Cindy, that's awful news to get early in the week, but if anyone is indispensable, you are, and the boss knows it. The light on the Mendo Coast, the cottage, the cliffs -- the perfect getaway! Planning for spring is a great way to ignore the onset of winter. I'm digging and planting away myself, potting up seedlings, generally making messes. Love how fall makes you guys reach for your cameras ;) I did finally bring home a castor bean plant this fall. I think mine is 'New Zealand Purple.' It's an invasive roadside weed and is perennial here, not an annual, so I've steered clear up til now. We'll see if the multitudes of seedlings I get from it and the bronze fennel are deal breakers, but what substance and body they give to wispy stuff. I posted a warm welcome last night to Candy, wandered away from the puter before posting and fell into bed around 8ish -- now I see the post evaporated overnight, which also included chatting with Cyn over laughing spouses and how Marty howls, wheezes, becomes utterly breathless over the disco scene in the movie Airplane! Of course I had to check youtube, found the scene, played it, Marty wanders in and looks over my shoulder and does a reprise of his laugh attack, so I had to confess to him he was being callously used for idyll fodder ;) Mitch's hero Irving Penn has died at a ripe age -- very good obit in the NYT. Also on NPR intermittently yesterday was the winner of the Booker prize Hilary Mantel's book on Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall -- sounds right up the alley of idyll Tudor fans. (A story for Woody about a terrier mix named Jen who runs the fuel dock. I may have posted before about Jen. Countless times Marty has come home to tell me about her shenanigans and his boundless admiration of her. As he pulls up in the pilot boat to the fuel dock, there's Jen patroling the five-fingered dock tirelessly, relentlessly -- I think we can say obsessively, all in the cause of keeping seabirds from landing and pooping on the docks. Jen literally doesn't rest all day. Her predecessor, named Diesel, had no such inclination, amiable enough but not a driven working dog like Jen. So...we finally got the scoop on what makes Jen tick. Marty found out couple days ago that she was trained by the Air Force to keep runways clear of birds, at the cost of approx 6 grand. Somehow the fuel dock owner got ahold of Jen, and the rest is fuel dock history. Now Marty keeps a little bucket of dog biscuits on the pilot boat and slips a few to the hard-working wonder dog. She'll take the biscuit politely but immediately drops it and races off to catch marauding birds in the act. Not a drop of bird poop has landed on that dock since Jen's arrival. I can't wait to meet her and will bring camera for action photos.) Off to slave the day away. Waves to all.

To my knowledge, RRD has not yet made it into my neck of the woods. But I know it's only a matter of time. I've already decided (FIRMLY) that I'm NOT going to contend with it. Consequently, I expect that I will eventually have "a garden that lacks roses". Were I 20 yrs younger, perhaps I'd dig my heels in and attempt to ride-out the plague, but that's not the case. Anticipating the inevitable, I've already begun sending budwood and rooted cuttings of some of my obscure roses to friends and to a couple of nurseries. Whatever my roseless garden shall be, it will not remotely resemble Mr. Grindle's approximation of those fantasies one encounters at the Philadelphia (and, no doubt, the Chelsea) Flower Show. I confess to being compulsive, but I can assure you I'm not quite THAT compulsive, unowaddameen? But cheers to Mr. Grindle. I hope he rakes-in a boatload of coin for the charities his occasional open garden events support. I keep thinking, though, of the Grindle son and all those childhood years he was denied the pleasure of playing amid his family and on his own turf. Charity does, afterall, begin at home -- or so we used to say.

I have 2 8' Sheer Descents that are back to back for a 16' wall of water. I takes a 1HP pump for each of the Descents and wide open they have just enough water. 1 1/2hp would probably do a better job without having to run the pumps wide open. The suction is from several(4) side wall inputs. I have no problem with clogging since the inputs are about 2' under water they pick up nothing floating or anything that has sunk to the bottom. The sheers make a spectacular addition to the pool and are great fun to play in, they arc out enough to walk behind. To clean them out make a wire with a small hook on the end and use it to pull out any leaves or junk. Cliff s

Two things come to mind. First is that you could have something stuck in the impeller. Is the check valve on the suction side? If so, when you replaced the valve some PVC glue might have made it's way into the impeller. Second is that it could be the check valve itself. Did you replace the valve with the exact model you had before? If not, the current one may have a stronger spring in it and be restricting the flow a bit more. For example, the check valves you can get at the hardware store have very strong springs and very high head loss. On the other hand, a Jandy swing check valve (no spring), has very low head loss but has to be installed in a certain direction.