(Don't 'cha wish they'd plant those powerlines somewhere else???) No, they don't help the picture at all, do they? But on the other hand, I kind of like having hydro too!LOL Yes Brenda, country living can sure be sweet, and sunrises/sets are definitely the best of times. Thanks for all the nice comments everyone!

mehearty, I can't say one way or the other about the JBs, as so far I have only noticed a handful in my yard the last 2 years. Hope it stays that way! GGG, I will have to check over there and see what they say. I would not want to be the one to "lead you astray"! Annette, they have some thorns, but not nearly as bad as some of my other roses. Yesteray and last night was really telling. We had rain all day, a nice soaking rain. But then about 5 PM the sky got so dark the solar garden lights came on and so did out dusk to dawn light. Then the rain and wind came. The rain was literally in sheets. There were tree leaves all over the lawn from the wind. It lasted about 10-15 minutes at the most and we got over a 1/4 inch of rain in that time. Tonight when I went out and looked at SS she was looking almost the same as last night when I took the picture. More buds had opened today and some spent bloom petals were on the ground but the bush had pretty much held it's shape. Many of my other bushes were really drooping tonight.

We went with the Triple pane apex package (ultra-u plus8). We're in MN and suffer from both weather extremes. The windows are not yet installed, they were just ordered after before the Christmas. We are actually just doing two double casements first and will live with them for a few months before purchasing more. i want to make sure I truly like our windows before committing another $20-30k for the rest of our windows and doors. Yes, it cost more doing it this way, but I'm ok to pay a bit more to ensure I'm happy.

The Sunrise Essentials is a below average window and a terrible comparison to everything else they offer...surprisingly. Don't put the ThermaStar in a dog house in my humble opinion. The other windows out there typically thought of as premium are available in New York. I quick search of the other threads will tell you what else you can search for.