Month: March 2012

I’ve added a basic “word verification” (Only its math not words) to the comments form due to a rather startling amount of spam since I moved here (WP doesn’t do nearly as nice a job at catching it).    If its to hard to work with let me know, there are other choices I can play with.

That is my end table, please don’t ask me how he fits there, I have no idea…..

This was yesterday (and a couple days ago that I forgot to post), I expect something similer today as we’re going to be doing yard work since its supposed to be LOVELY (in mid march wtf??)

In the course of trying to make the blog look like I want I’ve picked up a few new tools.  I’ve had Dreamweaver for a while, and two little utilities for color, one called RGB to HEX, the other called Colorpic.  But managing this required some help, I also used the Firefox plugin called Firebug (oh gosh was this usefull) and this webpage that takes the color code you give it (whatever the format) and converts it to the five other formats used commonly.  Very very usefull.

The answer to the question of how long before the slightly funky background patterning of my RSS feed was going to annoy me (asked in my previous post):  Not very long.  Thankfully it ended up being easier to fix than the original background color problem.

Links are UNDERLINED!!!!

Take THAT originial “genius” programer whoever you are who decided that the Raindrops theme needed 8, thats right EIGHT, .CSS files.    Its probly a good thing I don’t know who you are……..

At any rate I’m now free to play with font color as I please, except I’m kinda liking this darker font color, anybody else have any input or thoughts (if its to hard to read for people I’ll change it, I don’t know how many blogs I’ve had to give up on reading cause they chose some painfull combination of background and font colors).

Edited:  Ok, font color lightened because I finally got the main body NOT BLACK.  Course, I’m going to have to remember WHAT I did next time the theme updates cause I’ve not managed to get the changes set up in a child theme that works…..

edited again: course, it did something funky to the looks of my RSS feed…..we’ll see how much it annoys me before I go digging to fix it.

Ok, so my broccoli seeds arrived today, my herbs should be arriving tomorrow (the rest is going to be plants).  Normally I’d not even consider being able to plant outside till the end of April at the earliest, probably not till mid-May or later being much more likely.  This year?  Who knows.  So, should I just go ahead and just start them?  The broccoli package says to start them up to 6 weeks ahead…..

Next question, seeds have expiration dates but I know of people who have used seeds the next year or to with reasonable success, so….whats the best way to store them?  Obviously they need to be kept dry…….

I’ve been a bit slow in posting this.  The reported numbers of affected dogs keeps changing depending on who’s reporting, not have done any investigation myself I’m not sure if this is due to a mix of old and new information or if someone is adding numbers where they’re not supposed to,  but it does appear that the number of dead and desperately sick dogs has skyrocketed since people became more aware of the possible cause of their dog’s illness. 

MSNBC is stating that they have obtained documentation from the FDA on this, that some 600 dogs in the last year have been affected.  As part of that documentation they cite a total of 22 “type 1” cases, these are dogs who are aged 11yrs or younger and have provided medical records of the course of the illness for study.  In many cases samples of the treats in question were provided.  Of that 22 cases 13 cite that the brands of the treats fed were Waggin’ Train or Canyon Creek Ranch (both produced by Nestle), and 3 more listed Milo’s Kitchen Homestyle treats.  The rest listed either other single brands or had no brand listed. 

According to the Truth About Dog Food, in 2007 the FDA tested 134 samples  for a huge variety of things, 4 tested positive for propylene glycol.  In 2008 – 2010 they tested 23 samples with no results.  In 2011 they tested 84 samples, mostly for salmonella, though salmonella doesn’t usually cause Falconi-type symptoms.  As of the time of the publication of the article in 2012 the FDA has sent out 130 samples to be tested (can you say public pressure??), all were listed as “Results Pending” but 58 samples are being tested for metals and/or organic compounds; 72 samples are being tested for DNA analysis.  Why DNA analysis they’re it doesn’t say.  TTADF article also provides a link to a PDF of the documents they received from the FDA.

I suppose in the over all scheme of things 600 pets out of the huge number being kept in the US is not a huge deal, but the way the numbers skyrocketed when people realized that their pet’s death might not have just been a fluke makes me wonder how many other cases aren’t getting reported because no-one’s making the connection.  Its also worrisome, contamination of food products (both animal and human) imported from China has been an on-going issue for a long time, and yet it keeps happening.  Please please please, go look at the package of dog/cat treats sitting on your shelf, go look at the package of pet food that you’re feeding them.  If it says “Made in China” (its usually in small print on the back of the package, at or near the bottom) PLEASE stop feeding it.  I know “Made in the USA” often costs more, I understand, but there are other countries where things are made, and so far China is the only one with consistant problems.