We clueless have to stick together! :) OK, people -- the water was stink-o-rama the first two days. Now it is very mildly pond-ish, not so bad. The only "rotten" scent is exactly at the filter. But why are there so many bubbles now? Water possibly LESS clear now because the movement is so strong. Waiting to see what happens after a couple weeks. Anything else I should be doing??

It does sound strange to hear that someone had pictures developed. doesn't it. For me that is a thing of the past. I have my old Olympus SLR film camera in a bag with anti dessicant thingies to keep it from rusting out, don't know what else to do with it. I went digital and have not looked back. It would be nice to have a DSLR camera, but not with my current attention span getting shorter all the time. Like my best friend says, she needs a blonde camera. I need a white haired ole lady camera. Just give me a picture of what I see, and the opportunity to play around with effects, and I'm content. What I like the best is the Kindle Fire HDX with a fairly nice camera in it (does things on the cool side though) and the app lets me upload within minutes to my Flickr account...or to social media or Photobucket or Picasa if I used those services. It is quick and convenient for on-the-fly pictures when I run outside to take a quick shot to reply to a post on this forum. I've done it more this week than any time in the past. Now I am lusting after the Samsung Galaxy S5 with a nice camera (better than Apple's so the reviews indicate). I'm into Android so the camera will be a plus. My BFF (best friend) says she will teach me to text.....I view that with mixed emotions. My new car can answer me when I talk to it, so no need for a Bluetooth earpiece any longer. Technology is grand, isn't it? Esther, I like the big egg gravels. Your smaller hosta look like bantam chickens sitting on eggs. Lovely view out your window. Nice pictures. Pick up a cheap digital camera to get you by for a year or so. You'll be missing all the baby pictures otherwise.

Wow... I was just wishing I had an area to plant... I'm full up plus some. This will all be anecdotal - best guess... Night Before Christmas - bright shade, then afternoon sun? best guess, no... put it in more shade. Of your list, plants pretty tolerant of sun.... I know So Sweet, Fragrant Bouquet, Orange Marmalade, Aphrodite, Paul's Glory are all pretty good in some sun. FB and A are the two most sun tolerant, in my experience. Sum and Substance needs some sun to get its best color... and some years an actual metallic gold kind of sheen. On the other hand, a little too much and it gets scorched. And all of the sun tolerance thoughts are predicated on how much moisture is available. If you keep them deep watered, even some that don't like the placement initially will come back the next year and be just fine after adjusting. They might stay a little smaller, and their leaves might be a little smaller... but they seem to adjust.

The fence situation is the kink of the whole property, and is causing me the biggest grief right now. What you can't tell from the photo is that the pool is actually raised higher than the yard behind it, and there is approximately 10 feet behind/between the pool fence and the split rail fence that runs the perimeter of the yard. The lattice is largely there for privacy, as none of the pools in our area have fences for code. Neighborhood rules dictate that you can have a privacy fence around your pool, provided it's far enough back from the property line. (Where the split rail fence is) I want to do just what you're saying, but it would be ALOT of money right now. They'd basically have to come in and build a new retaining wall behind the pool, add fill dirt to bring the surface level with the existing pool deck to expanding the area (to allow for flowers and the like), and then we could fence around that. However, we would then be very close to the setback requirements. Arrgghhhhh....... Since we're so far over budget on the interior renovation, this project may have to wait until next year. :(