Hi everyone, Well, I am double posting this in 2 forums - I hope nobody minds. As promised, here I am posting about what in the world I've been doing all summer while traveling to & fro Wisconsin. As some of you already know, I work with fish-eating birds: cormorants, pelicans, herons, egrets, gulls, wood storks, etc. My husband and I have been working in Wisconsin for the past 3 years, but we also regularly work in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Ontario, and a few other places. Yes, we are a husband + wife team, working together out of the same office. Many people are surprised that we work together, but it is great. We make a fantastic team, and are often at our best under challenging field conditions. Great minds think alike, and being dear friends & in love sure helps too. (ok, enough with the mushy stuff). So now for a few photos from the vegetation surveys we did this month. Background: We are working on remote islands in Lake Michigan, around the Door Co. Peninsula area. All the islands have nesting double-crested cormorants and herring gulls. Some also have nesting Am. white pelicans and Canada geese. Back in April, we put up some 6 ft x 6 ft pens (we call them exclosures) to exclude the cormorants because they damage vegetation with their nesting activities (too much POOP!). So then we went back in August to catalog everything that grew in the pens, by plant species, and weighed it to also determine biomass. That meant breaking out the field guides, studying up on botany and the flora of Wisconsin, and bringing the plant presses for species we couldn't identify on the island. We compareed the exclosure plots to some "control" plots, which had nothing but 4 wooden stakes at the corners. We had 45 plots to do on 3 islands, plus another 3 islands down by the city of Green Bay that we did simple vegetation surveys on (no pens). It was alot of work, but very interesting. The bottom line: there are lots of nonnative species on those islands, like motherwort, catnip, pigweed, common mallow, stinging nettle and sow thistle. The native vegetation was primarily lambsquarter and smartweed species. Almost done clipping this 1-meter plot: Looking for small plants beneath the lambsquarter The finished, sampled 1-meter subplot Who would even know what this was?!?! I saved seeds to winter sow and see if I can't figure it out. The very last veg plot to measure. You can tell, because we look so happy! A friend found crawling across the plant press The stinging nettle I hacked through to make us a nice trail to get to the center of the island. At least its not poison ivy! Ok, that's all for now. Have a great evening. Katie (heh - I've been working on this post for days!)

Wifey, I really do understand. My childhood was also smattered with abuse, physical, verbal and sexual. I'm also a survivor and a very strong woman. I have been on my own since age 16, managed to finance and get through most of college on my own, and at age 35, I now own a pretty strong company that I built from the ground up. As a survivor type, I never even entertained the idea of "can't", giving up or not making life work for me - I really didn't have any other choice. I've learned this is not something everyone is programmed with and I am very lucky to have these expectations of myself, where others are too scared to consider or can't even see life's possibilities. You're absolutely right, blood sucking spongey types seem to practically hunt down survivor types. I have to fight them off constantly and most are from my side of the family. I've learned to recognize them right off but most of the time I still try to play the hero until I get disgusted with them and then I play the avoidance card. Only you know your limits. I guess I just hate to see her win. :) I also know that my survivor background causes me to expect more from people than "normal" people might. I also share your feelings of "well if I can go through this and be this strong in my life, why should I sympathize with someone who makes no effort at all?". I guess my own answer to that question in the middle of my sleepless nights is: I'd rather be me than them. Knowing a little more about the relationship with you and your SD, I would think you shouldn't offer any more of your money to her at all. That should be a boundary you set with her and her father. If you wanted a relationship with her at all at this point, I would insist that it be strictly a mentor/friend type relationship so she can hopefully learn how to grow from you. If she thinks she can con you and be nice to you long enough for you to give her cash, you aren't making any headway at all, just making matters worse. And if she won't accept that type of relationship, then you did your best in offering, and hopefully she'll figure it out on her own someday. I wish I had better answers for you. My husband is ten years older than me, so I related to what could be the unspoken part of your situation. In my situation I wondered if maybe I didn't accept this man in some way to fill the father slot that was left in shambles in my childhood. When I look at it in that light, I begin to question whether I may be suffering from jealousy issues that aren't present in "normal" SM/SD relationships. Examining the possibility has given me more gas for tollerance until I am sure. Oddly enough, the question of how life would have been had my father had the personality of my husband, isn't so much comforting, but scary. I can't imagine what it would be like to be so nurtured and unprepared for this rough world we live in. Another byproduct seems to be the years it takes before family considers your relationship with your husband valid. They seem to think you are going to flee with half the bank account someday. My father was 24 years older than my mother, so the age difference has never been a problem for me, just everyone else. What fun! More unspoken, yet heavy stress. I sit here and I honestly do not know what I would do in your shoes. My situation is rosey compared to yours. What helps me through all this turmoil is communication with my husband, but if yours won't talk to you about it, I don't know how you could ever be expected to move forward. I don't think you are a bad person, a whiner or any of that. If you are like me, you were at your total wits end before you even thought to Google this board. I think anyone on here who creates a dialogue with themselves about these issues is facing the issue and questioning how they can make it better. I haven't yet found a posting on here from a step father, which to me is very telling. It's funny, my husband is so awestruck by the person I am and the things I have accomplished in the face of adversity. He is equally petrified of his children ever having to face these same things. I have explained to him that everything I went through made me a stronger person...that I VALUE these parts of my life because they made me who I am. I don't mean to sound cocky but I can look at myself in the mirror each morning and know I did the right thing the day before and I am very pleased with my progress in this life. Really, what more can you hope for on this journey than that? Sorry this is so long - I pretty much rambled as I went. I hope things work out for you whatever you decide.

Sounds like a few possibilities- if daughter/grandkids moved in recently there must be no father on a continual basis. The boy may not understand that your house is no longer 'his' home. He may have witnessed/lived with a defiant/violent/drunk male in the past where this type of behavior is all he saw. Monkey See- Monkey Do. He may be ADHD. ADD. Fetal Alcohol Sydrome Disorder child. - 91-94% of ADHD/AUTISM is later diagnosed at early school age or adolescent age as FASD. ... It IS his mother who needs to set boundaries. Grandma already raised her kids- it is not her responsibility. Is the mother an alcoholic? Drugs? Physically or mentally abused and does not have the capacity herself to guide her children. You may not know these answers yet but dig. Ask grandma over or out for a hamburger. Discuss your worries with her and she may shed some light on the situation. Or not... It is not the child's fault, as much as it puts stress on you. Be proactive- lock your garage door. Lock your home doors. Ask a legal person if YOU may put a lock on the gate. Look at your County Clerk office tax assessment/file to see who legally put up the fence- you may be surprised to find out it is really your fence. Talk to your insurance company- they will have suggestions about how you can cover yourself. Most of these things are private and the neighbor's will not know of you trying to figure out the situation. Sometimes it DOES take a village to raise a child- especially a mentally affected child. I am blessed- I too have a connecting yard because two sisters and their husbands lived side by side. Then they were widows. I was able to know/visit the sister that previously owned my house for a year, before her death a few months ago at 100 years old... Her sister is my neighbor at 90, who is a wonderful woman. Don't dispair- there is a reason you are there. Figure out why as exhausting as it is right now. Chin up!

OK, this morning I see that BOTH sides of the garden are illuminated by dappled sunshine in the early a.m., but that the left side has the dappling persisting much longer due to the angle of the sun coming through the pin oak tree. So that is why I think I should put the STGN on the left side of the garden, right off of the sidewalk leading to the building. I thought that the corner of the raised bed containing 2 rose bushes, which is a few feet from the porch, would be a good place because then it would have the rose bushes in front of it and the Obligatory Bushes to its right, giving it some sun protection on 2 sides in the morning, while the shadow from the building completely covers that spot by 3 p.m.