We have some family locally, but they are not all that dependable. We will probably have to have someone come over once while gone to replenish food/water stock for our cats. (They are indoor/outdoor though and can "gather" their own food to some extent). We don't even ask them to collect the mail anymore because they leave it for several days and the PO gets mad. I've been putting in a gallon every other day now. Test strips this am (I know I know, it's what hubby picked up - Grrr - new reagents are on order) show "ideal" "stabilizer" in the 30-50 range, and FC "high" around 5+. Is the CYA realistic? I know we were running high at the end of the season bc we had used up some leftover pucks that had CYA in them. But I wasn't expecting any.