that experience.

You need to think in terms of gigabytes of data, 1000x more than megabytes. For the things you describe in your first post, you want at least 2 gigabytes of data. If you do the bulk of your surfing, Google Maps, square-ing, and banking on wifi somewhere, you could get by on 2 gigabytes of data. But, I should warn you, you should do your banking and square transactions on your own data. Using public wifi for that is asking for trouble.

I prefer Samsung (Android) devices, and as of this date, you want something at least as new as "Nougat", certainly no farther back than "Marshmallow". Yeah, older devices are cheaper, but they're also more frustrating. They're slow, too. You want something with at least 2 gigabytes of RAM, and 16 gigabytes of space. The space is often misnamed "memory". If you buy a phone with only 8 gigabytes of space, you will be sorry.

Yes, you want a micro SD card to boost what you have. I recommend SanDisk brand. Get at least 16gb, 64gb is better, but get at least 16.

If you aren't all bored out of your gourd from the above, I'll come back around later, if there are questions.

Looks like a pecan tree to me.