HA! During WWI, for the war effort, my great great great grandmother would get permission to cordon off short sections of paved streets, on which she scattered rubber bands of varying diameter. Under her miraculous care, within days the rubber bands grew into trees so laden with tires for various types of military vehicles that often she and the neighbors couldn't harvest them all before they became larger than intended; this, necessitating that they be trimmed back to a usable size. She would then have the trimmings ground into powder, which she mixed with white milk. When the slurry of rubber and milk was heated under pressure in small molds (like sinker molds or toy soldier molds, if you've ever made either from lead), the result was Ficus elastica seeds which were sold to tree farmers all over the world and served as the propagules for essentially every rubber tree plantation currently in existence. I sure do miss that lovely and determined old gal. ....... at her 100th in 1966: She sure was something. Sad that we have to wait until next summer to see her again. Michelin has kept her so busy at headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand, France for the last 49 years, she hasn't been able to get back to the states to see ANY of her great, great, great, great grandchildren. Fortunately for us, her employer is picking up all expenses and footing the bill for her bash back in the states. Keep your eyes peeled for pictures. Al

We used to have a small waterfall in our pond, and there was a filter which hosed water back into the pond, via the 'waterfall' which was a stream-like affair, running down on 3 levels, before the water went back into the main pond. One bright spring day, having bought some watercress for salad, from a supermarket, I noticed that some stems had roots forming, but I knew that watercress prefers moving water (My SiL lives near a watercress farm in Hampshire) so I stuck these stems into the top section of the waterfall, and placed a flat stone on top to keep them there. Within 3 weeks, I had to pick and divide the clump, and keeping an amount in the top section for the duration of the summer, gave us plentiful supplies of fresh, peppery watercress, AND - it filtered the water amazingly well!

Hi Scott, Thanks for your reply. I have been spending a lot of time on this website, and I have gathered a lot of helpful information from your posts. Thank you very much for sharing! I think I will get a soil sample. Will the same engineer be able to find out about both the water level and the rocks? I am very uncomfortable with all the unknown potential costs on top of the already high known costs. Do you know how much extra it would add to the cost of a pool if you have to pump the water and/or cut into solid rock? (approx). Would you have to go back to the town to get permission to break up the rock? Will the noise drive the neighbors crazy? Regarding the septic system field, the pool company landscape architect told me that the problem will be if they are trying to dig a hole in a specific spot and they run into the septic field, there will be gravel falling out, thereby messing up the walls of the hole-something like that. They will have to do something to remedy this problem and that will cost more. I tried last year to find out where the septic tank and field are, but all I could get from the town was a permit from when the house was converted over to the town sewer (1963 I think). it only showed a drawing of where the pipe exited the house and the path to the sewer in the road. I had a roto-rooter guy here that showed me the path of the pipe with a camera and a metal detector, and we think we know where the septic tank is since it looks like they just rerouted the pipe from the septic tank to the town sewer - due to the way the pipe first goes to the backyard and then makes a u turn to go to the front where the town sewer is. But we really don't know for sure. Regarding the retaining walls, when you say we may need two walls, do you mean at the top and at the bottom? The pool landscaper said we could either fill in the bottom of the slope to raise to the level of the top and put retaining wall at bottom, or we could dig into the slope and put retaining wall at the top. Since the bottom of the slope is at the property line and already has a small retaining wall and since I wanted to do two levels, we will choose to put the retaining wall at the top. I was thinking we will need another small one at a 90 degree angle to the first one, with steps in between, due to the fact that the slope comes down on a diagonal line across the property, although he only mentioned we would need one. (Of course this was based on preliminary walk around property). Thanks very much for all your help.

The weird part of the layout is the bump out where our daughter's closet is, by the stove. Husband isn't keen on taking that out, so for now it would be a work around. If the one wall comes out (where the "doors" are on the top wall), it will extend that part of the kitchen back out another 3.5-4' by 11'. (the rooms are currently offset, which I couldn't figure out how to show w/the planner so I just went ahead and made it so that wall was eliminated, making the dining area larger. Otherwise it would be like this, and not have a peninsula. There's nothing else I can think that could be changed to do w/the layout and traffic, so if you guys see something, feel free to point it out! The door on the left is the basement, that can't go anywhere, and the door on the right is an open doorway that goes to the living room, so that can't go anywhere. The door on the bottom wall is the patio door to the outside.