Today after a 9 hour workday I came home and joined my hubby and son in starting to fence across the backyard. My job was to check out the area and remove any poison ivy and rake back the pine straw along the proposed fence line. The fence will run between two rows of white pine, and the plan is to within the next two weeks run wire fence along the back and a more formal fence across the back yard and side yard to allow a bigger play yard for our 4 shelties. What my hubby didn't count on was how HARD the soil would be under those pines: absolutely dry clay soil. He poo-ed my idea of driving in the metal posts, watering the base, waiting 15 min, and then driving them again but once I got him to try it IT WORKED. Anyway, while Alan and Russ put in the posts I raked the fence line and took the pine straw to mulch the little crescent garden that is at the firepit/conversation area in the back corner of the backyard. I also picked asparagus and moved a bunch of rocks to stack along the pathways of my herb quilt. Then I took some little branches and lit a fire in the firepit. It was just a quick little blaze but a nice way to spend twilight before going inside. The fence will run along between the pines to the grape arbor, and then come across the back yard to the house.

Hi Penny - I'm still following this post. My subrotundra that looked different from the others looked exactly like a coccinea. I think it was just a seed that snuck in. I didn't bring in any of my salvias. I intended to. I had some that were very small that I grew from seed and I was going to pot them up but got busy with other things (had to do some remodeling after a kitchen fire). I'm crossing my fingers that most of my zone-iffy salvias will return. We haven't gotten down to zero yet this winter but the last month or so, it's been pretty soggy. : ( Only one of my false yucca seeds germinated last year but it never grew any true leaves for some reason and finally died. John R. - the yellow greggi I saw was butter colored, not bright yellow but not off-white so I guess it just depends on whether you like that color. I don't care for bright yellow so I thought it was kinda pretty. The best greggi's for me are the ones that come back after winter. lol I'll be kicking myself if my salvias don't come back. I saved some seeds (greggi, guaranitica and darcyi) but they got exposed to a lot of heat when we had our fire then were stored in my shed until January. I put them in there because the bag they were in was so smoky then I forgot where they were. I'm going to try to plant some anyway just in case.

My husband and I rented an old house on the river on Lady's Island, SC, one year while we were waiting for our house to be built. The house was in a well established subdivision of homes built in the 80's, yet this house was over 100 years old, and stood out because of it's older, Victorian farmhouse style architecture. It had three levels, that included a walkout basement, which is very rare in a coastal area where the properties are so close to sea level. The story behind the house was that it had originally been owned by a woman, who after a huge dispute with her neighbors in downtown Beaufort, had the house moved by barge across the river to Lady's Island onto property she had inherited from her father. There was no bridge to the island in those days, and she used to row herself across the river into town for provisions each week. The first paranormal experience happened to DH, who was out in the yard mowing one afternoon. Our kids were at school and I was at work, and the entire neighborhood was quiet when he suddenly heard this strange, lilting music coming from the house. He went inside, expecting to find a radio on, or that one of the kids had come home from school without his knowledge and turned on a tape player. As he climbed the stairs from the basement to the living floor, the music stopped and he never could find the source of where it came from. The house was empty, and the kids didn't get off the bus until hours later. He told all of us about it, but none of us had a clue as to what it could have been. A month or so later, my daughter took her 8-track tape player to her girl friends house for a weekend sleepover. The girls turned on the tape player and heard this strange lilting music, something like they had never heard before, coming from the tape player. My daughter remembered what DH had told her about the music he heard, and called us immediately and played the tape over the phone for him to hear. It was the same music he'd heard that day previously in the yard, and was a tune none of us recognized. He told DD to bring the tape home with her the following day so we could all listen to it and try to figure out the mystery, and she agreed to do so. When she returned the next day and we sat down to listen to it, the tape was blank - and she swore that she hadn't erased it, she was as disappointed as we were that it was empty. The next occurrence in that house was also with DH. We had a group of friends over to the house one night for a cook-out, and the upstairs bathroom was occupied when DH needed to use it. He went downstairs into the basement where there was a tiny half bath installed. As he stood in front of the toilet peeing, he felt a tap-tap on his shoulder, as though someone was trying to get his attention. He said, "just a sec and I'll be finished", and turned his head, expecting to see someone waiting to use the room, yet no one was there. He immediately turned around and walked through all the basement rooms, and there was no one around, anywhere. We later heard from our neighbors that the house was haunted and previous renters had also witnessed strange occurrences while living there. One woman had been setting up the dining table for a birthday party for her daughter, when one of the balloons she'd blown up and attached a string to suddenly began moving about the room on it's own accord, as though it were held by someone walking around the room. It was an airless day and all the windows were closed, and she claims the string wasn't vertical, but angled as though someone was running with it. As she stood there, three other balloons were invisibly grabbed up and then they all went floating, as though they were being held by someone, up the stairs to the bedroom level. That family apparently had so many other bizarre happenings in that house that they got spooked and moved out. That's why it was available for us when we needed a quick short term rental. We never felt threatened or in fear about our "ghost", just figured it was the old woman's energy still there for some reason, and we always wished we could have found out more, but we moved out soon afterward to get into our new home.

@WoW Washington That makes sense. I went to your website and couldn't find a list of brands you sell. I'm looking for aluminum framed sliding windows with narrow sightlines. I'm aware of the uber luxury windows by Vitrocsa, Styline, and Skyframe, and their frames are about 1" thick. Gorgeous. But of course, the prices are as much as my entire home cost. I'm wondering if there's a narrow frame out there, maybe 2" thick, from a more economical standpoint. Milgard and Andersen are thicker than that. What brands do you sell on your site that have the narrowest frames, could you share? It's funny because I live in a old, modest beach house in Florida that JUST SO HAPPENS to have come with super narrow 1.5" frames. Even on my 6' x 5' sliding window. The frame is just 1.5" thick. Love it! But the company went out of buisness.