Thanks, vonyon. I, too, am wondering just how deep the water will be before the cattails will say "that's too deep." If they stopped right where they are, I would be happy. I would take a photo of the pond but can't get it all in one photo and have it show details well. It may be about 40 feet long by 30 feet wide but I am not a great judge of distances. At the center, it's about 8 feet deep and yes, the pond does drop off quickly. This area had been just a wet spot that we guessed was at water level and some folks wanted permission to cross this land to get to theirs to do some logging. In return for giving our OK, they agreed to dig us out this little pond and it has proven great for attracting wildlife. We have had 6 types of frogs/toads, one turtle, a heron stopped by, moose, deer, ducks, other birds, butterflies, bats, and more. I have planted various plants and shrubs around the perimeter. It's a challenge because one side is quite marshy and there is no good earth around any of the edges because they dug up the hole and piled what they dug out to make the bankings. So it's clay and rocks. So I have to amend any soil I plant in and hope it won't get waterlogged by the clay soil around it. So far things do well: rhododendrons, serviceberry, artic willow, some other willow, blueberries, roses, weigela, raspberries that grow wild there anyway, lilies, lupines (I know they are not native to Maine though), daisies, primroses, irises and more. From now on,though, anything else I put there will be to make berries the birds like. That serviceberry is growing so slowly though. It was small to begin with and has not put on much growth. Haven't seen berries yet. I think I am going to start a new post about a bullfrog that showed up at the pond for the first time this year. I read that bullfrogs will kill other frogs and I am wondering if we should try to remove him. And I THINK I see the female there too, though she looks a lot like a green frog. I have read about how to tell the difference though. It will be too late to prevent them from laying the eggs, but if they are capable of wiping out the other frog species, I wouldn't want them there, although I know this is nature and nature does as it wishes. But bullfrogs ARE native to Maine, so maybe he will only kill some of them and all will be well. I have read on the net about places out west where non-native bullfrogs HAVE wiped out resident frogs in areas. Sorry, I guess I put the whole post here about the bullfrogs. But I will still start another post, because I would like the answers to be delivered to my email. I wish we could put checkmarks beside "threads" that we would like delivered to our emails instead of just the threads that we start outselves. Oh, and you are right that I should also post on the pond group. Thanks.

I second stw's thoughts...blame Bill LOL Really though, it's a horrible tile job. I've had jobs not as bad removed because of errors, but that job is terrible. Try to explain to DH about your kitchen value. Obviously you've put together a lovely new kitchen, which is great for resale value, but you took a very visual portion of the kitchen and basically wrote grafitti on it. So when you enter the kitchen to buy it...what will you see? The beautiful kitchen or the grafitti...when "F" is written on the wall...your eyes see that first. This is the tile equivilent to "F" written on the wall of a gorgeous kitchen. It's really bad. In addition, it will likely fall off eventually due to the luan...sheesh what a dork. I'd never use him again...I would let a good guy redo an error, but this guy went wrongg on so many levels (alignment, substraight, grout application, caulk application) that you're just going to be throwing good money after bad if you reuse him. I learned that the hard way, trust me, you don't want to let him anywhere near your walls aside from the removal process, and frankly, I wouldn't even allow him to do that in my home. I have to ask...because your kitchen is so gorgeous in all other finish choices....why the shiny white grout? Is there a white element to the kitchen I'm missing??

This thread brought me out of lurkdom, lol! I've starched and ironed my topsheet (most of it) and pillow cases for years. I iron while watching t.v. and, for me, is worth the time and effort. There's nothing, absolutely nothing, better than climbing into a bed w/a great mattress, wonderful bedding, good quality starched and ironed sheets. For me this began while living overseas. A friend of mine hated that her DH traveled so much. She'd keep a set of starched and ironed sheets, done at the dry cleaners, on hand and put them on the bed the day her DH would leave. She said she'd pamper herself w/the sheets, a good book, candles, etc. to make that first evening a little easier. The idea of the starched and ironed sheets really struck a chord w/me and I've been doing it ever since. Complete luxury for very little time (no, it really doesn't take long) or $$$!

DH and I saw this series, by an artist named Patrick Bastardoz, at a gallery in Paris and fell in love. We bought one painting of the series. I grew up in an industrial city in the Midwest, he grew up in Glasgow, and this reminded us both of the rusting waterfront areas of our respective cities in the late 70s through mid-80s, before each city underwent a revival. The second piece was a wedding gift from a friend. The artist, Peter Howson, did a disturbing series of ink drawings from his time in Bosnia during the war. I saw this one in a Glasgow gallery and couldn't stop thinking about it. And on a much lighter note, we saw this installation at a gallery in New Orleans in February, and I'm still trying to convince DH that we need a few balloons, badly, in our living area (they're larger than they appear in this photo, each about 8-12" long): This post was edited by zeebee on Tue, Oct 22, 13 at 14:18