"And I have newfound hope for the garden." Sherry, that says it all. Your post perfectly expresses my own thoughts about gardening and sums up what it can teach us: that we must both struggle and adapt; that life is change; that while there is always loss there is always also renewal; that living organisms struggle mightily to survive, and succeed more often than we might have expected. You've been through hard and frightening times lately, and I wonder if your experiences in gardening turned out to have any meaning when you were so worried about your husband? Applying lessons in philosophy to life is terribly difficult. I don't know whether I would be able to do so, but I do know that, in the garden at least, I've learned to accept the idea of change. Plants grow, and crowd other plants; a tree blows over, and sun bakes a part of the garden it never reached before; I mulch and mulch, the grass grows for years, the earth becomes softer and earthworms arrive; cane girdler shows up and devastates the roses; a wet winter comes and provokes a major slide; I plan a romantic ravine on the site of said slide. And so on and on. Gardening is life, really. I hope I'll never reach the point where I don't want to grow things any more, because I fear it would mean I had spiritually died. About all the plants I talk about that you don't know. North and Central Florida have a soil and climate that don't have many equivalents in other parts of the world, at least, not ones well published in the annals of horticulture. Florida's too hot and humid for many temperate climate plants; too wet in summer for those adapted to Mediterranean conditions; too cold, with its occasional sharp freezes, for tropicals. So the plants belonging to the great gardening traditions of continental Europe, of Great Britain, and of the Mediterranean basin, of the various tropical zones of the world, much of the time don't work. There are nurserymen (and -women), horticulturalists, and gardeners who do a lot of research looking for plants adapted to Florida conditions, and find them, but the plants aren't handed to them on a plate. My sisters' coastal north Florida gardens, with their gingers, cycads, hardy citrus, huge agaves, Sabal palms and live oaks and hickories, contain hardly a plant I could grow here. But their gardens are beautiful. Congratulations on your getting back to your garden, and on finding out that it was still there! And on having a daughter-in-law who helps you. I live next door to dairy farmers. In my experience they rely on lots of big machines, government price supports and subsidies, a reasonable amount of technical expertise, and a great deal of steady, ongoing, hard physical labor. Lavender Lass, I wholeheartedly agree. I wish I could find words to express my delight in gardening in cooperation with Nature, my intelligence spreading its wings as I attempt to read and understand the conditions of my land. Gean, the Hugelkultur sounds interesting--I'd never heard of it--but my heart faints within me at the thought of digging out an entire bed to fill the bottom of it with rotting wood, even if we had much of that material. We don't have anything like enough decomposing organic matter available. We amend our propagating beds with bagged coarse sand and bagged compost, since we NEVER have enough organic matter from our own supplies. As the previous year's crop of plants matures we dig them out and plant them, and then we add the amendments to the beds, dig them in, and start the new cuttings. Last year I left the digging to my husband and suspect he didn't dig deep and thoroughly enough. The exceptionally wet winter may also have made a difference. This year's yield was terrible. I always amend my planting holes abundantly with old hay. Sometimes I have to dig and amend a hole two years running before it can support a rose. You're right that I have a garden: and thanks for saying so in the face of my sometime expressions of discouragement. However, I do wonder if you realize how dead my sunny garden looks in August, with no trees, hardly any large shrubs, after it hasn't rained nor been watered for two months, the sun blazing down the entire time, and nothing growing but the weeds. I don't know how many people dry garden in a dry summer climate as I do (though, unlike much of California, we do have good average annual rainfall). I believe the garden will look far more prosperous in summer once our many infant and young trees and shrubs start to get some size on them. Shade and leafage are precious allies. Jeannie, thanks for saying so. I care about my writing; and I love it when others respond. That's beautiful. Kitty, I want to answer your post but must put it off. My assistant is coming to help in the garden and I need to change. It's supposed to start raining this afternoon; I believe fall, as in gloom and chill, has finally come. The garden has greened up amazingly in the last month and has been a pleasure to see and work in. Melissa

OK, most everybody probably knows this about Photobucket, where a lot of us store our pics to post, but this is a reminder to all. Go to your PB home page. On the Blue Banner that leads over to your name; move your cursor over the "Home" button;on the banner that drops down below, click on "Stats". This will show you just how many views each of your posted pics have had in a day, a week and a month. Kind of eye-opening! For example, on August 4th, the day after I started this thread, there were 155 views of the photo I posted of my mantel. That's just one day for that one pic. There were more both before and after that. You all should check your own to see for yourselves. Now, I was about to tell you to check your privacy settings over on PB, but the drop-down button for it only appears infrequently, which has me a bit concerned. Just a few minutes ago, I could go to my PB Home page. Go to the blue banner; hover your cursor over the Home button; on the drop down banner below it, there sometimes is a Privacy button. You click on that and then click on Privacy & Emails Settings; click on Privacy Settings/Content Privacy. There . . . if you can get there (they don't make it easy), check the box "when I upload, permanently remove information about where my photos were taken". Also there, uncheck if it's checked, the box that says, "allow others to copy my photos and videos". That is, if you want to keep you photos a bit more private. If you do get there, I'd strongly suggest reading all your options and making decisions then and there. You may not be able to get back to your privacy site for a while. Just a heads-up. Lynn

Gol darn it! Got a whole post written and it's lost now. UHHh! Anyway, Thanks for the nice comments and suggestion eclectic: I love your vintage fridge! That kind of tile backsplash isn't for me, though. I'm WAY too much of a mess and really don't want big grout lines. Your kitchen is very charming, though. This thin brick is a big possibility, though! Mayflowers: I haven't heard back from the tile dude in a couple days so who knows. I do love that kind of tile... artistic with just enough whimsy to make me smile when I look at it. I think I could love it forever (however long THAT is, lol) I did mock it up without the tile... I'll have to look at it awhile to see which I like better. Maybe I don't need the tile after all. DH would be happier if he didn't have to set tile in the middle of a copper sheet, that's for sure... local: you're invited! Come in summer and we'll float or come in winter and show me how to cross country ski :) YA... I can't wait to see the floor installed, either. Piles of boxes just sitting there waiting....September or October for the flooring. November for the kitchen cabinets. Looking to move after Christmas and get our current house on the market and sold by early summer. Ok, getting ahead of myself a bit here... Seems the pale green behind the stove works the best to me, too. I hope the fireclay sample is a good color... EAM44: it is a great fit IF the color works. Gotta get a sample on the way tomorrow. I did an internet search for prices and couldn't even find it that way! 25.00 sq/ft isn't a deal breaker.. If I did a 6" BS around the whole L I'd need maybe 21 sq. feet. I can just hear DH now ... "what happened to the 3.00 a sq. ft white tile from Lowes?". Poor guy, he has a hard time keeping up with the changes :). Anyway, here is the tile or no-tile copper backsplash:

Hahahahahaha! Thanks Buehl and Rhome (and you Bmore for the observation). Like Buehl, it is the set up I have now and it's one of the things I was determined to change because I felt squished in the corner when putting dishes away. But, it's the fact that I could put everything away, including in the lazy susan, without moving that made me think I wouldn't like taking three steps to get to the hutch (which is 5 ft directly across from the DW). I can't think of a time when I have the DW open now when I'm at the range or while I'm prepping. Having said that, I do like the original layout better but think this one might have better storage options. So, here's the conundrum: new layout puts the DW in a less convenient spot but may give better storage and certainly puts the trash cabinet in an optimum place. It also requires less steps to put dishes away although glasses and cups will still go in hutch so maybe that's not as helpful as I think. old layout has better DW placement, lousy trash cabinet placement (but I can put a small bin unders the sink for food waste) and may look better. Which would you choose? (I'm going to be a new woman when I place this cabinet order on Monday!!!!) Thanks again for your thoughts.