Well we got pounded up to 24 inches and then it drifted to 3 feet in areas. Hubby shovled the driveway on sat and I did 2 360's on the way to the barn. Spent sat making sure every one had food and water cause was not sure when could get back to them. Hubby thought what a great day to do xmas shopping, he did his lol all by him self and honest did a great job, no one else was out with 4 wheel drive it seems and those like me did a slide decided not to venture out again. Funny on 12/15 did my last sowing of the pasture grass here in south NJ 5 lbs of perennial rye. I bought alot of seeds at the seed store( think where the farmers go to get seeds). Been saveing up kitty litter jugs for my tomato seeds this year and a few lettuce for the peeps and my self. On thursday it was like 30 degrees here at 4 pm and heard a sound would not like to hear a week before xmas. PEEPS, my little bany hen hatched out 9 chicks. So nabbed up the mom and put them in the kitchen at the farm house to stay warm. She loves her little ones and since her first hatch was 4 ducklings this summer figured she needed her little ones. Going to be a long winter and need to grow them some lettuce. Thank goodness for this forum and winter sowing. ML

Eshore - I have planted a mixed shrub row along our sunny property line also. It's sort of L-shaped since it goes part way across the back also. I used mostly gray dogwoods, and viburnum trilobum, arrowwood and blackhaw viburnums. There's also a variegated red twig dogwood, oakleaf hydrangea, ninebark 'Diablo', purple-leaf sandcherry, serviceberry, American holly, Chinese dogwood, a crabapple, viburnum 'Shasta' and an arctic blue willow. I planted a few smaller shrubs on each side. Some of those are getting crowded out. There are a couple weigela 'Wine and Roses' and a hydrangea 'Annabelle', clethra, two Deutzia 'Nikko', aronia 'Brilliantissima', mahonia, and dwarf nandina. I may be forgetting some. I was hoping that by adding some variegated and purple leaves, it would look less like a place we forgot to mow to the neighbors. I've also been planting perennials and annuals on each side of it for color. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. It sounds like a lot when I write it all down. lol I was on a limited budget also and was able to get some of the shrubs at low cost through our state department of conservation to help me get started and have gotten many things through trades. Be sure to check with your state conservation department, forestry division, or department of natural resources to see if you can order low-cost seedlings. When I first planted my shrubs, I put down several layers of newspaper and then mulch on top of that to keep the weeds out. I mulched the entire length of the shrub row so I wouldn't have to mow in between the new shrubs. I had gotten a free dump truck load of mulch from a tree trimming company so it didn't cost me anything but was very time consuming to spread it all out. It needs to be mulched again. When looking for information on the internet, using the word "hedge" or "hedgerow" may bring up stuff about uniformly clipped single species hedges where the words "shrub row" would be a more natural unclipped look. You can try using "mixed shrub border" or "mixed shrub row" as search words also. How far apart are you spacing your shrubs? That's something I struggled with and still not sure what I would do if I had to start over. It seems some shrubs have gotten bigger than I expected them to and others aren't growing very fast. The gray dogwoods don't need to be pruned. They will get thicker on their own. I don't have any experience with winterberry.

Pam, You're welcome. I would be in hog heaven with all the organic matter rolling in....although maybe by the 3rd time in six months, hog heaven might not be as appealing as it once was. Could Pete take the tractor and pile up all that new mulchy stuff in long rows 2 or 3 feet tall? I suppose you'd have to let them sit a while so the salt water could leach out? Then you could pile soil on top of them, or compost, or mulch, or all three...and you'd have instant hugelkultur beds that might be available for planting for fall 2013 or spring 2014. If you build them tall enough, even after they break down, they'd be elevated enough to keep whatever is planted in them above the next storm surge line perhaps. I am cautious with above-ground hugelkutlur beds here because the copperheads and rattlers like to hide in them, but sometimes I build them below ground with only dirt on top above the grade level.. Sometimes I put them in eroded areas and just keep piling on composty stuff on top of them until eventually native plants pop up out of nowhere and I know the eroded gullies have healed. I just hate thinking of all that free mulch type material not being used. I worked in the garden all day, except I did come inside to eat lunch, and I am worn out. I bet the Mantis cultivator is more tired than I am though. It can rain all it wants tomorrow, because my work is done and my beds are ready for planting. I only uncovered one toad, as far as I know, and he wasn't hit by the tiller itself....he just kind of popped up in a raised bed when I was cultivating the soil nearby. As for Pruden's Purple? Absolutely add it! Ours were so superb last year that it made me wonder I don't plant that variety every year. Of course, I feel that way about any and every tomato that makes a return engagement to my garden after being absent for a year or two. I start asking why I ever dropped it to begin with. The answer always is the same---a lack of space. With the kind of late winter/early spring your part of the country has been having with one storm system after another rolling across the continental US headed your way, I think starting your tomatoes "late" was genius! Even if it was accidental genius. It is likely that by the time the weather calms down and your soil is dry enough for planting, your plants will be the perfect size. Sometimes I fret and worry about plants not being started on time, but it always works out just fine...leading me to believe that things tend to work out they way they were meant to work out. I experience a lot of potato and onion-planting frustration almost every year. I don't care if it hasn't rained in 3 to 6 months, rain will arrive the very day my Dixondale order arrives. I always try to get onions in the ground as much on time as possible, but the rain seems determined every year to make me plant them 2 or 3 weeks later than I should. I just try not to stress over it. Mine just finally went into the ground last week and the ground was a little wet, but not too wet. Now I am hoping that this weekend's rain doesn't delay potato planting too much. I have some planted, some chitting and some still in their bags. I figured this weekend I would get all the rest out and chitting on the sunporch (but, lol, not in the sun) while it pours down rain outside. With any luck at all, the amount of rain we receive won't be too bad and I'll be able to plant potatoes Monday or Tuesday. I don't see any numbers on the Weather Prediction Center's (new name for HPC) QPF that makes me think we'll have so much rain that I won't be able to plant. The longer I have had to wait, the more my seed potato stash has grown. I already had two reds, two russets and Yukon Gold. This week I added All Red, All Blue and Purple Majesty, so that's a total of 8 potato varieties. If I delay planting much more, I'll just keep adding more varieties....as if buying more seed potatoes somehow makes up for the fact that I haven't been able to plant them this week. I learned a lesson last year. We had a really wet fall and winter here, and I knew a huge rainstorm was approaching and I rushed, rushed, rushed to plant onions and potatoes ahead of the storm, and then we had 6" of rain in the next couple of weeks which was too much on top of all the other rain we'd already had, and many of my potatoes and onions rotted before they could grow. So, this year, the onions are in a really well-raised bed that drains well, and the potatoes are going into the raised beds on the highest point of land we have....but not until this rainy weekend is past. Rushing to beat the rain last year was a mistake, and I won't do it again. If the choice comes down to planting either onions or potatoes first, I always choose onions because their maturity is governed by daylength, over which we have no control. Potatoes, on the other hand, often give just as high of a yield if planted "late" as if planted on time---it just depends on when the soil temps reach the range where tubers stop forming. I have looked at the long-range forecasts from NCEP until I am crosseyed for the last month. I keep wanting them to change from 'hotter than normal' to 'cooler than normal'. If only wishing would make it so! I also watch the ENSO forecasts like a hawk, and at this time of the year you know that I do not even know why! It isn't like we suddenly will have an El Nino begin developing at this time of the year! lol I am laughing at myself. This summer, if we luck out and the ENSO forecast starts predicting that an El Nino will develop next winter, then at least I'd know to do all my soil prep for 2014 in autumn and to build those beds high because a wet year is likely. Looking at the ENSO update regularly only makes me crazy this year (and last year...and the year before....) because it only indicates more of what we're already having. Because NCEP offers us so little hope on the long-term forecast, I am going to plant like crazy in March, and put everything into the ground as early as the soil temperatures allow. At this point, we shouldn't have any nights get so cold that I cannot cover up plants to protect them. I feel like it will be just as important to beat the heat this spring as it was last spring, even though March this year is cooler than March was last year. I have a feeling that March will stay cool until one day, just as if someone flipped a switch, it suddenly will be too hot. I hate it when we go from too cold to too hot in one day! Dawn

SE - I will definitely enjoy the garage and now I can enjoy the basement too, since we will store all our crap in the garage. coldnose - our home is 2025 sqft + about another 800 in walk-out basement. My experience with the panelized package is both good and only OK. Good - lumber was awesome awesome quality. Got the package from farwesthomes, who own their own mill. I have some large beams and posts. Walls went up fast and were square. We had a gable wall (31' peek) with picture windows that went up in a day, my carpenters said it would have taken them over a week to stick build. Lots of left over lumber from packaging (and miscommunication about walkout basement). Price was with-in 10K of other lumber yard quotes (Meeks, 84, Moss Lumber). Able to make custom plans, change their stock plans, use stock plans. The only OK - Still have to stick build floors. not huge deal. Had two miss cuts in posts where beams were to slide in. We fixed it fairly simple, but it took a few hours of head scratching. Had to get engineering separately and then have farwest build plans. Some miss communication between engineer and farwest. It would have been nice if they had an in-house engineer. I was/am not happy with my engineer. Roof rafters suck. Took a month to stick frame the roof. Mislead on difficulty of the whole thing. We were told it would be about 6 weeks to get the whole thing shelled-in. Perhaps with a crew of 10, it took us over double that with a crew of 3-4. No room for play. The walls come square, if your foundation is a little off, you cannot "fudge" the walls. Lay-out (16" on center) gets screwed up do to how the panels fit together. Not a huge deal, but slows you down during siding. All in all, i am happy with it. If I ever do this again, I may or may not use it again. Definitely not pissed or stoked about the whole thing. I am about due for more pictures. We just had a framing pre-inspection today (we were not ready with elect or fire sprinklers). She could not find one thing wrong and was really impressed. We are wrapping up elect on friday and sprinklers go in over the weekend. We will get framing, plumbing, elect inspection on monday. Insulation next week and then sheetrock end of next week and weekend. 12 hour days are getting old. I start summer school on monday. that should be fun.