sleepless, Thanks for the exchange. Quote; "Just how dirty is the 5 gallons of stone you remove each year and how do you remove it? I assume you put it back under the water falls" I put on my pond shoes and get in with a bucket and a plastic one quart mug. Then scoop up the gravel and transfer it to the bucket. I redistribute the gravel to the other two levels of the pond. The lowest spot is not very dirty. No muck, just small bits of hard black stuff (leaf stems and parts left over from winter maybe?). They are light enough that they suspend when stirred up and get pulled into the skimmer. "Does it develop the typical packing that settling filters develop? What is the slope of the liner? Is there a bottom drain?" No packing. No slope to speak of. It has three stepped depths, 6" then 18" then 24". Under the falls is about 18". There is no bottom drain. The gravel migrates from water turbulence under the falls and my fish always poking around in the gravel and pushing it from the upper to lower levels. "How often do you clean the filter? What type of filter?" I guess its the typical Aquascape setup. A skimmer with basket, filter pad and submersible pump. A 2" line goes to an off the shelf Bio falls with 2 filter pads and bio balls. I empty the skimmer basket as needed to keep the water flowing through it and wash the filter pad only once or twice per season. I don't clean the filter pads in the falls until I shut down my pump for winter. This may be shocking to some people but I let the good bacteria do the work. I also never drain the pond and clean it. Most of my maintenance time is spent tending to the plants (cutting out the ugly stuff ) netting out every leaf that I can find till shutdown in the fall and rearranging rocks. Mike K

"I'm of the opinion that we just send a congratulatory card, but DH is upset because he feels obligated to send some money. He's more ticked off about this than I am...we had to look up the cousins info on FB to figure out this was her son. So this begs the question, at what point is it ok to say ENOUGH when the graduation/shower/wedding season starts?" I'd say the point at which you have to look a relative up on a social network site to know who s/he is. Seriously, I don't understand why your husband would feel any obligation to send anything to someone that distant. Really, why? If there is no social relationship, no interaction, and certainly no emotional warmth then what negative consequence does your husband foresee? As for graduations, my younger child is graduating from HS at the end of May. It's a milestone for us because we are now offically done with having kids in K-12. We have a somewhat unusual wrinkle too: because of an employment benefit my kids' college tuition is covered. Since they went to private school from Pre-K through 12 this means our tuition payments are now OVER!!! Much rejoicing as you may imagine. And you betcha we're celebrating. What we are not doing is sending graduation announcements. My daughter told me months ago she thinks they are tacky ways to ask for money or a gift and I agree. The people who are important in her life all know she will soon be a high school graduate. I've mentioned it to friends and colleagues. That's as much as we feel is appropriate or necessary in terms of an announcement. Since we've got a fairly large extended family I found a nice restaurant that serves one of her favorite dishes. I'm inviting the whole family, plus a friend each for daughter and her brother, for dinner after the ceremony. As our guests of course; we will not be sending anyone a request to pay for the meal, a solicitation for a gift, a jocular mention of a money tree or wishing well or any of that nonsense. I just put down the deposit on the meal: salad and empanadas as appetizers, choice of 3 entrees (fish/meat/chicken) and non alcoholic drinks are included. I'll be talking to the catering mgr about wine/beer options for those who might want that (NOT the grad girl :). They said I can bring my own cake. We'll be about 20 for dinner and both my daughter and I can't wait. It will be such a joy to have everyone there to enjoy a good meal and each other's company. We are making a family memory and celebrating a family milestone. And that's our graduation gift to her and ourselves. If we couldn't afford a restaurant I'd invite everyone to our house. The gift of having people she loves share her-and our-joy is the point, not, in the immortal words of Bernadette Peters, 'the stuff'. Ann

Summer (since that's the season we're in and most people seem to be mentioning): 1. Picking berries (mostly blueberries), eating some in the field, some baked (Grandma's strawberry shortcake, blueberry buckle, Dad's blueberry pancakes) and freezing the rest. 2. Fireflies - still see some occasionally but very late and fewer than I remember - my DD has never caughyt one in her life, DS probably doesn't remember doing it. Are they getting scarce all over or just up north here? 3. Running in the sprinkler and Slip N Slide (my kids love this - DD and my cousins' kids literally spent all day yesterday sliding - and then after dinner the kids started passing water balloons, the adults started throwing them and it turned into a free-for-all). 4. Sunday dinners at my grandparents' house, often picnics at the farm (my great-uncle inherited, my cousin lives there now) and staying late into the night, out on the lawn, most of us barefoot (incl my uncle!) and listening to my uncles singing amazing harmonies (though my grandma couldn't sing and my dad still can't). Enjoyed joining my uncles, 1 aunt, a couple cousins singing around the bonfire last night - DD stayed up til 9pm running around with the other kids and glowsticks (at my uncle's place just down the hill from the farmhouse - he bought the neighbor's house and some of the south field and orchard from my great-uncle, I got the northern woods). 5. Haying (first rolling the bales together in groups for the men to pick up when we were too little to do anything else, then when older driving the truck, then when stronger helping the men pick up the bales and put them in the barn). Not sure that was a "pleasure" but it was part of summer. 6. Playing in the woods behind our house with my brother when I was 7-8, and then a different house with neighbor girls when I was 10-12, before we moved to a *more* rural spot, where my parents still live). They're building a house now in the swamp next to our first house - I can't believe it passed wetlands! 7. Riding my bike to the library where I worked as volunteer librarian in the summer. 8. Riding my horse out in the fields (though mucking out the stalls and rounding up the cows and ponies after the ponies busted out of the fence wasn't fun). The smell of a horse on a hot day - it's been a long time but I still remember it...stopping for a drink at the brook and cool off in the shade of the trees... 9. Camping near the seashore, digging for clams and having steamed clams and homemade chowder for dinner, sleeping in a tent after staying up late sitting around the fire (but I don't miss the sandfleas). 10. The fireman's parade, carnival rides, and fireworks - going this week with the kids. I guess they still have many of the same experiences I had, in the same places, though they don't have quite as many siblings and cousins, they do have some cousins who come visit, and we still occasionally get together (like yesterday) with 2nd cousins. Why don't we run this thread every season/holiday?

Wow, thanks, you all! I posted again just to give the SAMA link to deedee :) liz, I had *no* visual art background in terms of actually making it -- I'm a longtime student of history of art and appreciator of art, but my talents lie more in music and words than visual art. I can't draw to save my life (my DD disagrees but she's my DD :)). I'm really happy that you say she has a cat expression (and that you noticed the ear hairs, littledog :) -- I always love those when I see them in domestic cats)-- it was a composite portrait, as I indicated, and I worked and reworked it so much. I won't feel that it's really delivered until I know whether Terri noticed her, etc...it's fine if she didn't, I just want to know one way or the other, iykwim. And I'm serious about the links; there are so many wonderful mosaic artists in this country, and they're extremely generous about sharing their knowledge and encouraging each other on, even wrt beginners. Very different from the professional worlds of music and theatre I was in, in that regard. I'm just glad that gardenweb led me, however indirectly, to find something I really love and with any luck can keep doing for a while to come (a trigger thumb operation would help, but I've got to save up for that)...