I was admiring a pair of Arbutus a couple of weeks ago. They were planted over ground cover so fruit drop and bird poop were not a problem. Crape myrtle, on the other hand seem to mildew badly for me, here in Orange. Of course, my favorite tree is probably not a good choice, but if you have the right conditions, a coast live oak is a fine tree. When we moved into our house in February, 2005 I almost pulled up a "weed" in the parking strip which was actually a newly sprouted acorn that still had seed leaves and only four true leaves. I left it alone and shut off the sprinklers to the juniper in that strip (not so good for the junipers). By early spring, 2011 it had grown into a bush about 6' tall. The city came out to trim the sweet gums in our neighborhood about that time. One of the sweet gums in the other parking strip was diseased and planted too close to the sewer line. However, before it could be cut down, the city forester had to come out and sign off on the plan. Well indeed he did the next day. I was sure that my oak would be toast once he saw the tree growing in my (really the city's) parking strip. To my amusement, however, he took one look at the oak bush, pulled his pruning shears out of a pocket, and limbed it up into a tree. He didn't mind the contraband tree as long as it wasn't badly grown. My baby had grown up. It's actually about 8' tall this year and starting to look like a tree. I'm prejudiced, but I think it's beautiful. There are no other oaks in the neighborhood so it's origin is a mystery.

You are so right. When I get on the auction...I have to bid!! Yes, I do have plenty of room for expansion. Actually, I was forgetting I have some unused space in the new bed that I plan to plant with daylilies. When I narrow the path in back, it will probably take about 10 more. And I have room for about 10 or 12 in that bed...probably no more than 8 more in the new bed. So I may be able to plant 30 more daylilies...but I think I have a few more thn that coming already. Hmmmm. I know it will be a while before I can use this hand, but it is much less painful today than yesterday. I'll get it done, one way or another. kay

I will follow up with the one fellow that we have gotten a quote from. He was highly recommended as doing a good job, but in speaking with him I wasn't sure--as he seemed to answer my questions counter to what I had learned thus far online (e.g. only 1 return register needed; location of supply registers fine--and I don't think he did a cost-benefit analysis, I think he didn't even think about it). Because he WAS highly recommended, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and see if I was misunderstanding what I read. Seems like I was not. I will need to get some more quotes, but likely cannot until next weekend, unfortunately. Is the heating installer usually the one that insulates the ductwork, or do you mean that the ducts themselves are purchased with R8 insulation? Also, the machine he recommended was the York Guardian model# GG9S080B16MP11 (95% efficiency). This seems to be an alright model--not excellent. Do you think this is appropriate for a long-term fix? I would be willing to spend more on the model if it means it would last substantially longer and with fewer headaches. Forgot to mention--it will be located in the basement. Also, I am okay with the asbestos ductwork for now, but my husband is adamant about getting it out, so I am trying to do some research and figure out what the appropriate new installation should look like.

I am running an AMD 5 core processor and not had any issues with it, Its really a 4 core chip with a video processor included. I prefer the Intel processors, but my new Acer Desktop came with the AMD chip. I suppose that cost was the reason. I hung on to XP sp3 as long as i could and then changed to Win 7 Professional in the new computer. There was a learning curve, but Win 7 has proven to be a good operating system. The main issue, in crossing the boundary from the X86 architecture to the upgraded system, was that I lost the use of several old favorite programs. One of these was a sketching/drafting program. Since I have retired, I can not justify the cost of updating the old programs. I kept my old computer to run those.