I summer sowed 4 containers of parsley a few weeks ago and I've had outstanding germination. So, now I have about 100 parsley seedlings that I will need to find places for. Next year I would love to have a crowd just like in your picture, Angie. Have fun with those guys. Martha

The ants probably aren't harmful directly, but they may be farming aphids on your plants. This probably wouldn't hurt your trees, but take a close look at your strawberries to see if you notice any aphids. If you do, insecticidal soap will work. Second, make sure they are not carpender ants. (I don't know anything about those, but I'd make sure they weren't before ignoring them). They can also be a nuisance in the kitchen where they get into food. You'll need to hire someone to make sure your house is well sealed to fix that. However, if they are not carpender ants and you don't see them in your house or any aphids on your plants, I wouldn't worry about them. They may simply be swarming. Ants will do that sometimes, but don't seem to hurt anything except maybe a bite on your skin. :)

This is a random idea that might sound ridiculous when you look at your floorplan, but I can't see your floorplan, so here goes. I assume there are adjacent rooms on at least one or two sides of the kitchen--living room, dining room, bathroom, whatever. So, is there any space in any of those rooms where you could give up 24"x24", or even half that amount, in order to get the water heater out of (or half-out of) the kitchen? What I'm picturing is one of the following: (1) You locate the water heater in an adjacent room and make some plumbing/wiring changes to allow for that, then build something like a sideboard or radiator cover around it. Now, in that adjacent room, you have a sort of built-in sideboard with a shelf/tabletop on it that you can set stuff on top of. It has a door or panel you can open to access the hot water heater. So you don't need to be able to access the water heater from the kitchen at all, which means you can go ahead with normal cabinets (which should be cheaper and less hassle). Or... (2) You locate the water heater half-in the kitchen (hidden inside cabinets) and half-in an adjacent room (again, hidden in a sort of sideboard/radiator cover, but now the sideboard is only 24"x12"). This way, you have a little sideboard in that room with a panel for accessing the water heater, and also a shelf/tabletop surface on top of it where you can set plants or framed pictures or something. In the kitchen, instead of throwing off your entire design, the sideboard simply eats up the back half of one cabinet so the shelves in that cabinet are only 12" deep instead of 24". Again, you don't need to access the water heater from the kitchen, since there's a panel in the sideboard. Could something like this work? If there's really absolutely no room for this sort of sideboard idea, here's a third approach: (3) Could you move the water heater so it's still in the kitchen but sits against the wall of an adjacent room, and then place the access panel to the water heater in that adjacent room, so you don't need to access it through your cabinets and counter? In any of these three ideas, keep in mind that you've got a wall--which should be about 4 to 6 inches thick--between the other room and the kitchen. If you can cut an opening slightly larger than the water heater in this wall, then you don't need to steal as much space from the adjacent room, since the water heater will be occupying that 4 to 6 inches that's currently occupied by that part of the wall. So even in option (1), you might only need to steal 18"-20" or so instead of the full 24". Or in option (3), you might be able to have very shallow shelves (like 4"-6" max) in the kitchen cabinet where the water heater sits. And either way you might even be able to have a full-depth drawer, since the water heater is 6" shorter than your countertop will be. Here is a link that might be useful: Radiator covers - examples of what you could build around the water heater

Oh my goodness! Ten years ago I saved and scrimped and searched antique stores looking for a formal mahogany dining room set. I felt like such a grown up after it was delivered. Three days later, my three year old thought the dining room set up would be a perfect place to play "office". She got a piece of notebook paper and a ball point pen, had a seat at the head chair and scribble scrabbled away. My dining room table still has an 8 1/2 by 11 inch section of very deep imprints of her toddler scribbles. I was so destroyed when it happened but eventually found the humor in it a while later. Now we are downsizing but I really don't want to part with that table. If it didn't have the scribble scrabble I wouldn't have a second thought about getting rid of it. As a compromise, think I'll take a photo of the damage/memory and hang it in a frame with a picture of her impish three year old face.