The Obovata don't need to be chilled. You can separate the seeds and put them in damp cloth or napkins until you plant them. The best pots for Paw Paws are the long citrus pots that allow the plants to throw down long roots. I cover the seeds with a very thin layer of soil and let them be. I've been successful at growing Paw Paws, but I still have not attracted one Zebra Swallowtail to my garden.

Perhaps if you had an extremely ridiculous amount of icons on the Desktop it would effect your startup. However, in general they are of little concern. The main negative would be the active applications they could represent. These applications are the ones being initialized during startup and are all-too-often not needed as they can easily be accessed on-demand through the Start Menu. It seems today every time you install an application it wants to install a Desktop icon, a Quick Launch icon and a Start menu entry. This for the average user is over kill. Personally I have only four on my Desktop and two are pointed to the Recycle Bin and one I created for Windows Explorer. On my Quick Launch I have Windows Mail, Firefox and IE8. Everything else I can readily access from the Start Menu, and I like looking at my grandchildren a lot better than DT clutter. DA

Somehow I missed earlier thread. I am in Kingwood and actually start digging on Monday. We went with ELC - they have long time landscape business and brought Bruce Carlson in 6 months ago to do pools. Bruce has been in KW for 30+ years and we've gotten references from new and 7-8 year old pool owners. Like you, we wanted a pool that was a good value and not over the top. We feel Bruce understands and has recommended features accordingly. We also talked with Bill & Todd at Eastex Pools. Again, local guys with a good product though a bit more pricey. We wanted someone who has roots in community - give local $$ and stand behind their product if they see you in HEB! Also wanted small builder who would be onsite and able to customize versus package build. We chose to invest in salt system, but sacrificed putting in spa. A key benefit to us was the ease of maintenence and sense that salt doesn't have the quick, wide swings that chlorine does (unless there is a major problem) so adjustments are easier. We are also adding several deck sprayers to enhance the look of the pool when not in use. Our design is modified rectangle with very clean, understated lines. Theme is "laps and lazy" - long with big sun shelf! Plan on posting build pics and details next week. Stay tuned :)

I would say that in order for something to be considered gritty mix, it needs to be good and porous, and needs to stay that way. Basically, it can't have decomposable contents that will clog the pores as they break down, thus making it not gritty anymore. Mixing stuff in with bagged potting mixes would fall under that category. I'm not saying this in order to put anyone's mix in some elite category, or exclude others from some status or gritty mix club, but it's important that what is called gritty mix is actually what a lot of us think of as gritty mix. Otherwise, the advice you may be given could lead to problems, such as the advice I gave above, assuming that when you said gritty mix, that it was actually gritty mix. Joe