@stormy and @Bamboo. I can't chat cuz sweet hubby just got home, so I apologize for leaving a note without being here to respond, but since you're discussing voting, I'm going to say something. I'll check in tomorrow so I promise I won't ignore your responses. Bamboo, I know my friend stormy values brutal honesty, so I hope the same is true for you! By the current count, at least 7,000 people have upvoted you, and you've given out less than 400 upvotes. That doesn't seem fair to me.

You're usually the first to answer, and practically always right, so your help is invaluable to the site and all its users. We'd probably implode without you, or of course stormy too. I ask you please to consider voting more. It's another way of helping people, and one of the most important in our system. I love you and have gotten much of my knowledge from you. You have every right to feel hurt by an unfair downvote, so that's not my point. I just ask you please please to vote!

CORRECTION!!!!!!! Bamboo, you've given out just over 440 votes. I'm sorry I underestimated!

Thank you ladies for letting me express myself!

@Sue Sue, don't worry about Bamboo and brutal honesty. She invented brutal honesty!! Hate to jump in and talk for Bamboo...but to get down votes and not know why especially when she knows she is right, but to get downvoted will always make gardeners insecure and curious as to where we went wrong. I am not talking for anyone else but my presence is not only altruistic, I want feedback. I want to test my knowledge. I don't want weak spots in my knowledge. This is my big motivation...

@Sue Seriously, I smell 'trolls' and that is just not fair. Bamboo is sharing her hard won knowledge and to be voted down is laughable.

@stormy That is also a good ending to that story. I remember mom and dad saying when they got there 2-cycle trimmer 15 years ago the bump feed never would work. So there must have been improvement because I have no trouble with mine. But I am sure cheap ones are still going to be crap. BTW my sister left the tomatoes, onion, pepper, and one other veg. in the house and now there leaves dropped. They just need some water right?

I will be upset if they die. I was doing some work around the farm and all she had to do was that. Siblings some times :'(

@Sue I am not sure I read your advice to Bamboo correctly. Is Bamboo not voting enough and getting in trouble for that? For real? She is too precious on this site to ask her to produce any more. Her focus is answering correctly and not on giving votes. I am so bad, Sue. I really gotta go read the rules. I have a problem...

@stormy What question are you talking about?

@Ljk2000 Just love candid talk! Siblings can be a nightmare for life...

@Ljk2000 With Sue and Bamboo? I'm just supporting Bamboo and Sue at the same time. I have been whining about processing new questioners on this site to help them ask questions...later on this one ljk!

@stormy Ya there have been times when they could help me. I cut myself by accident in the kitchen, down deep and my littlest sister ran crying instead of getting help. I was trying to stop the bleeding. Also what about the plants? Worried about them. Okay I thought there was a fight and I was like "WTF do people need to be doing that on this site. Ever heard of Facebook or other media"? But never mind then.

@Ljk2000 I can't remember...did your sister take the tomatoes, onions ad peppers in the house from being outside?

Yes because they were not used to the sun. It was the next day when she forgot but I never went behind the house to make sure they were outside for the night (we take in the morning, there used to night). And it wasn't until today that I found they were still in the house, so 2-1/2 days?

@Ljk2000 I am pretty impressed with you! I've had a few bleedy boo boos and boy do you find out right quick who one can depend upon!

laughing kinda hard Yup got to know who to trust when nearly half you finger is off. It was embarrassing because I just wanted to cut a watermelon, then there was a soft spot. New better not to have the knife above you hand but when I was trying so hard I forgot. Stuff happens I guess. Another thing with the plants I did water them but I am leaving them outside. Think I should bring them in?

...poo...they just got wigged out. I've been sending out this article on plants that is all about their 'intelligence'. How we have to gall to judge intelligence based on humans is...ugh.

Did you finish that watermelon?

I enjoyed every-last-bit of that watermelon.

What did you mean on ...poo...they just got.... Confused there.

I went out to go find this bit of information and even though half was over my head this put plants into a new dimension for me...anyhoo. This is about plants and their 'clocks'http://www.plantcell.org/content/18/4/792.full

Thought you might be amazed.

Okay will read it. Trying to do a few bits of research at once. Thank you for the help like that. Looking at it now...

What a resource. I will be a expert by the time I am done reading that. Thanks!

I am a bit in la la land in the evenings, bear with me. I mean I was waving my left index finger tip around cut almost off below the nail. My guys were fainting all around me sigh. Had to drive them home myself. Grins. The more you learn the more you see you don't know. That is a true gardener, hell, a self thinker...you are there.

It helps being a master gardener I guess. Well a jr mG (only 17 :) ). I like to et the opinion from multiply people so I can piece together what works the best. Like for the plants, there dried up a bit but some water and being back outside should help. I have been cut so much. There are people I know who take off work to 'recover from the injury'. What was the injury? A decent deep cut but it will not hold me back.

After a night like that with those guys I am sure they will never call you a 'chicken'. lol

Well, stormy nice talking again. I will keep you in mind for people to ask a good question to. And if you have one let me know, I might know a little more than some may think. Have to go to bed for work @4:00 in the morning. Have a good night!

@Sue well first, let me tell you we have had a suicide in my family, so I'm in the midst of making funeral arrangements and clearing up his estate and dealing with the police

@Sue next, let me say I have read what you said and you seem to be drawing some sort of correlation between how many votes I've been given and how many I've dished out - these are entirely unrelated things, unless you're suggesting I should willy nilly spray votes around to redress some sort of balance.

@Sue I vote on questions I consider interesting or which bring up something that is particularly useful to others; I vote on clear, informed answers which provide accurate information, although I will admit occasionally I forget to vote

@Sue Are you suggesting, then, that because I get lots of votes, I somehow 'owe' these votes to other people, whatever the quality of the question or answer?

@Sue - As I understand it, the voting system is designed to show approval of a question or answer, for whatever reason; if lots of people approve of my answers, well that's great and its good to know the answers are useful, but I was not aware it meant I'm obliged to vote on things I consider below average, run of the mill, poor quality or answered poorly,; I;m employing my own opinion when I vote, after all

not yours or anyone else's - if other people consider an answer or question worthy of a vote, I don't take exception to it, even if I think the answer is completely wrong, do I?

@Sue its probably also fair to assume that the standards I require for voting are higher, I'll accept that criticism, but that's hardly surprising, if the quality of answers I give is good, then I expect other answers to come up to that standard or surpass it - do you consider that point of view unreasonable?

@Sue it may be that, after you respond, I do not have time to get back to you straight away, given what's going on here, but I will be interested to hear what you say in response and will respond to it myself at some point

@Bamboo Bamboo, oh my goodness I'm so very sorry about the death in your family, especially suicide. I'll be praying for you, if that's okay. It's what I do, but when you come back, please feel free to tell me if that offends you in any way. I greatly appreciate the time you've taken to answer me, especially in the current circumstances. I don't want to answer now. It's the last thing you need. When you come back and are in the mood, just ping me and I'll clarify my position.

Obviously, I invite you to refute it. That's what opinions are for!

I love you and hope for all strength at this incredibly difficult time.

By the way, I didn't downvote that identification question. It seems you and @stormy have an idea of who has a personal vendetta. I don't know, or want to know, who that is, I just want to assure you it isn't me.

I'll just say one quick thing in case you're concerned, which you probably aren't at the moment. I don't think anyone owes anyone anything, including you.

@stormy Hi! Thanks for responding to me. You did misunderstand something, so I want to clarify. I'm not suggesting in the least that anyone could, or should, get in trouble for how they decide to vote.

@stormy If you read the words that come up when you put your cursor over the voting arrows, the upvote says: "This question shows research effort: it is useful and clear." The downvote arrow says: "This question doesn't show any research effort: it is unclear or not useful."

I don't feel right talking about Bamboo behind her back. I'll just keep this conversation between you and me, and of course anyone in the room who feels like reading it!

This page from the Help Center explains the voting system, if you want more depth.

I need to confess, looking at this page just taught me something, and I need to apologize to you.

@stormy It makes perfect sense not to vote for a question that doesn't seem to meet those criteria.

We each have a different interpretation of that criteria.

Editing is a good way to help people, especially new people. It's considered important to the system. This is explained on this page of the help center. gardening.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/edit: "Any time you feel you can make the post better, and are inclined to do so. Editing is encouraged!"

From the same page: "We believe in the power of community editing."

@stormy That's why we do a lot of editing here (I'm not patting myself on the back, I promise!). It can help teach people what the site standards are, and help make the questions more "voteable" for some people.

Anyway, I totally apologize to you and Bamboo for passing judgment on the choice of criteria.

The reputation rules can be rough, like you have to earn a certain amount before you can post pictures or comment.

You have to have 15 rep to even upvote on other people's questions and answers, other than answers to your own? So a new user can't even vote and improve the quality of the site until they have 3 upvotes on their question.

They can't even comment around the network until 50 rep, which is 10 upvotes if it's a question, and 5 upvotes if it's an answer.

I didn't even realize people can't downvote on posts other than their own until 125 rep. I don't make the rules, but this is probably so people won't run around downvoting willy nilly, and makes good sense.

All of this information is listed on the privileges page in the Help Center. gardening.stackexchange.com/help/privileges...

@stormy I think this is why I don't like to hold users to a crazy high standard, because if we don't vote, they won't spend enough time to learn the system and how to write better questions.

I have a lot of questions I don't ask because I fear they don't live up to the standards of the veteran users like you. I know you don't want me to feel this way, so I'm not blaming you for that. Trying to please all people all the time is a problem of mine, and I'm trying to get over it!

Okay, that's all for now. I'm sorry if I overwhelmed you.

I want to make it abundantly clear over and over that you and Bamboo and @Stephie, @Shule, @J.Musser, @NiallC., @kevinsky and everyone else keep the site quality high.

@sormy, I forgot to say I think the fast answers people get are really encouraging, even without the votes. It shows immediate love and care, and make people want to stay here. I look at other sites on the network and they don't even have any answers, so because of you guys, we're a site with extremely high quality, reliable information! I apologize deeply for not putting the emphasis where it belongs. I need to learn to be more humble!

Ooops, I spelled your name wrong stormy, but it was too late to edit that comment! I love you and thank you so much for everything!

@Sue - don't worry about the downvote - it wasn't you I suspected, but quite another individual,and if it was him , it was for ego reasons. NOthing wrong with being downvoted for the answer, that's happened to me too, but that

@Bamboo oh my! What horrible news! We're here if you need support or simply a virtual <hug>. And of course this can also be moved to a non-public chat.

@Sue Don't be so hard on yourself, Sue. The only person you are accountable to is yourself. Please yourself and expect others to take criticism like mature adults. This is a team of adults with truly great knowledge. Bouncing around on other sites I've seen as you have our site is the best. Pretty amazing I do say so myself When others edit answers they read the answer closely and pick up a lot of information and ask questions and editing is so important.

@Bamboo Good evening Bamboo! Is it evening for you?

@Sue sorry, messed up there - trying to say nothing wrong with being downvoted for a poor or incorrect answer, and I have been on occasion, but those are the only reasons downvotes should be made.

@Stephie and Sue thanks for your commiserations. Yes its absolutely dreadful, wht

@Stephie Hi Stephie! You've been missing the drama? I am amazed that we have so little drama on this site. It could be far worse!

@stormy what drama?

'@Stephie what'sw happened is truly awful, its my ex husband, who might as well still have been my husband, he was here all the time, we just didn't live together. It's a really horrible time, funeral's next week.

@Stephie Bamboo, our Bamboo got downvoted for a perfect answer.

@Sue - thanks for your kind words too... its hard to tell people because they're always so shocked. what's even worse is the way he did it, we're all still in shock in the family.

Oh...yeah, I didn't know you were talking about her ex husband who wasn't like a normal ex husband to her. Oh oh...

@stormy now now, that's not strictly true is it... my answer was a close guess, you'd made an ID too, both of us were wrong, but only I got downvoted...and yes, its early evening here now. Went gardening today, just to something normal

my days have been full of weeping, dealing with his Estate, writing to everyone, and arranging the funeral. Nearly there now, but I'm absolutely dreading it...

@Bamboo Welp ummm, I missed that part Bamboo, oh poo. How did it happen if you don't mind telling...or don't. I can't imagine what you are going through. My hubby almost died in January from a heart attack but he made it...whew!

@stormy - he threw himself under a tube train, dear god...

Oh no!

@Bamboo NOOOOOOOO! Oh good grief! For god sakes, how horrible for those he left behind, I mean really. Shame on him. Takes my breath away...

@Stephie I'm afraid so; the nightmare thing is, he had a crucifix and a healing stone with him - the stone was sodalite, which is for courage, its heartbreaking...

@Stephie but he had a mental health problem all his life, was bi polar, and I've now discovered he had coronary heart disease, his coronary artery was 95% blocked. No wonder he felt so awful...

@Bamboo that is so hard for those left behind. Any sudden death is, but like this? So sad!

@stormy no, no shame on him -he carried the cross of that bloody mental illness all his life, it was a curse, and he just couldn

@Bamboo Oh for pete's sake...he must have been literally at his wits end. Were you able to detect this completely despondent mood? I'll bet not...was he on antidepressants?

couidn't bear the weight of it any more

@Bamboo poor, poor man.

@stormy no, on antipsychotics, always had been, for 40 years. You can't give a bi polar person anti depressants, they go high if you do

@stormy he started to have vaarious health problems which he blamed on his drugs - turns out most of them would likely be down to having that blocked artery to his heart. Bloody nhs, I tried to get him an angiogram last year

@Bamboo I think you told me a bit about that long ago. Oh man. Well, he is out of pain now. I know nothing about antipsychotics, lucky for me I guess. Geees, I am so sorry Bamboo. Are you the one doing all the funeral arrangements?

And it's so hard whenever another wave hits. And the family just helpless. I know what you must have gone through, @Bamboo.

@stormy yep - has a largre family, lots of brothers and sisters, but I've done most of it cos I knew him best.

did he have insurance?

@Stephie helpless, absolutely, we all knew he'd go into the mental hospital every couple of years...

To help cover the costs?

@stormy our health system's not like yours - he didn't have private health insurance, no, just the NHS, but I offered to pay for a private angiogram - he wouldn't, thought I was making too much fuss, you knoiw what men are like

@stormy he should have told the doctor he was having chest pains, they'd have sent him then. I'd be surprised if he wasn't having chest pain occasionally, to be honest,, he probably thought it was indigestion, hopeless abouthealth, he was

Well that was smart. My dad left intestate. No will at all and he had 3 months to get his affairs in order. Sigh. Yup, men are a very different animal.

@stormy my ex died intestate too - but he had so little money left, he'd given a fair lump to my eldest son 3 months ago; no one cared and the bank just passed it to my youngest son, no property, stocks, shares or anything else

so his estate is more or less sorted, just a few little bills to tidy up. All that life, and it ends up at the recycling centre....or in a cardboard box

huh, my hubby had absolutely no signs at all. He was working hard physically every day using teeeeny tiny arteries to get blood pumped. He just started throwing up violently. I made him talk to me in between these horrible loud bleh...when he said 'the pressure' I flew into action. He wanted to just lie down for a bit, I said screw that! Unfortunately he had cancelled our phones the week before!

@stormy I wish my ex had had a heart attack - he might have survived with treatment, and felt so much better afterwards, but I'll never know now.

I actually spoke to him at 730 that evening - he went and did it at 8pm, having said he'd call me back.

That is the part about getting old and dying. Pisses me off. All that life, that work and then you die. I wish someone could have told me that life was so unfair and that one day I'd be 'over the hill'...would I have listened?

No, you know you wouldn't have done!

and we're all going to die, however long it takes

Its the bit before you die I don'

don't like - all this hanging about with everything hurting and bits not working

AAWWWW, no!! Are you dealing with guilt? I know you are so level headed but that must eat at you.

@stormy no, I'm not dealing with guilt, I don't really do guilt, unlike my ex, who made it an art form. I do feel guilt at times, but the point of guilt is to make you redress the balance, or not behave that way again, not something wear as ahair shirt for the rest of your life

Exactly, hanging around watching ourselves becoming invisible. Hearing doors slamming behind us for good.

@stormy - yea my stepsister told me this morning she'd sent a facebook message to a relative who was complaining about turning 35 - she described herself as 'decomposing as we speak' she

shes in her sixties, made me laugh out loud

Excellent way to think, Bamboo. After all our feelings are always preceded by thoughts. I knew you'd probably be this 'level' headed...

@stormy - haven't done a lot of laughing lately, so it was good to laugh on the phone with her about that

@stormy that's mostly true, but not always - I think there's an exception - when you see a ten ton truck bearing down on you, you don't think, you just jump or run, no thought there, just the amygdala initiating fight or flight response

I go through this as well with these youngsters! I had my baby sister and my mom drive up from Texas for a visit. My sister is 5 years younger my mom 20 years younger. My mom looks better than I do!! My sister is gorgeous. I kept playing with her as yet to go gray dark hair and marveling at their skin...grins. To see I have to get right up close....

@stormy I was a bit horrified a few weeks back when I met up with a Canadian relative, 34, 2 kids, pregnant, whom I

That is action not feeling. I do have a great adrenal gland! I am used to time actually slowing way down and getting squished by my horse falling on top of me is actually peaceful. I know I am weird...

I hadn't seen for 12 years - she says I don't look any different, and all I can think is, dear oh lord, please don't tell me I looked as bad as this then...

...no...that was a good one, Bamboo. Now I am laughing! Hey I used to always look 20 years younger now I look 20 years older. Sigh. Did I tell you about the time I actually died and my out of body experience?

@stormy yes, you did... my mother always looked younger, right up till she was in her sixties, and I'm the same...

Im signing off now, got some emails to send...

Take care, Bamboo...