Micki - how well or poorly your soil will work for you pretty much hinges on how water-retentive your soil is and the ht of the perched water it supports, if it supports perched water. The ht of the perched water is locked in a direct relationship with the size of the particles that make up your soil, while the o/a water retention depends on particle size AND what the soil is made from. Turface MVP, used directly from the bag, is too water-retentive to be a good choice as a stand-alone soil ingredient because it has too many fines. Even the larger particles after screening over insect screen to remove the fines are on the lower end of the desirable size range because of how much water they hold. So, if you're using even SCREENED Turface as a primary fraction of your soils, you don't want to mix it with anything that has smaller particles because you'll be introducing additional water retention and increasing the ht of the PWT. As soil particles increase in size, the ht of the PWT diminishes, until at just a little over 1/10" it disappears entirely, so that 1/10-1/8" particle size is going to be ideal. If all of your soil particles are in that range, your soil will not support perched water, and the only water it retains will be inside any porous particles & what is trapped in the micro-pores where the particles touch. This is as close to an ideal situation as you can get. You can get there by screening your ingredients so the size is appropriate. It matters very little what your soil is made OF, as long as it holds a favorable amount of air and water, so a soil that is adjustable for water retention makes perfect sense. Combining screened pine or fir bark with screened Turface and crushed granite offers you a soil that holds little or no perched water and is widely adjustable for water retention. Perched water is primarily what kills roots, saps vitality, and sets the table for the fungaluglies that eat your roots. With an appropriate soil, you also have a much wider margin for error when it comes to watering and fertilizing - it just makes growing soo much easier. Mixing any fine particles into the larger particles negates the lions share of the good the larger particles have the potential to provide. E.g., mixing peat and pine bark 50-50 leaves you with a soil that has the flow through rate of just peat and the same ht PWT as just peat. The o/a water retention is less than that of peat alone, but it's the ht of the PWT and how long it takes it to go away that determines the damage done to fine rootage. You can't start with a volume of fine particles like peat, compost, sand and amend it to reduce the ht of the PWT. It's only when the large particles are present in great enough volume that there's not enough fine p[articles to fill in between the particles that the ht of the PWT begins to be reduced. To envision what I just said, ask yourself how much perlite you have to add to pudding to get it to hold air and drain?? The answer is the perlite needs to be 80%+ of the o/a volume before it begins to have an impact on anything other than o/a water retention. I think you'll be doing yourself a considerable favor if you shoot for something that looks like this: rather than something that contains any significant volume of fine material. Al

If you collect thimbells, they would look nice highlighted under the glass. At christmas you could display some of the tiny wooden ornaments from germany that comes in to TJMAX and Marshalls around Oct, Nov. For a girly look, you could display a nice bracelet opened up under it on top of your bedroom dresser, even a few lovely rings lined up would be pretty. Collection of broaches, (cut a strip of velvet for the jewerly to lay on)...Basically anything tiny can be highlighted under glass...

My DH got some at a GW a couple of years ago for me. My dear grandson whom I was babysitting everyday was 2 years old at the time and feeding the birds was an everyday thing. He absolutely LOVED the blackcapped chickadees. In one of those books there were pictures and detailed instructions on crossstiching a set of 4 birds. A cardinal, blackcapped chickadee, bluebird, and goldfinch. I had never crossstiched in my life, but my DSIL showed me how to get started and I crossstiched him the chickadee. I started on the cardinal and got bored . Maybe I will take it to the hospital when DH goes back for the operation and try to finish it. This past year we hit the mother lode and came home from the GW with 2 huge stacks of those types of books (most of mine are Christmas related I think). Probably about 20 or so of them. I enjoy all of the recipes in them also. You can sit down and spend a couple of hours easily just looking through them. The price was sure right! Betty

Sorry, don't know why I went into all that. I usually don't mention it cause I don't want to sound like a whiner. ha My family may disagree with you on the nice all the time thing. ha I do pretty good until later at night when it of course hurts the most and I'm short on patience. I'm usually grinding my teeth to keep from snapping at everyone. Just want everyone to go to bed and let me relax a bit. The pregnancies were bad at the end because I have a small frame and my babies were all over 8 lbs and one lacked only a few ounces of being 10 lbs!! A lot of weight to carry around like that, but I was basically bedridden anyway because I had Hyperemesis Gravidarum (extreme morning, noon, night sickness) and had tons of problems from that. ha Don't ask me how they all weighed that much because I didn't keep anything down the whole 9 months, not even water!! ha On my second child I even asked the dr if the baby was still in there because I was pretty sure I had thrown him up! ha I made it thru and it was only 9 months of heck for each and I have my little angels forever. Anyway, after apologizing I went ahead and gave you my life history again .ha Sorry!! I just got to look at your pics. I was out most of yesterday trying to buy a new shirt to wear out to dinner with some friends. Went to a yummy chinese restaurant. It was nice to get out. Anyhoo, saw your eggs and trays and just realized I forgot to comment on the trays. ha I'll go back over there and post there. ha You have a great weekend. ~Anj