sorry about your missing buddy.... but i think you made the right choice in selecting your new friend, by choosing the one that ran and jumped into your arms. you'll always be numero uno in her heart. our affenpinscher once wandered off when we were visiting a friend's home. i told my boyfriend that it probably wasn't a good idea to leave our dog off the leash. but my bf was certain that our dog would never wander too far off. well, at some point i looked around and noticed that francis was missing. we called him, but he didn't appear. so then we all divided up and fanned through the neighborhood. eventually we found him, a few blocks away, and he was absolutely terrified by the experience of being lost for those few hours. after that, we're always very careful to be aware of where he is. jehana is a real beauty! keep well! --robbie--

Wow...now that usually happens here! Instead, all the snow has melted in the back of the yard where the raised veggie bed is. I actually prepped it and put some fencing over it to keep the animals out. Minus adding a bit of leaf mulch and manure, the bed is ready to plant in. Just take heart knowing that you're closer to the days of "no snow" than you were. Linda

Thanks again everyone. A couple more quick stories and then I'll let this thread fade away.... One time we were watching t.v. and Duke was walking by the television when a Burger King commercial came on....at the end the screen was filled with the picture of a big hamburger..the timing was perfect...Duke walked by at that exact time and licked the screen! One time Duker was riding shotgun in my pickup truck and we were sitting at a stoplight. The 2 guys in the next lane (left turn lane) were looking at Duke and he was peeking around me smiling at them....you know...the lab smile..and they were laughing, obviously because Duke was so happy to be riding along his radiance just showed...then Duke looked over at them again and then licked the side of my face...one big wet dog kiss...and then looked over at them again as if to say 'I'm ridin' with my daddy!'.....well these two big guys were about on the floorboard howling with laughter...I think my half embarrassed look on my face elevated the hilarity level. Duker never knew to lift his leg to pee....he always squatted...well....again my buddy Mike was helping Duke lift his leg to demonstrate how male dogs should urinate. It worked! The problem was he was orchestrating this example in the middle of my living room! Thanks again folks. Appreciate the kind comments. Duane

By 1875 there would likely have been solid fuel (probably coal rather than wood) burning stoves rather than the, by then, old-fashioned fire places. This would be particularly true in western PA where coal was plentiful and where access to cast iron stoves would have been cheap and easy through canals or the Great Lakes. My northern NY house built before the Civil War never had a single fireplace, only stoves for both heating and cooking. The earliest stoves were wood-burning; then there was a coal phase, but by time we bought it in the 1980s all the heating and cooking had gone back to wood burners. With stoves you need only chimney stacks not the massive masonry that a fireplace needs, so you may not find large voids where hearths were. Keep an eye out for circular marks on walls about the size of gallon paint can lid. These are evidence of stove pipe thimbles as they passed through walls. If you can get up on the roof, you may be able to detect places where chimneys have been removed to below the roof surface. Look in the attic for circular holes in the attic flooring. It was quite common to have long (by modern safety standards) runs of nearly horizontal stove pipe from one room to another to get the chimney. It was also common to remove the stoves seasonally, and only keep in the house during cold weather. L.