Good morning! I can't believe it is another gorgeous day out there. I can't remember the last time we actually had a long holiday weekend with weather so beautiful you could actually enjoy it. [g] We did something very rare yesterday....we actually sat in the yard. lol We normally are always working in the garden, but DD came home from three days of participating in a wedding of a friend and was tired enough to slow her down. So we dragged the lounge chair out of the basement and she fell asleep listening to the birds. DH read the paper and we saw a pair of neon orange orioles for the third time this spring. I turned on the sprinkler....we are dry here....and while watching the soothing motion of the sprinkler, I did some LALATing [Lounging and looking at things] Now that doesn't quite roll off the tongue. :-) Marian! How nice to see you posting! What is the name of that very colorful iris? It is quite eye catching. Do you have a lot of iris? I had never grown an iris until someone gave me two clumps at a swap about three years ago. Last year I made my first iris order. I ordered three and they added a bonus, so four lovely rhizomes arrive from Mid America. I follow specific instructions to the letter to pot them up. The next morning I head for the pots to see how they are doing and the darling squirrels had dug them up and run off with all but one of them. I tried salvaging the one that was left, which had bite marks in it and managed to repot and later get it into the garden. But I had no idea which one I had left. Here it is! I had to post a photo to ID it on the Iris Forum because it wasn't any of those I ordered, but was the bonus they sent. It is called 'I'm Back' and was a Thomas Johnson 2007 introduction apparently. So how are you doing Marian, and what is new in your neck of the woods? Cynthia...I am enjoying your garden. Love your Climbing Pinkie. So full of blooms! I envy you your huge windchime. I am collecting windchimes now but DH does not like the sound of a loud one, so I am limiting mine to soft sounds. Gardenbug....your spring garden is so chockful of gorgeous plants. It must be amazing in person. Do you have a lot of fragrant plants? Great shot of the robin and her eggs. They are quite large aren't they? Love that color! Mary...DS has quite a sense of humor....lol. And so do you! :-) Woody....I really enjoyed your photos! I would bet your friend was very glad to have you with her at the nursery. You are quite the busy bee. I bet you can't wait to see the swagged rose starting down the chains...and I can't either. :-) Kathy...I do like that idea of taking photos at garden centers. I would love to see the one you buy your succulents at. I always try to remember my camera in case I see something I want to think about later. Love your new succulent arrangement and the pot is a beauty! I have a Nora Leigh which is coming in variegated again but it is only my second year with it. Sorry to hear it may convert. My Frosty Morn Sedum had a lot of green on it this year, but I just pull off those and it seems to fill in fine. BTW, speaking of begonias, where are photos of your collection? The JJinTP, had been grown from seed and apparently took 4-5yrs to produce the bloom. I know they do winter sow quite well, but who wants to wait that long to see a bloom? A plant I can be quite happy having just one of. :-) Happy Memorial Day! :-) pm2

"The trench would be about 7 feet deep and 1 foot wide, thus, the average depth of the coil would be about 5 feet." This tells me that they would install a vertical Slinky, probably with a backhoe. A chain trencher, 'Witch Ditch' would probably be narrower than 1 foot wide and would be a faster install, unless soil conditions do not permit this technique. Avg. depth of 5 feet could mean that the loops are 4 feet in diameter meaning the top of the loop may be only 3 feet below the surface. If this is so, then this may not ideal. Top of the loop should be at least 4 feet deep (minimum) or deeper. Digging should be contracted to someone with the right equipment (chain trencher, 'Witch Ditch'). Even then this may be less than ideal in that it's harder to flush a vertical slinky (standing up) than a horizontal slinky (laying flat) in that any trapped air will reside at the tops of these vertical loops. This trapped air could be a serious impediment to liquid flow as it may form an air lock thus shortening or short-circuiting the entire loop. Bottom line in plain English, it will work - if properly designed, installed, purged and FLUSHED! SR

I call this "my carrot cake"...but it came from Julie T a caterer and cook book author. For a big cake, I double the recipe and make 4 8 inch square layers, one 3 layer 8 inch square cake and then take the other single layer, cut it in half and stack it frost and freeze....so I have a half a cake for some time when I need a dessert. And if the tent has sides on it....you probably won't need the propane heater....a tent full of people keeps itself somewhat warm. Carrot cake Julie TâÂÂs 3 eggs 3/4 cup vegetable oil 3/4 cup buttermilk 2 cups sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 3/4 teaspoon salt 2 tsps cinnamon 1 8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained 2 cups grated carrots 1/2 cup raisins chopped with 1 Tablespoon of flour Buttermilk glaze 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 tsp baking soda 1/4 cup buttermilk 1/4 cup butter 1 Tblsp light corn syrup 1 tsp vanilla Orange Cream Cheese Frosting 1/2 cup softened butter 4 oz softened cream cheese 1 tsp vanilla 3 cups powdered sugar 1 tsp orange juice 1 tsp grated orange rind Preheat oven to 350 With a mixer Beat eggs, add oil and buttermilk, sugar and vanilla. beat to combine. Stir together flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda and stir into batter. stir in pineapple, carrots and raisins. Pour into a greased 8 by 13 pan or 2 greased round 9 inch cake pans. Bake 35 to 45 minutes until set in the middle. Remove from the oven and immediatly spread with the buttermilk glaze. Cool completely and frost with the cream cheese frosting. Buttermilk glaze: In a medium sauce pan ( don't use a small pan) combine all ingredients but vanilla. Bring to a boil and cook 3 minutes stirring often...it will bubble a lot. It should be a light caramel color, stir in vanilla and pour over the cake Cream cheese frosting: Beat cream cheese and butter until light add vanilla powd. sugar and juice and rind...beat until smooth and frost the cooled cake.

DB is creepy. That's exactly what I implied 9 years ago when this thread started. LOL. Article from Dallas News - Nov. 2016 This is a story about a creepy business gone bad that is now trying to go good. Do you remember DirectBuy? The company used to advertise in TV commercials as a members-only savings club for every kind of household item. You'd go to their showroom for a pitch and that's where the wackiness kicked in. If you didn't bring your spouse, you couldn't come in. If, after listening to the sales job, you decided not to buy a membership package right then and there (as high as $7,000), you were banned from coming back. If you bought and then found out that you couldn't buy what you wanted and the prices were not cheaper as promised, you couldn't get a refund. Lawsuits piled up. Consumer reviews were awful. I remember trying to interview franchise owners in 2010. They wouldn't talk to me. The PR guy for DirectBuy in Indiana didn't bother to answer all my questions. Yes, indeed. DirectBuy was a truly crummy company. Then the company disappeared. The TV ads stopped. The last of the 160 franchise stores, including one in Carrollton and another in Fort Worth, closed forever, leaving high-paying members angry and confused. Where did DirectBuy go? Answer: This month, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing $185 million in debts to the best-known home furnishing and supply companies in the world. Sounds like the final act of an old-line company that couldn't cut it anymore, right? Turns out, it may be the beginning of a new DirectBuy. Chapter 2 I'll admit that I had to alter the course of this story. A crummy company filing bankruptcy? What's left to save? Turns out DirectBuy has quietly remade itself, as executives describe it, into an Amazon wannabe with "concierge customer service." No more 20,000-square-foot showroom stores. Everything is now online and mobile-ready. You want a certain sofa? You take a photo of it, and the new DirectBuy app recognizes the sofa and shows you their cheapest price. If it's not low enough, DB will drop even lower. Need a home decorator to come and help you? Sure. Got that, too. Live chat? Yep. The price for this service is $200 for a one-time initiation fee, and $40 a month in a one-year contract. That's thousands of dollars cheaper than the old cost that came with a three-year contract. DB also promises a refund if not happy within the first 90 days. That's a jolting change for the company's old ways, fighting to hold customers to their wacky restrictive contracts. DB claims 200,000 customers nationally. They now switch to the monthly subscription model when their contracts expire. Six years ago, my records show, DB had 10,000 customers in North Texas. Chief marketing officer Curt Hilliard says his mobile-ready company uses search tools to find the lowest price, including delivery charges. "We don't just meet the price," he promises. "We drop the price a guaranteed percentage." The bankruptcy establishes a "clean slate," says spokesman Mike Georgeff, the PR exec who was hard to pin down in the old days. Now he's pretty talkative about the future. The company expects to be acquired by its lenders who become the new owners, he says. "We can establish a clean slate for our future business and prosperity," Georgeff says. Be skeptical The company must prove itself as a reincarnated version of its old self, says Julie Baker, retired TCU professor of marketing. She checked out the older version years ago and realized the offerings were better suited for someone furnishing a house or doing a major renovation. Otherwise, initial costs to join were too steep to overcome. She told me this week that turning around a company with a bad customer service culture is very difficult. "For me, it just doesn't make sense, especially over the long term," she said. "I don't see how they can be profitable charging $40 a month. They have to make a profit on the furniture even if they say they are not. There are warning flags for me." Can the same company come back in a bigger and better way? I hope so. Remember, this is a story of a creepy business that's trying to reform. Certainly, we need more of that. Staff writer Marina Trahan Martinez contributed to this report. Check out The Watchdog on NBC5 at 11:20 a.m. Mondays, talking about matters important to you.