The soil is fairly nutrient rich, heavy clay with varying degrees of 'hardpan' about 8-12 inches down. None of it has great drainage, but it is not a permanent swamp. In summer it all dries up and turns brown, even most of that lush looking stuff. We'll see what that means in the next 10 years, maybe most of my eucs will fall over during that time period. But so far, those that have had problems are in the minority. The E. viminalis did hit the fence, but the fence wasn't damaged. Thanks for the thoughts... it was a beautiful tree. It had a better than usual weeping habit for E. viminalis, and narrower than usual leaves and smooth white bark. This winter has been stormier than usual.... one of the stormiest I can remember, in fact. 1996-97 was pretty bad but I think this winter has been worse. Now whose ready for a nice arctic blast? Actually, it doesn't look too apocalyptic at this point.... just another moderate blast, not enough to make this the next landmark winter. On another note... I went and visited the Chrysolepis population near Hood Canal in early November. I found a lot more trees than I had managed to discover previously, including some that can be viewed from Highway 101 if you know just where too look, and some growing deep in the forest far away from salt water. This is a very interesting area in that it is very wet, receiving 80-100" of rain annually, but still dries out sufficiently in summer to support extensive populations of manzanita, madrona and Ceanothus velutinus.

I agree with sedum37 in the alternative to using all cable/satellite etc. as well as having lines run underground. Having said that, we have to deal with the reality that the lines are mostly above ground. Comcast, like all other utility companies are concerned with protecting their property, IE the wiring etc. that run to our homes. It would have been nice if comcast gave the the opportunity to trim the tree on your property to keep the wires from going through the tree branches, but even if they had, the tree would have had to be trimmed to their satisfaction for the wires not the asthetic beauty of the tree. Recently a similar situation occurred in my neighborhood with the electric company power lines. Some trees where on private property and some where on the town side of the street. Residents where constantly complaining about power failures and the electric company was constantly replacing wires that where damaged by these tree branches, especially on the trees on the residents property. All where told that the tree branches needed to be trimmed to prevent continued damage of stripping the wires and causing electrical shorts that could cause serious fires. Residents refused to do anything because they didn't want to pay the expense of professionals cutting limbs to satisfy the electric company. 2 months ago they where giving 30 days to have the trees trimmed or it would be done and branches that where needed to be removed would be cut. None of the residents did anything, and 3 days after the 30 days where up, the electric company sent people down to remove the branches that needed to be removed on both private property and town property. Yes the trees don't look as they should, but the private property owners had been repeatedly warned to do something, then given 30 days to do something and they refused to do anything. The same with the town and now the result is hysterical neighbors, outraged and the appearance of the trees both on the street and their property. I might add that the night before the electrical company came down to cut those branches, my hubby and I heard this strange crackling sound and then saw huge flashes of light across the street. Within seconds a tree was on fire and we lost electricity. We called the fire department who where here in less than 2 minutes. Though no one suffered serious damage of any kind except for a few trees on the street, the cause of the fire was tree branches stripping electrical wires to bare wire and the sparks coming out set the town trees on fire. Had they been trimmed as ordered by the electric company, that fire would not have happened, putting 4 homes in danger of burning down. I would assume there is a similar risk with the comcast wiring as well. As I said before, it would be nice to have had them ask you to trim the tree, and you didn't say if they did or didn't or if they did and you refused. A beautiful appearance to a tree is nice to look at, but having that and risking the damage of a fire to save that beauty, as well as the risk of loss of life and injury is nothing to ignore. I one has to make a choice between life and safety or a pretty tree, I'm sorry but the life and safety comes long before the tree. Fran

I have a pattern in an old fmaily circle or woman's day- it appears in the magazine in blue I believe and it wasn't on Joan collins but some other actress. e-mail me at lkisser@comcast.net (the first letter is an "L")

It seems pretty simple. If you have an iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone you can download the Remote app from the Apple App Store which will allow you to use the device to control your Apple TV. Use a universal remote, which will also require downloading the Remote app to set up the remote. Once you have that done, the universal remote will function alone. Buy a new remote for about $20. If the only thing you use the Apple TV to do is watch Netflix, then going through Comcast would probably be easier and wouldn't require a new remote.