New here, but still can't resist showing off a bit. :) As I said in another posting, I've recently decided to shift from "owning a few houseplants" to "raising more houseplants than I really have room for." I've tripled or quadrupled the number of plants I own over the past few months, and most of 'em are quite small... But I'm still quite pleased with some of the "original inspirations". Starting off with my English Ivy. I killed two or three of these before I figured out the water and light needs. This one really took off, though! Now if I can just figure out if it's "Thorndale" or "Baltica"... My Aloe vera. It's been in the same soil for at least five years, so I should really re-pot it, maybe even pot it up... But I'm afraid I'll break the stem if I try, which would be such a shame... The pot I bought this one in was labeled "Variegated English Ivy". Recently realized that, no, it's Senecio macroglossus. I think, anyway. :) For years, I kept this next plant 4-5 feet away from west-facing or south-facing windows, and always assumed it was a heart-leaf philodendron, since the leaves always came in a matte green. Then I recently potted it up and moved it to a position a foot away from a south-facing window... And suddenly several leaves turned variegated, and new foliage started coming in bright, glossy, mottled green! Whoops, it's Pothos. Which meant, of course, that when I spotted a heart-leaf philodendron for $3 at Home Depot, I had to buy it. :) I'm going to trim it way back and give it a moss pole to climb, to see how bright it'll get now... I've only had this variegated spider plant for a couple of weeks, but it's too cute not to share, especially the tiny little variegated pup. -Corey

As fate would have it, I discovered this forum while looking for a part for my 2006 Cub Cadet LT1045 lawn tractor. I didn't read all of the responses and can only speak from personal experience, but my 1045 is far from a lemon. In 8 years, I've used it weekly to cut my half acre yard during grass growing season in the southeast. For those outside of this area, that would be about 8 months out of the year. I also used it to maintain another half acre lot for 2 seasons, cut my dad's half acre yard 2 seasons and my daughter's quarter acre lot for one season. I've done all of the servicing on it myself and haven't been very consistent with that, changing the oil and filter only 2 times since I bought it. The spark plugs have been replaced once and that was last year and the air filter was replaced for the first time when the plugs were replaced. I've replaced the blades pretty much every year and the deck belt about every two years. I believe I'm on my third battery. With that said, the only non maintenance repairs I have made is replacing one of the shaft/bearing assemblies on the cutting deck, replaced the mulch plug, and as of now I'm about to replace the stator. This tractor resides under my back deck, uncovered at all times when I'm not using it. Because of that, I need a new seat. It's the best investment in lawn care equipment I ever made.

I take my hat off to the regulars here. This is one of the best sites for user input, and the Garden Tractor topic is one we all enjoy discussing. I've been doing this since EXEC-PC in the mid 1980s. Things have changed over the years, and people have changed. With access to the internet available to more people, it has become less personal for all of us. I myself spend less time on a computer every year, and more time out side. I'm not sure why?

We were in the same boat. I work for a commercial contractor as a PM so have experience but not really with residential work and I really didn't have the time. We are adding approx 3,200 sf onto our existing home (while we are living in it) We designed our home ourselves and paid an engineer to design the roof beams since we were over the allowed length without a PE stamp. We wanted to have someone manage the entire project for us - we got pricing from (2) GC's to do the whole package and the cost was WAY over our budget. So we thought we would just pay someone to manage getting it under roof and dried in that to was a LOT of money (+/-) $50g. So being the price conscious people we are we decided to GC ourselves. We are currently dried in all windows and shingles installed and starting interior rough in's. It has been very time consuming and we have did some things wrong - but we saved a ton of money ans feel that it was WELL worth it. I would recommend maybe tying to hire a retired superintendent or paying someone for a couple hours of consulting on an as needed basis. If you don't know anyone you may try to local ABC - Associated Building Contractors association - they may be able to point you in the right direction. Also, if you hire good subs that will make things go a lot smoother. My one suggestion (lesson learned) would be have everything decided upon before you start. We started footings the first weekend of November - so have gotten a long ways in 2 months but now are at a lull with roughin's until we finalize the mechanical units we want, and finalize the lighting / power plan, and all plumbing fixtures are selected. We had ideas on all of these items but hadn't pinned down and made 100% decisions on anything and now it is impacting the schedule. We will probably loose 1 to 2 weeks of rough in time because we were not ready. But you will have that. All in all the months of headache will translate into added equity when your home is complete. (at least that is what we keep telling ourselves...Hope to post some pics on my page soon of our "baby...")