The weeds are overwhelming here.. I get discouraged at every turn. The best areas (weed-free) are those deep beds that have 4-5" of pine bark on them. I did them this winter, and they are fine. But the beds I did in spring are covered in weeds, since I did not mulch immediately after planting. Now I have 3' weeds, towering over the young plants that were supposed to be visible. The bog is covered in Wedelia. The Pear hill is hard to mow, so it is out of control too. The main problem is it is too hot for manual labor! I wilt after only an hour. I will have to resort to RoundUp or a flamethrower. I see the value in close plantings, but how do you have close plantings with fruiting plants, that need to be sprayed/pruned/picked? Treefrog does it well, but I cannot match his talents in controlling plants. When he came out to pick Chaya, he could not even see the whiskey barrel the Chaya was in, due to the tall grass around it. I prefer to weedwack over chemicals, but it is too hot to be lugging the wacker for long, which blows hot exhaust on me, and weighs a ton. Does anyone know how to train chickens to pick weeds instead of kicking out mulch?? Gripe, grumble, complain... Gee, I sound like an old lady... Heehheeheee.. Lisa

Well, by the looks of your kentiana, flowers can't be too far in the future. Mine just bloomed for the first time this year, but it was never a healthy plant, it was in bad shape when I got it, I think it was on the discount rack at Home Depot, and may have been one of many I bought with mealies and severe overwatering issues...took a very long time to recover completely, this year is the first that it has looked really good and rewarded me with flowers. Yikes, I had no idea about the hurricane, I don't live close enough to the coast to pay attention to the weather anymore. When I did, it was important to have a plan, especially when you have animals and any other valubles (like plants!)that you need to protect. What scares me about the projected paths is how they can be off by a hundred miles either way. Being near the ocean is frightening during any bad storm, but exciting in a way also...after so many false warnings, I became complacent and didn't take the warnings as seriously, which was pretty stupid on my part. Hope it misses all of you in Florida!

We had the 36 foot (HAH) AG Wolf in our last house. We loved the unit and space up top but did often run out of burner space. The 36 inch oven was nice and held a lot which was great as long as we were cooking things at the same temp which we rarely ever did. Next, that oven took forever to preheat... 40-45 minutes to 400. Lastly, we think b/c of its huge capacity, it cooked really hot. I think the burners had to run a lot to keep it at temp which over cooked bottoms of breads etc. Great for roasts and some other things but not for breads, cookies, pastries etc. In the end though, we were VERY pleased with the Wolf. We adapted to the hot temps by using additional pans for heat shields and adjusting the temps. In our current house, we went with a 60 inch AG Blue Star range. It has 2 30 inch ovens, 8 burners and a grill. We also put in a Wolf 30 inch wall oven. The preheat on all 3 ovens to 400 is about 15-20 minutes. The first cookies and corn bread we did in the gas ovens. They were better than in the 36" Wolf but still cooked pretty hard. Next time I did corn bread, I thought, Oh yeah, I've got the wall oven and used it... a world of difference. Since then we have done biscuits and other items and they come out perfectly. We still find the gas is great for roasts, casseroles, reheating etc. We may have a bit of over kill, but due to advice from this forum, we specifically diversified to both gas and electric and have been very pleased. So, my recommendation? The 48 inch AG range AND an electric wall oven. Oh yeah, the grill on the BS is killer. I got talked into it as a last minute decision and thought I would use it occasionally. We have used it a fair amount so fay and it does a killer job on veggies and chicken. We have elected to limit the grill to those items only. Beef and fish are too messy and when we grill those, its always outside (so far). I have found a griddle plate that fits nicely over the grill to convert it to a griddle when needed.

Persuasion is my favorite, too. I love the theme of second chances in a life that has turned out to be disappointing. It has a bittersweet quality that has always appealed to me. Having said that, I really do like them all. Mansfield Park is fascinating to me. Some of the moral issues that are being weighed in the book seem trivial to modern sensibilities, others are timeless; but I like its exploration of what it is that makes a good person, and how easily the world overlooks these true qualities. Northanger Abbey is the lightest novel she wrote. If you grew up reading Victoria Holt and similar writers as I did, you will laugh at this wonderful spoof of the gothic novel, popular in Austen's day as well as the 1960's and 70's. Sense and Sensibility is a story of two sisters who embody the extremes of a debate going on in Austen's own time. Marianne (Sensibility) stands for the Romantic movement, all emotion and aesthetic experience and the sublime experience of nature. Elinor (Sense) expresses the values of the Enlightenment, self-discipline, prudence, knowledge, and moral virtue. Each one has something the others lack, and in the story, they both learn this. I love this book, too. Emma you already know, a story of just how wrong an intelligent, overly confident young woman can be. And Pride and Prejudice you are reading now. I'm thinking that pretty soon it will be time for me to re-read Austen yet again. Rosefolly