Hi everyone, Well, I am double posting this in 2 forums - I hope nobody minds. As promised, here I am posting about what in the world I've been doing all summer while traveling to & fro Wisconsin. As some of you already know, I work with fish-eating birds: cormorants, pelicans, herons, egrets, gulls, wood storks, etc. My husband and I have been working in Wisconsin for the past 3 years, but we also regularly work in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Ontario, and a few other places. Yes, we are a husband + wife team, working together out of the same office. Many people are surprised that we work together, but it is great. We make a fantastic team, and are often at our best under challenging field conditions. Great minds think alike, and being dear friends & in love sure helps too. (ok, enough with the mushy stuff). So now for a few photos from the vegetation surveys we did this month. Background: We are working on remote islands in Lake Michigan, around the Door Co. Peninsula area. All the islands have nesting double-crested cormorants and herring gulls. Some also have nesting Am. white pelicans and Canada geese. Back in April, we put up some 6 ft x 6 ft pens (we call them exclosures) to exclude the cormorants because they damage vegetation with their nesting activities (too much POOP!). So then we went back in August to catalog everything that grew in the pens, by plant species, and weighed it to also determine biomass. That meant breaking out the field guides, studying up on botany and the flora of Wisconsin, and bringing the plant presses for species we couldn't identify on the island. We compareed the exclosure plots to some "control" plots, which had nothing but 4 wooden stakes at the corners. We had 45 plots to do on 3 islands, plus another 3 islands down by the city of Green Bay that we did simple vegetation surveys on (no pens). It was alot of work, but very interesting. The bottom line: there are lots of nonnative species on those islands, like motherwort, catnip, pigweed, common mallow, stinging nettle and sow thistle. The native vegetation was primarily lambsquarter and smartweed species. Almost done clipping this 1-meter plot: Looking for small plants beneath the lambsquarter The finished, sampled 1-meter subplot Who would even know what this was?!?! I saved seeds to winter sow and see if I can't figure it out. The very last veg plot to measure. You can tell, because we look so happy! A friend found crawling across the plant press The stinging nettle I hacked through to make us a nice trail to get to the center of the island. At least its not poison ivy! Ok, that's all for now. Have a great evening. Katie (heh - I've been working on this post for days!)

1Kgrace345, I kept going back and forth pondering over getting a Presto canner or the All American...I really could have gotten the Presto many years earlier, but I wanted to save my money and just wait. I have two mirro canners that I have had since I was married in 1970 that my grandmother gave to me that she used and they were literally falling apart. The handles were gone, and they no longer had handles to replace them, so I was having to lift the pot by the hot metal...last year I burned my hand really bad...but I kept on canning. I just bought those new gloves made out of well, what ever that is...my brain just backfired...I hate when that happens...darn it. My husband (behind my back) took them both to the dump...that made me really MAD because they were my grandmothers, and I would have like to have kept them for old times sake, anyways. But, he bought me this new one today..and I just about had a flying flip when he said we were going to town to get one...I got ready faster than lighting! I understand how you would still feel like you were a proud parent of your All American, lkgrace!! LOL If my husband wasn't looking at me on the way home I would have petted mine...LOL!!!

Definitely some sort of shade on the windows. But not inside mount. The windows are set fairly low on the wall, so to lengthen the wall, I'd mount the shades much higher up, and maybe use one shade for every two windows. And paint the white trim the same color as the walls--right now the contrast is not a good look. Here are some examples of what you could do:

Update #2: Returned all three swimsuits from swimsuitsforall. Everything I've kept is from Land's End. One pieces, tankini's (thanks, @mtnrdredux_gw ), swim/board shorts and leggings/yoga pants/whatever you want to call them. Also discovered Coolibar for tops, Columbia brand (bought at Bass Pro in person and online, directly from Columbia onine and local store near us). @just_terrilynn , I just wore a new swim cap this morning and came back to report on the brand. Turns out it was the one you suggested for longer hair - Dsane. So much easier to get on/over all my hair. Didn't go underwater, so cannot report on that. I ordered it on the cannot-be-mentioned website. Merrell trail/running shoes for walking. So lightweight and comfortable. Croc sandals for around the house or walking to the beach. Have not worn my water socks yet. The Aleleader shoes rubbed two places on my right foot when walking on the beach. Don't know if it's just the shoes or shoes/sand combo. Maybe I need to wear water socks with them? That just doesn't sound comfortable. I like going barefoot on the beach anyway. DD2 and family came to visit a few weeks ago. DGS is about to come back for a week with Gigi and Papa. Then DS and his family are coming mid-July. All the boxes are unpacked. We are both now parking inside the garage and we survived our first tropical storm. LOL