We used clear Lexan. I wanted flat plexiglass, but it's not strong enough and the wind splintered the test panel, so we had to go with the corrugated stuff. If your pergola has a lot of slats, the corrugation does not show much. Pros: It's nice to have a dry patio. The smokers go out there all year round and don't get wet. It lets in lots of natural light so that the house is not gloomy. Plants LOVE it- I call it my magical spot. Cons: It's loud in the rain if it's not well supported (mine's not). It's corrugated. It's hot in the summer because unless there's a breeze, it traps heat (we had to plant trees). It gets dirty if you don't have much of a roof slope and you have to hose it off. It sags if you don't have support more than every two feet (if you use it lengthwise). You have to make sure you build the support square, or your corrugations will go cattiwampus. Some build a solid roof for a few feet to keep water off the house and away from the sliding doors then leave the rest open with just slats. If my roof was not so low to begin with, I would have done that. Renee

Hi, I'm new here. I have been using the square foot gardening method for the most part the last two years. I started out with four 4'x4' raised beds just off the back patio, then the next year, four 3'x8' beds arranged along the back fence where there was more sun. However, like many of you here, between the rabbits and my son's Jack Russell Terrorist (I mean terrier lol) it was a mess. I tried wrapping 3' high rabbit wire around the beds but the bindweed and everything loved to climb it on the outside, and it was too tall for me to reach over, and not very convenient to remove. I found myself not weeding or harvesting as much because it was such a pain, and that was counterproductive. The next year I drove T posts in each corner and wrapped 2' rabbit fencing around each bed so the fencing started at the top of the raised bed. That solved the problem of weeds climbing up the fencing and made it much easier to trim around the beds, but I still had trouble reaching over. Finally, this year I decided to completely fence in a 12'x16'corner of my yard. I came up with a potager-style design with 2' wide beds all around the perimeter, and a 4'x8' bed in the center. There will be an entrance/gate at one end and a bench at the opposite end, and a walkway all the way around the center bed. The rabbit fencing wraps around the entire garden, supported by 2"x2"s in the corners of the outer raised beds. I'm going to hang cattle panels along the inside of my 6' privacy fence, which forms two sides of my potager, and use that for trellising. Eventually I would like to build an arch over the entrance and an arbor over the bench to provide even more trellising opportunities and make it look more attractive. Even though this new layout is not yet complete, it is already working SO much better! The dog can't get in at all, and neither can the rabbits. Once I get the gate installed, access will be easy and convenient. The bench is a nice place to sit with a glass of iced tea and admire my accomplishments lol! I wish I had done this to start with. Here's a picture - its not finished yet, and the gate is not installed yet, but it will give you some idea. I am still using the square foot gardening method, its just in a different configuration. Shelley Here is a link that might be useful:

i've become a bit of a home expert in windows as of late since we are replacing old windows in our home, ourselves. if your windows are double or triple pane and you have argon gas between, you can not use the window film. our old windows & sliding doors have/had this mirror reflective film we put on (we're in orlando BTW). the mirror reflective film builds up heat between the panes and will cause them to either crack or cause a release of the argon gas by loosening seals from the high interior heat. my biggest window problem was the east side, masters bedroom, that as no tree cover and is in blazing central FL sun sun-up to sun-down. we just replaced those windows a few weekends ago and we installed pella vinyl, double paned, argon gas, tempered glass (less than 18" off floor) w/ a special sun glass for south facing windows (FL standard). their UV rating is 98%. those windows are cool to the touch :-0 but compared to the extreme darkening film, very very bright lol. i can't tell you how many times i reach for the light switch to turn off a light that is not on, it's just soooo much brighter :-) my problem w/ them is there is no longer privacy film that we have lived w/ for 10 yrs LOL ;-) DH just installed 1 cellular top down-bottom shade i picked up at bed, bath & beyond so that we can get light thru the top still but walk around in the a.m. brushing teeth in our underwear LOL. you might think about cellular shades, i couldn't find cheaper top-down/bottom-up room darkening shades but just single cell do a very nice job of filtering sun. ~ liz

Isn't Borneo considered partially South Pacific? Or is it in a different sea? It looks like it's between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. I'd like to go to the Great Barrier Reef also. I find the Caribbean expensive, but one of the reasons we went to Fiji instead of Tahiti is that hotels are about half the price. It's an 11 hour flight from L.A., and so that made it easy for me, but it would be far from the East Coast. I found Fiji to be completely enchanting, but it would be better to go during the peak season, I think. We went during cyclone season, but it did not rain that much while we were there and most of the days were sunny, but we were west of the main islands. I think if you've been to Bali and Malaysia that you don't need to go to Fiji, but I do think it's a wonderful place and it's definitely underdeveloped, considering the potential. One of the reasons for that is that it is rather remote. Most of the visitors are Australian. I wanted to go there because there are so many uninhabited islands and some of the islands only have very limited facilities. The island I really wanted to visit did not have electricity after midnight, and so that eliminated that one for me. I guess a swim cap is the same thing as a bathing cap, although bathing cap sounds more glamorous. Swim caps are worn mostly by competitive swimmers, but they would protect your scalp from sunburn. I'm planning on getting one or two anyway. I have a wetsuit cap, but that is very thick and is meant to keep my head warm. Cozumel has an airport, but I don't think it has as many flights as it used to, as people now fly to Cancun instead. I used to take that ferry from Playa del Carmen, but I also flew to/from Houston and New Orleans. Here are some more pictures from Fiji:This shows the resort where we stayed. Beach where we snorkeled. Sandbar that we visited by boat, seen in the background. Sunset photo with Samoan flying fox in the photo. We saw a lot of these at every sunset from our balcony and my brother got some good videos of them.