Aliska We grow in containers because even after we augment our soil for years it looks like this: It doesn't matter how much organic matter we put in. All it takes is a few gullywashers a year and the compost washes down the hill and we are back to trying to garden in rocks and coal. The only way to hold organic matter in the soil here is to augment very heavily and have a ton of perennial plants with huge mats of roots to help anchor it. So veg went to containers and in-ground growing is mainly used for hardy perennial flowers. To fill the containers, we have a great compost heap and we spend as much time growing soil as we do growing our plants. Here's two of our compost heaps in 2008 - that's after all the buckets were filled: Since then we've stepped up our composting a lot. We actually harvest our forest floors now. Two reasons for that. One is to feed the compost heap with the organic matter from the forest floor and from our annual leaf harvest. The second is to expose the soil on the forest floor so we can seed into it and grow more stuff for the animals to eat. This is our star compost producer. She's good for about 2 five gallon buckets of collectibles each day. (That's just the black gold she leaves in the back yards closest to the compost heap. She also leaves plenty out in the hills.) Connie the queen of compost: As for intermediate transplanting. Part of it is that potting up size by size is good for the plants. Part of it is that while potting up season is in full swing, we have to spend to spend day after day sieving compost and blending it with a little perlite. It takes time to get enough compost to fill close to 500 buckets. We use fresh compost in the buckets each year. That decreases disease risk for the plants and lets us plant them in soil that is so nutrient rich that we never use fertilizer. At the end of the growing season the compost from the buckets gets put in my giant flower gardens. The reason we have so many plants is that we grow most of our own food. Gardening isn't a hobby for us - it's dinner! We are both vegetarian so don't worry - cute Connie and the goats are working animals (landscaping crew and compost makers), not future meals. As we've transitioned to doing all of our food growing in containers, we've seen other gardeners in the area do the same. We get used buckets from our friendly local scrapyard dealer. He's a gardener who's now using more containers and he tells his other gardening customers about it. It's a lot of work, but it's usually better than fighting Appalachian hill soil. It also lets us control the soil moisture - not an easy thing to do if you are ground growing and the weather is cycles of drought and flood. We also use tire gardens for some of our growing: Most of the photos have additional comments with them. Click on any of them to see a larger image and the comments. Lynda

My wife asked me what "refulgent" meant - she'd found it in a magazine article. I was able to tell her that it turns up in a song in the Mikado, but I didn't know what it meant. So we looked it up - it means "shining, brilliant or radiant" - and it's marked in my dictionary as "Literary". I've just looked up the G&S - I was actually wrong! This is the song I was misremembering. The sun, whose rays are all ablaze With ever-living glory, Does not deny his majesty He scorns to tell a story! He don't exclaim, "I blush for shame, So kindly be indulgent." But, fierce and bold, In fiery gold, He glories all effulgent! And what does "effulgent" mean? Radiant, brilliant... I have to say that in my opinion, both effulgent and refulgent sound downright unpleasant - it's a surprise to me that they don't mean as they sound. Is there a word for the opposite of onomatopoeia?

My electrician (aka hubby) finally got my second pendant hung over the island today!! You may or may not remember when I posted this pic back in September or October Right after I built and installed my temp island. The area looked, quite frankly, somewhat ridiculous. An 8 ft long island with this one lone pendant hanging over one end of it. The reason it was there was because that was an existing box that used to have a fluorescent light box on it. I knew I wanted to put in another box ran off of the first one and install 2 pendants, well, today it finally got done!! Yay!! Not only is it aesthetically pleasing but there is soooo much more light over my island now! Can I just mention again how much I love the smoke colored glass in these pendants? Also, in keeping with our weekly thread "no accomplishment is too small", I tracked down some spare 2x6 and cut blocks to fit in the old window spot. I also got the piece of drywall cut to install. The only reason I haven't yet is because I am thinking of creating a "time capsule" to put in the wall before I close it off. Chances are that spot will be opened again at some point in the future, it is where the MIL quarters and main house meet. Even if I never open it back up, I thought it would be cool to leave a "treasure" there for someone to discover in the future. Tell me truthfully, does that sound really lame or kinda cool?

These are not corporate secretary tasks-- while it could be an administrator, it's more likely an engineer type person. I appreciate the caution on terminology for the parent company-- in this case, there's no reason to be concerned about the politics of the relationship between organizations. The terms will be used to configuration tables accessed only by the application owners/administrators (who are not members of either parent or subsidiary orgs)… yes, I am using it in a solution design presentation first.. but the audience is similarly limited.