IMO, its still the HUBBY who makes the final choice. Anyone, anyone even his own sister can tell him off and convince him not to pick up his kids. but in the end its his choice. No one elses. So it doesn't matter what a SM or a BM wants. Its the decision of that person. And let me bring another perspective to this arguement. You all are ticked off when a weekend is missed from an already constricted schedual eh..???? WELL WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BM MAKES PLANS ON DADS' WEEKENDS OR CONVINCES THE KIDS ITS NOT A GOOD PLACE TO GO??? Then WHAT? SHE MAKES DAD LOOK LIKE A PUTZ FOR THE LOST WEEKENDS. Its happening now with us. Damned if you do take them, and damned if youdont. Well guess what, i'm keeping a log for the last 2 years now of all the weekends lost with his kids and the reasons behind it. When on misses and why. Whether its a school activities, grandma's bday, cousins bdya party, just not up to it, wants to be with mom that weekend...ALL OF IT!. This way, when bm accuses my dh of it , i will have a record with dates and who showed up and who didn't so she doesn't try any funny business. and even the kdis have lashed out at my husband saying, oh your msising alot of weekends. He said yah, and who';s fault is that? YOURS NOT MINE! you want ot be with your friends, and go party and i call you ever week to know if you are coming...so dont play the tag game on me and try to guilt me. YOU ARE DITCHING ME. Be responsible , accept it and stop blaming others for you actions! And this is what i would say about this situation. STOP BLAMING SM'S FOR DADS DECISIONS. She has an imput but not the ultimate say. I think the mentality of blaming sm all the time comes for the same mentality that kids have the final say in these divorce situation and i cannot stress the fact even more that kids have absolutely no say and power lies between the adults. Between mom and dad. And in the end , a SM can b****ch all she wants, if dad says otherwise, its otherwise. And to add, if dad wants to skip one weekend, its also his right. He can make arrangments to picck them up another time for longer.

Yep stripping paint would be a beast of a job... think of all the cracks and crevices paint would get stuck in..., dont know if Id have that kind of ambition but still.... people do it. There's a few around here that were taken back to raw wood , with a bunch of damaged shingles replaced (apparently still being made & easily available) and the intention to let it age again back to a dark color. Re: paint I would be very curious what the original color was - not that it HAS to be that, but to inform and inspire you in making a choice. Can you find any traces of the original layers? May or may not be whats in the old photo. the porch walls up under the ceiling where it was more protected might be a good place to look. Perhaps peel it with a blade, or use stripper - I used Smart Strip or REady strip (not the toxic stuff) on my exterior porch this summer and interestingly it took off all layers right down to the first original layer, which was stuck on like glue - no need to remove that so I didnt - just wanted to get off all the yucky old peeling and cracked stuff. Lovely house btw!

pattybea not sure about your zone but I see no reason why you cant start them whenever. Personally in my experience, if I wanted milkweed in spring I start in fall if it's a species that will grow through the winter (in your case yes, because you are zone 10 any species that likes your zone should grow through "winter" as well). If you get monarchs in winter they might not be mature enough then, though, so you might have to buy potted milkweeds to tide over your cats. Fall/winter actually might be preferable for many species because it gives them enough mild weather to focus on building their long tap roots :) @bea I picked up a A. tuberosa at this Home Depot just this Sunday, seemed to be several more but they are not labeled as anything other than "milkweed" and "sun". There's the original orange color one and a yellow one I think. Definitely tuberosa though and not tropcial milkweed (shorter, narrow leaves that curl/less smooth). They were not marked for butterfly gardening so I'm keeping mine quarantined until next year (just in case they were sprayed). You enter the garden center from the south, they were in northeast tip of plant rows, facing the pots shelves. Each pot is actually 3 mature plants so they actually were a good deal. Hope that helps! There were at least 5 pots [so 15 plants] when I was there. Just saying that in case you wanted some backups if the seeds didn't work. Unfortunately it does not say the seed origins so it could be northern stock. Edit: Home Depot has a policy where they must label anything with neonicotinoids (a persistent systemic pesticide) as having it and I dont think any of these had that label but I'm still quarantining mine in case it was sprayed with something else bc no organic label either

The simplest way to calculate that is you take for 1' of height =1" of diameter so if you have a height of 6' it would be a 6" round or square column.