Like dian57, I keep my empties with my "fulls." My pantry shelves always have about the same number of jars on them (give or take a few dozen that have been given away, or are harbouring leftovers, in the dishwasher, or seconded for wasp trap duty). But in November about 90% of them are full, while in May about 90% of them are empty. After every dishwasherload I take the clean empties into the pantry and put them where there's space, rearranging a wee bit as necessary, pushing full jars to the front & grouping batches of the same size together near things that I can in that size. I used to keep my empties in the basement and my fulls in the kitchen, and I NEVER could make myself do the trek just to put empty jars away so there were bags and piles of empties near the stairs waiting to be taken down (and getting knocked over by cats, dogs, nehpews, etc.). ANd I'm bad at getting around to big re-org projects, too, so it works better for me to just do a teeny bit of re-org each time I do dishes. Can I say, btw, that the every time I take several used canning jars out of a dishwasher, I get a little happy feeling? It reminds me that my home-canned food is now an integral part of my life, if you see what I mean. When I began, my canned goodies were few and often esoteric things saved for special occasions or to show off for guests. Now the home-canned-goods pantry is just where I get my tomato sauce from, as a matter of course. Everyday joy. Z

I have had issues with GW lately failing to email me when subsequent posts to threads come up, so you're not the only one it doesn't like! The mason bees have one generation per year. It makes them so easy to have around. You certainly don't need to bring in the bee cells to your home if that's not your thing. If you don't, there could be several predators that will mine little holes into some of their tubes and attack the developing larvae. Some suggest waiting til fall to bring them in, but if I remember, I just grab the blocks that are filled up and store them in the basement once the adults are no longer visiting the blocks (usually around the beginning of June). Bringing them in greatly reduces the risk of predators. The adults are only out from late March to early June. Once you've got all your planting done for the season, but the end of May early June, then it's time to start to monitor the boxes for adult visitation drop off. Yep, we've certainly had a few bees in the house! If you forget them in the basement, they will emerge by about mid April no matter the temperatures, so you gotta get them outside by the end of March. If a couple do emerge earlier, I put the freshly emerged adults into the refrigerator with a cotton ball soaked in sugar water 2:1 water to sugar. The cold slows them down and the sugar water sustains them for a few days to a few weeks. I then put the entire little box in the fridge until it looks like Mother Nature is cooperating, and providing them with blossoms to visit. To avoid any issues, I try and put the boxes and bee cells out when the flower buds on the fruit trees start to look like they are about to open. I wish I had some pictures of the larval cells. They are like little bullets with mud on either side. As a note, the roofs on the boxes for mason bees are totally not needed, though I think the little workers appreciate a little rain cover. I've seen people stack 2x6 blocks in their yard without any rain cover or roof, and they still keep their bees happy. In the late fall, you can often find folks selling starter mason bee pupal cells on Craigslist and EBay for around 20 bucks. Of course you can purchase them from online sellers as well. I never have had that many blocks where I had a bunch of surplus bee cells, but maybe I'll build a few more boxes this fall to increase the reproduction opportunity next spring. I'm not in it to make money, but I would be willing to donate some starts to someone wanting to give them a try if they produce enough next spring. Zach, as much as you seem to like insects, this little cheap project should be on your to do list! Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions that may come up along the way. Dan

I have searched and searched for the pix of DD's wedding-I have scrapbooked them, so I KNOW they exist...just can't find them. I tried to scan the book she had made, but can't get that to work either. Sigh. The wedding for DD1 is going to be lakeside (did I already tell this?) and much less fancy than her sisters. But a FUN party in any event. We're planning things like lawn Yahtzee, and instead of a guest book, we'll have a 'photobooth' where the guest can write a sentiment on a large card, then have their photo taken. The kids will always be able to put a face to the name. I'm having it catered, it's just so much easier than trying to figure out the logistics of bringing in food. We might do huge bunches of lavender and tiny pots of succulents for the centerpieces. She's bought a bunch of paper lanterns that are battery powered, covered with orange & red cherry blossoms, and we're going to use a lot of bright orange, pink and purple-Indian colors. Her wedding will cost about 1/3 of her sisters, but that is mostly due to the different setting, number of guests and photographer. DD2's wedding had a premier DJ (best money spent EVER), pro photographer, and catering for 125 ppl. We spent a total of maybe $1000 for decor, flowers, favors, etc. Most was all done DIY, but it was fantastic. The owners of the ballroom had asked if they could have pix for their promotional materials! As soon as I can figure out where those pix are, i'll post them. And start posting the ideas we have for this next wedding. Oh, and by the way-that light fixture is hideous, IMHO.

Sophie, Are you saying tuckpointing a whole house for 30k, or just the areas I described? The areas touched included just the 5ft of wall above the garage doors, the top of the chimney and the 30sf of miscelaneous work, which was mostly filling open mortar joints that didn't need to be ground and all at ground level. Last year we had a 24' tall chimney exposed on 3.5 sides tuckpointed with lots of bad brick in the same city and bids ranged between 3000-7000 with the bids higher than 5000 being from contractors that recommended a more involved scope than we ended up going with. With this project we got one bid slightly lower, and although it looked like they did good work, they hadn't renewed their license in our city and were planning to do the job without a permit under the radar. There was one for $12,500 (company who ended up doing our chimney) then there was one from a large professional restoration firm that was up in the stratosphere. The company we went with had been a little higher but really wanted the job and came down to the 10400+1000 coordination base contract+permit We weren't expecting them to come out separately, Our thing is that they already have to come out to fix a few things including the open mortar joints that were missed in the exact same area that they would be working.