spazboy357, Paul is right, you are a bit short on time, but not all is lost. 1. Look at the weather for the next 4 days. If there are no 90 temps in sight, hit the lawn with a general weed killer. Then 7 days later, check the weather again for hot temps, if none in sight, hit it again with the weed killer. WeedBGone is the one I have used. It will take a couple weeks, but most of those weeds will die. 2. Big number synthetics will be good for later this fall after your seedlings somewhat mature. For now, you can get a start and get something organic down that will not harm the current grass. Miorganite is fine, or Soybean meal. Just get it down now so the micro herd activity will increase right about the time you will core aerate and seed. From there your plan is solid... My plan: Day One: Cut the lawn short (1.5"), power rake, and water heavily. -- Can't see why not Day Two: Core aerate thoroughly, put down Milorganite, overseed, put down a .25" layer of compost, sweep it in, and water. -- I would add a starter fertilizer along with the Milorganite. Milorganite will not burn or react to the starter or seeds. It will take 2-3 weeks to start working, just as the starter fertilizer wears off. Also your previous application of Milorganite will be in high gear at this time, great time for more and compost, perfect combination. Day Three onward: Water frequently (2x/day) until grass sprouts and then regularly after. --just keep the seedlings moist for the first month or so. Even after the seedling sprout they still need steady moisture, but you can cut back on the frequency and add to the voulume of watering. Do a search on watering schedule...Bestlawn nailed that process. Then, once you have mowed the new lawn a couple times, i suppose you can hit it with a synthetic, but I don't use them anymore except for the starter fert. So I will hold back on giving any advice there. Others will chime in on that. Then in the begining November, you'll want to hit it with a big nitrogen number fertilizer. This will aid in spring green up. You should be all set until May, and don't worry about weeds until then. You will get some, or a lot. Just leave them alone. You can hit them with weedBgone before the summer heat. By this time next year if the weather is cooperates you'll have a nice thick carpet, just in time for the sale. Good luck and get some photos of the process, those are always interesting to see. Plus we can all jump in and help if something doesn't look right.

It's been a while since I read the Skippy site so I went back to see what if anything it said. Sure enough, it had suggestions. See below. Of course a lot depends on the amount of stuff that ends up in the pond and how much filter material you have and how much water is being pumped. Mine often depends on the mood of the local raccoons. No two ponds are ever exactly alike. Remember, this hobby has variables. I have 1,000 gallons in the pond, a 100 gallon Skippy and a 1582 gph pump. I use a separate small pump for a UV light. Sometimes I hook up a floating skimmer which is pretty much a waste of money unless I can figure a way to make it more useful. One of these days I will make the pond bigger because the fish are getting huge. I may just add a couple more Skippys to make a bunch of catch basins for waterfalls. Sandy "Parts list: A Rubbermaid stock tank. -- Old Style -- New Style. They come in sizes 70gals, 100gals, 150gals, and 300gals. (Also available is a 50gal size but we find it too shallow to be used as a filter.) Which one is best for you? Of course the size you will need is dependant on the size of your pond. The bigger the pond the bigger the filter you will need. Makes sense, but, how about a rule of thumb? Let us say this first, these filters really work. We have a few thousand in use at this point and have not had a single failure. That is, every one we have put in is working as expected. Actually, using the S.A.G. approach (Smart As_ Guess) we think the following will work: Updated as we have found these filters to work better than even we expected... 70 gal size filter at least to a 2000 gallon pond size 100 gal size filter at least to a 3000 gallon pond size 150 gal size filter at least to a 4500 gallon pond size If you need a larger filtration system, we now suggest that you build two 150 gallon size filters. Worst case: If you built a filter so small that it did not work for your pond, you could just build another and connect it to the first one and double the capacity of the filtration process. Or, add another in a different area of your pond, doubling the filtering capacity and adding more circulation."

You need find a wildlife rehabilitator in your area and seek their assistance. They will be the best to advise you and may be able to provide someone to help you replace the chick into the nest area. Most raptor parents will feed a chick that leaves the nest early even if they are on the ground or a nearby location.

Thank you to everyone and especially to Worthy for posting my pics on the "builder's only" site. That was really helpful. After reading all the comments here and on the site Worthy posted on, plus everything else I can find about foundations and foundation repair and after talking to an engineer (from another state unfortunately) who has the expertise to actually do non-destructive foundation testing, we've finally decided that our best option at this point is to go ahead and allow the builder to do the "cosmetic fix" with high-strength, non-shrinking grout and then keep our fingers crossed that no structural effects show up down the road. Turns out that appropriate non-destructive testing of the foundation is pretty much cost prohibitive for a residential project. Plus, such testing can only result in one of two outcomes: 1) A finding that there are no structural problems which means we've bought "peace of mind" at the cost of not having enough money to finish the build unless we scale back to the very most basic of finishes and leave out pretty much every detail that made this our "dream home" to start with. - ergo, we wind up with a basic tract-home quality house that was built for a high-end custom-home price and which we would never ever be able to sell for what it cost to build; or 2) A finding that there are structural problems which will cost who knows what amounts to fix and which, in theory, our builder should be liable for. Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, I have also discovered that our builder lied to us and to our bank about having appropriate insurance in place before the foundation was poured. That in itself was a total breach of our contract and fraud but no insurance company will now insure the foundation because the work done prior to coverage! Plus, it has become clear to me that despite my having checked his references - including his financial status with his bank - he is actually on very thin ice financially. I suspect his bank is actually aware of this but was less than forthcoming to me about his status. All of which means, if we found out we actually do have foundation problems, he would probably bail from the whole contract and possibly even split town! My lawyer tells me a lawsuit in that event would be throwing good money after bad because if the builder is essentially broke and had no insurance then he is pretty much judgment proof which means even if I win there would be no way to ever collect from him. So, if there are foundation problems, we would have to pay to have them fixed or sell the property - with a known bad foundation sitting on it but no house - to someone who could afford to either fix the foundation and finish the house or have it jackhammered out and start over fresh. (Can't even imagine what it would cost to jack-hammer out nearly 2000 sq ft of rebar reinforced concrete slab!) So, we have fingers crossed that there are no real structural problems and are going ahead with the build on the CHANCE that the foundation is "good enough" and we'll wind up with our dream home without losing our shirts in the process. I'm not usually a head-in-the-sand kind of person but, at this point, I don't feel I have any other viable choice. Needless to say, I am livid especially because I DID check this guy's references every which way from Sunday including checking the website of our state agency that is supposed to register and police builders. They showed him as having a clean slate but it turns out that their on-line records appear to be at least 18 months out of date because in the last two weeks I've found out about 2 major lawsuits that have been pending against him for well over a year - both of which include claims of fraud as well as whole strings of construction defects. Plus, I've found out that the county D.A. is considering bringing a grand jury on him and indicting him for criminal fraud! At this point, I'm hoping he manages to stay out of jail and not declare bankruptcy long enough to even finish my house. And in the meantime, I'm at the site every single afternoon checking every single thing that has been done that day for myself and spending half the night researching what each stage of the build SHOULD look like. Builder is still scheduling subs and directing the build but, after confronting him about his lack of insurance and the two lawsuits, he agreed that from this point on, all financial matters will be routed through me and I made d--n certain he got the requisite coverage. I have also contracted for an independent third party inspector (not ATS) to come out an do several "phase inspections" at key points in the build - although I can't imagine any other problems/defects that could be quite so potentially expensive to correct. Hopefully this nightmare won't get any worse but with all of this going on, I probably won't have much time for visiting this forum so again, thank you to everyone and I would deeply appreciate prayers, blessings, good thoughts, and/or the sending of positive karma my way.