No Brendan, LGD's don't work like that. Most of it is instinct, with a %age learned, such as normal puppy behavior of not chasing or playing rough. If we were talking any other type of dog, I'd agree with you. But we are talking LGD's-Pyr, Anatolian, Akbash, Maremma, and a host of other Livestock guardians-LGD bloodlines only no mixes of outside non-lgd bloodlines. These dogs bond with their charges, be it livestock, fowl, or people, and they become a pack or a herd, whichever you prefer. Probably the only reason a well bred lgd would eat one of their charges would be the threat to the herd-the sick one-and then they would normally segregate it, and after natural death eat. It eats it because it became a threat to the herd simply by being sick or dead, which would lure predators to the herd. This behavior is often mistaken for them killing it by newbies to ownership. No, they are not like other dogs. These dogs actually take care of their charges, be it keeping it warm, or cleaning up after a birthing, or staying with an animal stuck in the fence. Oftentimes they eat every other or third day, similar to wolves, who are their mortal enemy. If you ever have the opportunity to observe their interaction with their charges, please do. I've seen a pup actually remove a pail off of a goats head once-truly amazing the care that was taken, the thought process, and the sincere concern for the doe. Of course your scenario can happen, but it is highly unlikely and improbable, and of course there would be no need because the dog would have food readily available at his/her leisure. Brendasue

TheBobo: Thanks for the input. It's not as idiosyncratic as it appears, for small town New Mexico. You have 14 risers in the stairway before the fold back and a total of 22. This would make this a...12 foot ceiling? Seems way overkill for a small space. The staircase design was driven by two requirements: Tread depth sized for the owner's size 14 shoes and clearance for a 6'4" human where the top floor crosses the stairwell. That, combined with the desired landing size and the NM code for rise/run results in nearly 12 foot ceiling in the lower floor if the staircase doubles back. The upside to that is that we can have ceiling fans and chandeliers without the owner risking scalp wounds. It's a real help in hot weather. The pantry is the same size as the kitchen. Do you really need it that big? Yes. It's a small town 1.5 hours from the nearest Costco or Trader Joe's so we will be making infrequent shopping trips and buying in bulk. Wine, flour, paper goods, detergent, cat food, canned goods, etc. will be stored there. By putting the bulk of the storage in a utility area, we minimize the amount of finish cabinetry needed. It can have painted pine open shelving instead of the custom mesquite stuff I want for the kitchen. It's a huge cost savings. The powder room is directly visible from the living area. Yes, it is. With the constraints of "must be accessible without nose-powderers getting in the way of the cook or going through a bedroom" that's the only place it can go. If the door is wide open, you can see the sink and from one area, the front half of the toilet bowl peeking out of its niche. So it's going to have to be REALLY pretty just in case the door is open. The living/dining space is more than twice as wide as it is long, which will give it the feel of a hallway. We debated and dumped the idea of separate LR and DR areas and went with the "open" American Foursquare plan, where the combined LR/DR runs the full width of the house. It's like a typical Mexican Colonial "sala" (living/dining room) that is meant to have furniture moved around for events, and has the traffic along one wall from entry to stairs and kitchen. The neighbors across from our current NM house - in an 1880 or so adobe - have an amazing 14x40 sala with 15-foot ceilings down one side of their house. This is the concept: http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/550x/60/38/77/6038770800a92560cb1beb4261e83662.jpg http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/550x/60/38/77/6038770800a92560cb1beb4261e83662.jpg It's serving triple duty - dining area near the kitchen, living room chat area in the middle, and a small reading/chat area near the front windows. With 12-foot ceilings, vigas going across the short dimension, big rugs and well-scaled furniture set mostly across the short dimension it's should avoid the bowling alley look. As you enter and turn right, you can see down the long dimension through french doors to the veranda into the south garden ... or you can look across the short dimension into the east garden through the windows. We're still discussing windows VS french doors on that side. ============================= GreenDesigns: Do you have specific design solutions to offer, or is your "not gonna work" reaction your final word? Not gonna be accessible at all. You're not leaving enough room for that. What is "that" and where do you think "that" needs more room? If you have a specific area that falls short, please let me know. Pocket doors take walls that are twice as thick and take space from your rooms. No, there is a hardware/frame combo for standard 2x4 walls. At worst it takes a 2x6 framing. Minimizing sound transmission is easy if you build it correctly. It's just applied acoustics. They are a poor solution to a problem that should get solved another way. What are your suggestions for the problem of eventual handicapped access and the desire to eliminate wasted door swing area? I'm afraid that the only thing that I see working about the plan is to have all 4 sides have porches on them. That works in a cooling climate, although it will rob the interior of any natural light and you will need to pay extra attention to the lighting plan. It's in New Mexico - 320-340 sunny days a year, even when its cold, and dry temps in the 95-105 in the summer. "Portales" (wide arcades over walkways and patios) are the rule, not the exception. It's comfortable being outside almost all year if you can get into or out of the sun as needed, and walking into a cool, dark house is a blessed relief in the summer. Skylight over the staircase, aerogel light panels (should count as walls, not against our precious window allotment) in some "windows", transoms, whatever they call the traditional small windows near the ceilings in Pueblo architecture, and 10-foot windows under the veranda should help.

Yeah, you're right with the carbon block. The flow rates would not be suitable for POE - my mistake. I'm not surprised that you find customers that are worried by "bacteria". I think many people hear that word and get afraid - I said so earlier. The fact is the vast majority of kinds of bacteria are harmless to humans. But I'm sure lots of folks would be scared by seeing a petri dish full of them just the same. I'm sure lots of folks would be suprised how many things they consume and touch would also cause a petri dish to overload with bacteria. Our goal though should be accurate information. If someone's fears still prevent them from doing something that's their choice. We should distinguish between bacteria that is a hazard to people (pathogenic) and ones that aren't. Water, air, objects, and food are all full of bacteria and we need to understand the actual health risks. Trying to avoid all bacteria is impossible. Trying to reduce harmless bacteria is wasting money that could be spent on efforts that actually do provide a health benefit. The link below is very interesting. It is an article from Water Conditioning and Purification Magazine. The article is titled "Bacteria in Drinking Water - Public Health Implications" and is dated July 2002. It is a consensus review of material from a NSF International and World Health Organization (WHO) International Symposium. The article specifically talks about activated carbon and the growth of bacteria - among other things. It's fairly, uh er, dense, reading but if there's any hardy souls still reading this thread they might find it interesting. I encourage anyone to read the entire article, and, for that matter, peruse other material on the site. But, for those who want the executive summary, below are some choice parts. Oh, I have no association in any way with this publication or it's authors. I'll note this article talks about tests with POU devices, I'll be doing another post shortly with another reference that talks about POE and POU jointly. This article at least clearly shows that changing from POE to POU will not prevent drinking "bacteria". It talks about the health risks of this bacteria and I believe that POE and POU have largely the same health risks. POE carbon-based devices are not nearly as common as POU so I'm not surprised these large organizations don't focus as much attention on them. In the quotes of the article below, know that "HPC" is a measurement of naturally occurring bacteria. ************************** "Interestingly, HPC levels in foods haven't raised the same concern as in the drinking water industry. It's not unusual to find very high numbers (>50,000 cfu/gram or ml) of HPC bacteria in a wide variety of foods such as pasteurized milk, cheeses, meats, yogurts and fresh produce. HPC bacteria consumed with food is generally several orders of magnitude larger than those consumed in water. A million HPC bacteria have been documented on a single gram of leaf lettuce and carrot sticks.(1)" *********************** "Granular activated carbon (GAC), commonly used in the water treatment industry, is known to concentrate bacteria and their growth substrates. As water passes through the GAC, bacteria may also be released. Point-of-use (POU) treatment devices have been shown to reduce the level of waterborne gastrointestinal disease and remove known microbial pathogens. It's not uncommon, however, to note a significant increase in HPC bacteria post treatment, possibly several-fold higher than the influent water. Re-growth of bacteria in POU devices occurs frequently during periods of non-use." **************************** "In addition, HPC bacteria didn't survive well at low pH (i.e., conditions of the human stomach). In fact, only 1-2 percent of HPC bacteria were found to have possible virulence factors, but still weren't associated with human disease." ************************** "Several large epidemiological studies were conducted in an attempt to define the public health impact of HPC bacteria in drinking water. The first was conducted in the United States and showed that a large number of households using various GAC POU devices had high HPC levels but no demonstrated health effects.(5) Likewise, a recent study conducted in California attempting to correlate HPC in tap water to gastrointestinal illness provided no such evidence.(6)" **************************** "In summary, an overwhelming body of evidence from human feed studies, animal studies, epidemiological studies, risk assessment, and virulence data all confer there's no medical rationale to control HPC concentrations in drinking water. The general consensus at the HPC symposium was that such common bacteria in drinking water wasn't associated with a significant public health risk."

Props 60 and 90 are both directly applicable to Prop 13, which limits increases in property taxes in California. Prop 60 applies when owners move within the same county, prop 90 applies when owners move to a different county. They both allow over-55 owners to transfer the base year value of the property they sell to the new property, as long as the new property has equal or lesser value. Ordinarily under Proposition 13, the value of a home for property tax purposes is re-assessed to market level whenever a change in ownership takes place. This usually results in higher property taxes for the homebuyer. In November 1988, the stateÂs voters approved Proposition 90, which is designed to induce greater turnover of homes owned by senior citizens. The measure provides anyone over the age of 55 with relief from Proposition 13 by allowing them to move from one county to another without undergoing a change in their basic property taxes. Proposition 90 is a "local-option" law; each county has the option of participating. If a county has adopted a Proposition 90 ordinance, it accepts transfers of property tax base assessments from other California counties. If the county that the homeowner is moving from does not have a Proposition 90 ordinance, this does not affect the eligibility of the homeowner. [Please note: Proposition 60 is a similar law passed by the stateÂs voters two years prior to Proposition 90. It allows seniors to keep their property tax base assessment when they move within the same county.] Here is a link that might be useful: Santa Clara County Assessor's Office