William's Pride is pretty good for its season- here it starts in the 2nd week of August and finishes by the end of the month. The first are a bit tart (probably border-line ripe) and by the end they get sweeter, sometimes with a bit of watercore. I like those late apples, but by then I'm getting better apples from Priscilla, with Sweet Sixteen (one notch down on leaf health, but note bad) around the corner. WP's flavor is a bit like Liberty, except much earlier. Liberty does build up higher brix levels (~16-17 vs 12-14 off the top of my head- I can look at my notes later). Priscilla is an interesting option for late Aug and early September. This is the 3rd bearing year for me. The first crop (on a 2nd year tree) was a small crop of tasty apples. Then last year, I had some more tasty ones, while other fell off early and were mushy. This year, they were uniformly good, with an interesting (a hint of anise?) sweet flavor and good crunch. Most were in the 14-16 brix range. While that is lower than Liberty, they have less acid and seem sweeter. The one thing which makes me a bit hesitant to recommend it to you is that I'm not sure if it was our cooler summer this year that kept them from falling off early- I'm guessing that your area may consistently have hotter summers.

The pics with Lake Tahoe are too high an elevation for ponderosa, which looks much like Jeffrey. The whitebark mimic is given away by its horizontal lower limbs -- whitebark's would be upswept, and its trunk would be forked several times by the time it was this tall. The highway picture has no pines that I can see. The tips of the crowns are mainly bluntly-pointed with one spirelike. If this was a solid red fir forest, all would be spirelike if young or very battered if old-growth. So it's not red fir. That leaves bluntly-pointed Doug-fir with scattered white fir, as found on north slopes of ridges that have mainly ponderosa pines on the warmer slopes. Areas like this can be seen on Highway 50 between Pollock Pines and American River canyon, and probably along I-80.

We are doing a large IPE deck project at LakeTahoe, CA. We have just completed about 25,000 sq. feet of new IPE decking and are doing another 25,000 sq. feet this fall. Our problem is that the various stains seem to last no more than 6 to 9 months. Can someone recommend a good protection coat for 1 inch IPE decking for high mountain conditions with big sun and big snow? Thanks.

Thanks Slush! The doors are my favorite too. Aside from the Italian faux finished walls, the doors are the first thing everyone comments on when they walk in the room. The first time we saw them we were blown away! They are solid wood, furniture grade from old-world-doors.com. Made just over the border in Mexico for a US company. Their rep came out to measure and they come prehung with the jam and trim. Thank you everyone. I'm so happy you enjoyed the view. :)