Comments jessifromdenver has made

Photo mix up

Do you guys realize that in your Muckraker email you have a picture of Mark Udall next to Tom Udall's name?  I saw the picture and thought "Holy God, they could be twins!  Not cousins!"  Then I clicked on the link and learned the truth.On With backing from enviros, Rep. Tom Udall vies for Senate seat in New Mexico posted 1 year, 1 month ago 2 Responses

Keeping my cats inside

I used to let my cats go outside.  It seemed like the natural thing to do.  Sometimes they would come back with an animal, some cats I had were mousers, others preferred birds, I had one cat who was always bringing in little snakes.  I never really thought about the impact my cats were having on the wildlife population.  I thought hunting was natural, and it was all part of the circle of life.  I never thought about populations depending on each other for food, or anything as complicated as that.
We eventually stopped letting our cats go outside because, unfortunately, we were often faced with the impact that the wildlife population had on our cats.  We lost more kittens growing up to coyotes, owls, raccoons and other local wild life (not to mention cars, other cats and theiving neighbors) than my poor little heart could take.  By the time I was 16, my family had had enough and our cats stayed inside where they were safe.
For the record, I too live in the suburbs.  Human population does not make your pets immune.
My cats are healthy and happy inside, and are far from sedentary.  I enjoy playing with them on a regular basis, and they play with each other.  They even still get to hunt, because occasionally a bug or a spider gets in the house, and they are just as happy hunting and stalking those creatures as they are going after pidgeons and field mice.  And if they can't find a bug, they have no problem stalking a ribbon, or a piece of hard candy, or a pony tail holder, or a foot under a blanket.
It amazes me that we live in a world where people are afraid to let their children play outside because of the dangers, but will argue day and night about why their pets should roam free through the neighborhoods, two steps shy of ferral.  If we are going to worry about someone being bored and sedentary, we should be worried about our children (who usally don't pose much of a threat to the song bird population, I might add), and not our cats.  The house is a much bigger world for a cat than it is for a person.On Umbra on cats and birds posted 2 years ago 72 Responses

I remember selling lady bugs and praying manti

I always discouraged customers at the garden center where I worked away from buying lady bugs or praying mantis eggs when I worked in a garden center, not for any environmental reasons, but mainly because they don't work very well, espeically for aphids.
Aphids, usually, will not kill the plants that they infest if they are large plants, like trees and rose bushes, although they are messy and unsightly.  Also, they produce a sugary waste that attracts bees, wasps and other creatures that sting and frighten children, which was the biggest complaints about them we got.  But, as irritating as they may be, they will most likely all die come winter and will only be a problem for one summer season.
Lady bugs and praying mantis do not work well for the main reason that there are too many of the aphids to eat.  For most of the year, each generation of aphids are born already pregnant with the next generation of female aphids, and millions of pregnant aphids are born to the mommy aphid within a few days of her birth.  It takes a ton of lady bugs and praying mantis to keep up with that.  Most lady bugs do fly away, and although a praying manis egg will hatch up to 200 little, baby mantis (which are very cute, by the way, the sort of dance), most of them eat each other and you only end up with the one or two strongest, who will proceed to fight to the death or mate if they ever run into one another, and if they mate the female will eat the male when they are done!  The best way to get rid of aphids, if you must, is to use mildly soapy water.  Spray down a tree and wipe down the leaves and branches of a smaller bush.
If you are going to release lady bugs the best time to do it is in the evening.  That way they will be more likely to land for the night and hopefully when they see how many bugs you have they will be less likely to leave in the morning, but still many of them proceed to fly off.  They do not have logic like we do.
At least, this is what the horticulturist at our garden center taught me.On Umbra on fighting pests with pests posted 2 years, 6 months ago 12 Responses

Wow, move over Miss Cleo

And nobody believed me when I said that doing something about immigrants is going to cost more than leaving things how they were.
Since it was obviously illogical for me to have said that last May (at least thats what I was told), clearly this article proves that I am clairvoyant.On Colorado's inmates-as-farmworkers plan says plenty about our food culture posted 2 years, 8 months ago 12 Responses