If you google vermicomposting and kids you can get all kinds of ideas. The food idea sounds do-able in 3 weeks and taking pictures is a great idea. Some other food ideas: In one container put fresh chunks of food, in another food that's been frozen and thawed, in another food that has been liquified in a blender, in another cut up food that's about a week old . Which do they start eating sooner? There's a study on why worms seem to gather together. They thought maybe they left a trail (as ants do) and the other worms would follow. In the experiment, they had a central area with 2 choices of ways to go to food. They put one worm in the central area to see where it went. They then added other worms. They didn't necessarily go where the first one did (therefore, they concluded that they weren't leaving a trail). When they put a number of worms in together, they tended to all go to the same place. Their conclusion was that they just have a herd mentality and tend to follow other worms. Wouldn't hurt to try it out yourself. Some of the foods they don't like are citrus, onions, garlic. They love melon. Freeze a slice and thaw (so that you're killing the fruit flies--I didn't freeze mine the first time and I was really sorry).

In your post you state "There are still questions about when the builder will start building". Based on my personal experience I can tell you that if building has not started yet it could be unrealistic to expect a 6 month turnaround. I contracted to build a new home in June 2006. At the time the expectation was that the home would be complete by the end of 1Q07. I had a home to sell, and the contract was non-contingent. A building permit was not issued until March 2007 due to various challenges with site development. That June, with the home fully framed out, I paid 1% for a 150 day lock with floatdown option. (If you remember, rates were spiking very hard that month). The 150 days came and went, and the home was not complete-I was unable to close on it. We ended up having to walk away from the deal. That turned out to be the best decision we ever made and the neighborhood has basically gone under with only 2 homes occupied by owners and a dozen others in various states of non-completion. We had NO reason to think that the tide would turn-the builder appeared to have deep pockets, having completed a very high end recreation facility in the community before any closings had taken place. I was fortunate that the lender was able to use the 1% towards closing costs on the home we bought instead. If I had it to do over again I would have taken my chances with rate, and I think that in the current environment rates will likely stay very much in their current range as a worst case scenario. There is simply too much downward pressure on rates as a result of the markets.

Vee, until I went to live in England, I had never heard of, much less eaten, most of the fish you listed, with the exception of cod. Iowa is about as far from any sea as one could get in North America, so when Iowans had fresh fish when I was a kid it was freshwater kinds caught in local lakes and rivers. Otherwise, we had to depend on either canned fish/seafood or frozen kinds, such as cod. My Norwegian great-grandmother carried on the tradition of preparing lutefisk from dried cod (or some other whitefish). It was soaked for days in several changes of water to remove the salt, and then soaked in a lye solution for a couple of days, and finally soaked again in water to remove the lye. Only then was it cooked, either steamed or fried. Most of her descendants were less enamored with lutefisk than she was (it stank to high heaven and had a gelatinous texture that most disliked). Still, we ate it, mostly not to hurt her feelings and secondly just to carry on the tradition. I've had lutefisk prepared by other cooks, including Norwegians on a seismic vessel in the Chukchi Sea, that tasted better than great-grandmother's, so perhaps she wasn't very good at making lutefisk, which is not surprising because she wasn't known for good cooking of any sort. Fridays were 'fish days' in our school cafeteria, too; I guess in respect of Catholic students. You will probably laugh at what we were served: frozen breaded fish sticks, served with ketchup or tartar sauce and, for some reason, macaroni and cheese; tuna-noodle casserole with crushed potato chips (crisps) as topping; tuna salad sandwiches or pimiento cheese as alternative for those who couldn't stomach the tuna; and 'fishburgers', breaded fillets on hamburger buns, dressed with lettuce, mayonnaise and sweet gherkin relish. Garrison Keillor in his Prairie Home Companion radio show poked fun at the ubiquity of tuna-noodle casserole in the American Midwest. A 'fish dinner' that my family particularly liked was our mother's fried salmon patties or croquettes, always served with 'English peas' and potato chunks creamed together in one of those white sauces you referred to. I recall mama's white roux being very tasty but I know what you mean about the insipid ones and all those overcooked vegetables (not mama's). Another thing about the canned salmon that mama used to make her patties: My brothers and I thought it was disgusting because it was canned with the skin and bones included. Mama had us pick out those things. One day my brother decided to taste a bone and talked me into trying one, too. From that day we were dedicated salmon pickers and bone eaters, because the canning process had rendered the bones soft enough to chew with a very pleasant crunchiness. I'm sure other people have known this for a long time, but it was a revelation to us. Since adulthood I have loved fish and seafood of all sorts.

Look at rugosa roses, rosa pomifera, and wild/species roses (dog rose) for hips for tea. I'm sure someone will be able to give you great advice about minis. Some of them stay small and some grow (as you note) to be big. As for spray roses, try looking for spray roses. You might also like polyantha roses if you like panicles of small blooms (and many of them are more fragrant than roses grown for the cut flower industry).