Sheri, WOW, what an awesome project. And the time and effort to document it the way you did will surely help many folks through a very difficult construction project. OH, so many, many, years ago when I was still in the USN, I had redwood and fiberglass house that was about 8X10 feet. I grew orchids in SC, KS, FL, and VA in that little thing. We lived in a mobile home, so the greenhouse got disassembled and put in the home for transport, and the orchids traveled in a rented U-Haul. A couple of things I learned the hard way (you learned some of them also, I see) was that you need more shade than you ever imagined. I suspended my shade cloth above the plastic greenhouse (about 4 inches) and found that the air space actually increased the shade effect, and noticeably decreased the heat load inside the house. Another thing that would be difficult for you to do since your studs are so shallow, and metal, would be to double insulate the house. Mine had 2X4" supports that were wood, so I stapled painters sheet plastic on the inside, trapping four inches of dead air in the walls. You can't purchase better insulation than that, and it gives you a way to mount your electrical boxes away from the direct spray from watering. Another approach to cooling was to use a "Swamp Cooler"....to you westerners, an evaporative cooler. Mount the cooler on the ground outside the house and let it blow the cool moist air into the house. Cool moist air stays low, and the hot dry air is forced out the top vents. the vent opening at the top can be used to regulate the cooling inside the house. Also, I found the positive pressure in the house helped keep bugs outside. I don't know if HF sells different size houses, but I always suggest purchasing the largest house you can afford. The more inside volume of air you have the more economical the house is to heat and cool. Once the air gets to temp, the more of it there is the longer it takes for it to change temp, which means more time off for the heat and cooling. These are a few of the things I learned in my school of hard knocks, and pass them along for information to anyone who is interested. Bill

they do make very squirrel proof feeders- some that even have electric charges going through them that only squirrel's weight trips. one of our local nurseries carries them and the accompanying video is hysterical. they also say if you can suspend the feeder 10' off the ground & away from any objects, then cover with a baffle, you're good to go. so, a line stretched between 2 poles or trees with a feeder attached works well. ours is on our high off the ground deck, on a pole that we can extend to 8' or so, with a baffle underneath and has worked really well for years. til the coon found it this spring, anyhow. need to trim some branches and get a heavier/wider baffle for him. we stopped feeding this summer so hopefully he goes elsewhere before fall. closer to the mountains they have white and black squirrels as well as red. it's just around here that they're mostly grey. rascally things- strangest thing they've not left alone for me is christmas lights on our deck. i tried 3 years running to string lights along the deck and they chew through them in multiple places each time. i'd love to see that light show! lol. so we quite trying a while back- seemed pointless. nut-brains, i call them. that's all they think about, and it's all that's rattling around up there. they are fun to watch chase each other around, i'll give them that. boogers. gardenia makes up for many ills, doesn't it? i have a prostrate one growing by my front door and that scent is amazing when you walk by. you'll have to discover winter blooming daphne, which, admittedly, is very picky, but worth it for the fragrance in feb/march. mmmm.

Oh great, something else I need, a dough whisk. I never even knew about such a thing! I like King Arthur's flour and buy it locally, but I've never ordered from them on-line. I like many of their recipes but disagree with some of their statements, like the one that you cannot knead bread dough by hand if it's made with bread flour. I've done it for 20 years and never knew it wouldn't work until they told me, LOL. I'd love to visit their Vermont store, though, just because, plus it's an American business and I like that a lot. I see the Fantes whisk is made in Poland, but King Arthur doesn't say where their's is made. I'd pay a bit extra if it was made here. As for the non-stick bread pan, I'd probably have blundered ahead using parchment paper or some other device and totally ignored the directions, LOL. No one to blame except myself when those things go wrong. (grin) I'm not careful enough with non-stick bakeware, I cut it or nick it or scratch it and ruin the finish, so I've been sticking with plain old pans and avoiding the non-stick. It'd be interesting to see if I could make that work... Annie

Ach! Vee, some people seem to be looking for something -- anything -- to get incensed about. I don't remember lice being a problem when I was a child in Iowa, and I was lucky that I never got lice in my travels, but when my older son was about seven years old, he managed to pick them up at school. When I was notified by the school nurse, I was mortified, but she waved it off as such a common occurrence that it was no more shameful than a kid getting a cold. She told me matter-of-factly what to do. However, when I told my mother, she said she was hanging up the phone and she would be right over. In typical Hausfrau fashion, she directed an all-fronts attack: DH shaved son #1's head and dunked him in a bath of "Rid' while mother and I threw out all son's possessions that couldn't be cleaned and we washed all his bedding and clothes in hot water and dried them on high heat. We even hauled away his mattress set. When I triumphantly told the school nurse what we had done, she only said, "You didn't have to go to that much trouble." Nevertheless, for several weeks after, I think all of us were sure we had lice every time we had an itch. Dear son learned the lesson to not share combs or anything else that touched his hair or head -- we think he got the lice from sharing headphones. Carolyn, hee! I did the same thing -- the first time I shaved my legs I used my daddy's razor with one of those single-sided blades. I managed to take off as much skin as I did hair and I had to plaster Band-Aids on my ankles, shins, and knees. Mama, who had told me that she thought I could probably go without shaving my legs indefinitely because my leg hair was blonde peach fuzz, just shook her head in resignation. It's funny: I swear that my leg hair did get thicker and darker after I started shaving. But when I lived in Europe I stopped shaving because European women didn't usually shave back then and the hair reverted to its previous softness and was hardly visible except in bright sunlight. When I moved back to the U.S., I took up shaving again, bowing to peer pressure I suppose.