Lifestyle

When should I start seeds indoors?

When Should I Start Seeds Indoors? This answer totally depends on what you are planning to grow! Count back 4-6 weeks from your expected outdoor planting date to get your seed planting date. This does vary by the specific plant, but 4-8 weeks is a good general range for annuals for warm season plantings after danger of frost (around tax day) So you can plant zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds, morning glories, etc.

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Mother is eager to reveal truth of son’s parentage

Dear Abby: Thirty-two years ago I was seeing two different men. I slept with each of them in the same week and became pregnant. I told them midway through the pregnancy that the baby might be theirs. One ditched me. The other is my husband of 31 years. We went on to have two more children. I have suspected all along that my oldest son, “Todd,” wasn’t my husband’s biological child. When Todd was 8, we did a DNA test, and I was right.

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Word Games

The Letts’ Files “I have in my hands the names of….” “I have in my hands 54 titles that….” We’re back in a domestic Cold War, Friends. No longer looking for Commies in government, now we’re looking for words in certain books.

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Planning for spring forage production

As the snow and ice of winter has melted away, it’s time to be considering our spring and summer forage production needs. For cool-season grasses, February is the time we should consider applying nitrogen (N) fertilizer so mother nature has a chance to provide the rain necessary to move it into the plants root zone prior to spring. Tall fescue and annual ryegrass will begin responding to the warmer temperatures of March. A good shot of N fertilizer will go a long way toward producing the spring forage needed to get our livestock through until the Bermudagrass begins to green up and start producing in May. It takes about 60 lbs of N to produce one ton of cool-season forage. Both of the aforementioned species have the ability to easily produce in excess of 2 tons of spring forage if the N and rainfall are available for growth. Livestock grazing needs for this period should be estimated (Forage Budgeting fact sheet 2584) and a yield goal for production should be set. Then, it is a simple matter of determining how much nitrogen fertilization will be required to produce the amount of forage needed to provide our livestock with high quality grazing.

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Cabin Fever

Before and after the Great Backyard Bird Count came the largest contingencies of red-winged blackbirds. They are so weather fickle. Cold weather drives them to the feeders, but during warmer weather they prefer to search for food in the fields near areas of water. Last Wednesday, as the temperatures hovered at 14 degrees above zero and sleet accumulated beyond an inch thick, the white ground became black with birds.

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Hardworking wife finally ready to set out on her own

Dear Abby: I have been married to “Arthur” for 50 years. There have been many problems in our marriage, and we even separated a couple times. I had kids to raise and never enough money to break it off completely. Over the last 13 years, my husband has been so-called “unable to work” and on disability. I have worked to keep us afloat, while he eats and sleeps and has gained 100 pounds.

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