Natal, I estimate I'm a hundred miles or so southeast of Caroline. I plant without regard to sun position most of the time. Even the north side of the house is sunny in summer. I have some aucuba cuttings tucked under some shrubs I haven't found a suitable shady spot. Most of my trees are limbed up high except for one live oak that grows horizontally. I'm always lopping off limbs. Under there is where I grow my Gingers -- something we haven't mentioned for shade. Gingers perform better for me than their companions the Hostas. Angelcub, we found that stone with the depression already hollowed out. If you google for 'stoneworking' you'll find some sites that are very instructive on how to chisel stone --I haven't tried it, yet. If your stones are sandstone or limestone, a power washer will shape them. I've tried that in a small way with a sharp blast with a garden hose nozzle but it's tedious. Nell

Sounds to me like the oven is ok and it's just a question of adjustments. I have Wilton pans and they don't cause a problem. Without seeing photos I couldn't comment further on the issues around the bread or the cake layers. I'll give you a rundown of how I use mine and what I do/don't do. Perhaps trailrunner and loves2cook4six also will chime in here as they are both bakers and have the same oven. All this said with the caveat that mine is an older vintage, non-self-cleaning and has the grease screen in back that needs to be removed for the baking modes to work properly. FWIW I find the masterchef settings useless and guaranteed to overcook anything. I ignore them. I preheat 30 minutes. With stone, 45-60 mins. Convection Bake: For single rack I use 2nd rung. For cakes (including angel food), cupcakes any delicate pastry (meringue) and any time I'm doing multiple racks. Have done 3 racks of cookies and 6 pies (which took a bit longer) with success. If not doing multiple racks, I remove all but rack I'm using and remove the drip pan. I don't ever leave a rack in over anything I'm baking. Also sweet or higher-fat bread, anything with a soft crust. Have found this to be even, gentle heat. Intensive: Pies, crusty yeast breads, cobblers -- anything that needs bottom action or a heat boost. Pizzas, naan, calzone with the stone on rack using bottom rung. Heaviest batter breads that might not cook through easily. Surround: I don't use this much because it essentially broils and bakes at the same time. I adjust rack low to high depending on how much browning is needed. Good for things like Shepherd's pie, baked ziti, gratins, casseroles, stuff with toppings like cheese, bechamel or streusel. Bake: I think of this as dumb-bake. My setting is 15 degrees slow so I adjust it. Any time I want a slightly moister baked product or don't need the convection I use this setting since the air circulation will make things drier and crisper. All reheating. I don't find this slower than convection, just has different use. I'm an oven cook and have really come to depend on mine. For savories, autoroast rocks and so does the rotisserie. I like the probe and while it requires a rough calculation of cooking time (another unhelpful aspect) the countdown and alert are great. Again, disclaimer: There are few absolutes and my ideas on how to use "European convection" are based on English oven website I stumbled across which actually made some sense of it. Miele needs to do a much better job.

It's quite common for oven thermometers to show a variance in the temp from the digi readout. So here's the standard a few of us have found to be reasonable. Bake a box of Duncan Hines or Pillsbury cake mix using one of the pan sizes they specify, the exact oven setting and set the timer for the earliest 'done' time. See what happens. Those companies engineer those mixes for consistency with almost any oven. So it's a good test. The box mix cooks exactly on time in my oven. The browning is extremely even as is the rising. Since it's processed food there will be less variation in results -- it's been engineered to perform. I used convection bake, lowest rack and put pan in the center with no drip pan below -- just one rack in the oven. If you get uneven browning with the box test, then you likely have an oven issue. If not, then it's probably a matter of finding the right oven mode. My bake cycle is 15 degrees slow. So I just add the 15 degrees to the setting. When I got this oven I knew I would have to accept a long learning curve. I've got 2 books full of my own recipes that I've made forever and I've had to match them up to the right cooking mode with this oven. It's how I've seen the differences and learned to use the various modes. F.ex. I use intensive most, I use bake and convection bake. I rarely use surround. The diagrams of heat sources in the user manual is the most helpful thing I've found to determine which mode to use. I find their explanations to be bizarre. Overall, I really love my oven. It's been a very high performer and very dependable. But I'm not convinced that everything needs convection -- for me it's whatever works best. Here is a link that might be useful: Challah thread

We received this wine aerator as a gift. https://m.wine.com/product/vinturi-wine-aerator/120451?warehouses=CA&cid=GoogleBase_CSE_120451_Beta&gclid=CjwKEAjwlq24BRDMjdK7g8mD6BASJABBl8n310IPzm54CwZGYb5jIVpe2Mj-rkHdl7ntD2MlAdvEXRoC3Pnw_wcB&mode=xfercomplete Sometimes I have guests do blind tastings - (1) a glass straight from the bottle, (2) a glass poured through the aerator. They prefer (2) about 2/3 of the time. 1/3 of the time they can't tell the difference - but those guests might not be able to tell a California wine from a French wine, so we won't give their opinions too much weight. No one, so far, has preferred (1). If you decant into a carafe then the aerator is unnecessary. I picked this laser-sighted infrared thermometer up on a whim, because I was in Home Depot and it was only $16. http://m.homedepot.com/p/PRO-SERIES-Non-Contact-Infrared-Thermometer-with-Laser-Sighting-12-1-Spot-THERMNC/204262824 Along with enabling all sorts of geeky investigations - have you ever wondered how much hotter your ceiling is than your floor? do cats have the same internal temperature as humans? when your spouse is "steaming mad", is she really? - it has certain cooking uses. Measuring the temperature of a pan. Or of spitting oil that is too scary hot to dip your probe thermometer in. This one is as cheap as they come, and no doubt there are advantages to the expensive models, but save your money and get the wine aerator too. Differences in the emissivity of surfaces limits the accuracy of infrared temperature measurement anyway.