Ah, welcome to our world. My husband and I just remarked on virtually the same situation. We've done so much ourselves, including building a barn with just one carpenter to assist us, (after the excavation and concrete were poured, mind you), that we thought we'd give ourselves the luxury of having someone else bring hydro and water to the barn. The electrician (a neighbour) didn't show up month after month after month. Our daughters attended school together, so we were treading carefully before saying "no more". The backhoe operator dumped rocks on our conduit and smashed them so that lines could not be pulled. We repaired that ourselves in ice cold pouring rain. The electrician, when he did show up, said he was shortchanged by the wholesaler on wire, and would have to move the entire system he'd just installed to accomodate the new barn. Guess who paid for that time? We then discovered he failed to obtain the permit he assured us he would look after. The "plumber" did such a bad soldering job in our basement that our daughter came home to find it flooded one evening. When we inspected the blown joint, the pipe had not even been fitted properly down over the shoulder of the joint, let alone adequately soldered. He also brought the water conduit to the barn and said "you can put the frost free hydrant in yourselves" The deep pit required for safe (ie wintertime) operation of the hydrant is exactly the work we had said we were going to pay someone else to do! The second electrician kept saying he wanted the job, but failed to show up for two months. The third electrician believes the workday starts at noon. We can't call him on it, as he is a volunteer firefighter in our rural region, but really...calls every morning???? We just can't contemplate finding another electrician at this point, so we humbly accept what help we get! However, we know the rest of the work lies with us. I wish I understood why it has to be like this.

We finally have them....North Missouri! We live in the country. Two years ago we had a baby oriole fall into the bed of our truck and a male tried to coax him into flying out but we never saw that he made it out; he kept falling where we were unable to get him When Winter came that year I found the nest hanging in that tree he had fallen out of. Then this year I found another nest still in the tree but it had to be a different one as the location had changed. Last year I put out the jelly feeder but I lost interest in it because I never saw anything there. I didn't even put out a nectar feeder. But they must have been around thus the nest. So this year, my husband said he had seen them so I put out the jelly jar feeder. It is working! I added some oranges a couple days ago and they have found it and now I'm seeing several. I have seen 2 females at one time and 3 males for sure so I don't know how many we actually have. I am paying attention to new bird sounds and hearing them for the first time. I am so excited!! lol They are hitting the nectar feeder too. Yippee! I have a question though....there have been 2 birds fighting to get the jelly and I don't know what they are; never have seen them before. They are smaller, probably sparrow size with black heads, back and wings but have dark rust breasts. Any ideas?

I got paranoid so I ended up planting them all yesterday. I realized I still have enough shaded bed areas that won't be expanded so they have reasonable temporary spots. Realistically, it'd be at least a week or two before I would be able to plant them in the new beds anyway. Most of the time I feel energetic and strong but expanding the beds and amending the soil makes me feel like such a weakling lol. In my head I'm like "ok, I'll wake up extra early and dig until it gets hot, go to class, then I'll start again once it cools down until dark". But after just a few days, I can barely get up in the morning I'm so tired. I've been working almost all day since I got back to Ohio this week but the progress is so slow. It feels better to at least have the hostas planted though

I don't think antique brass goes with light wood tones. You need at least a rich midtone. I think painting the blades white would just make the metal stand out more (brass is lovely, but motors and brackets usually aren't meant to be have starring roles). I also think it would look like you took an old fan and tried to make it new -- not always the look you are after. I have antique brass with cherry blades in my LR and don't find it heavy at all. I do have 10 ft ceilings.