Hey Greylady , What 3 things are you missing ? Maybe something that is not supposed to be there , is in my humoungous pile . I realize that these kinds of things are bound to happen when there are so many plants and people involved. I know that when I got back to springbank with Mike people were looking through my pile of plants that I had had to drop off so I could go and get Mike. I hadnt distributed them to the swappers I had swapped with yet . Plus my pile was right near the gamblers circle so someone might have thought that the plants were part of the gamblers circle and taken something . Hard to say . Anyway , please let me know that you got all the hostas that I promised you. I do know you got Twist of Lime as we talked about that one . Still I would like to find the Blue Salvia . I wanted it , that was why I traded for it and if I can find it , bonus . If not then I can try trading for some another time but I sure would like it in my garden. Signet

Adellabedella, I love mammatus clouds and think they are the coolest-looking thing. We see them a lot down here along the Red River on severe T-storm type days. If I am in the garden and see them magically 'appearing' in the sky, I drop what I am doing and flip my fire radio over to the NOAA weather channel to listen to it for a while. If I see rapid T-storm development off to our west, south or southwest plus mammatus clouds, I go inside to check the NWS website and the radar. When you watch the weather closely, you soon learn which clouds are a cause for concern and which are not. Sometimes my storm spotter DH comes outside looks at the clouds and tries to drag my inside the house or at least voices his concern that I "should" come inside. Carol, I am sure they got all that rain. I watched their storms on radar all night long. After I attempted to go to sleep, the weather radio went off every 15 minutes for one of the storms out west. All I could think of was that I'd surely be celebrating the great rainfall if I lived there! They've been so dry for so long. And, no, our weather radio isn't set for that county because it is so far west, but it is set for counties closer to it, like Montague County in TX, and Jefferson, Carter and Garvin Counties in OK. A lot of the storms that were hitting Cotton County were eventually brushing parts of the counties we do have programmed into the radio, so the thing kept going off. I didn't sleep much and was tempted to turn the darn thing off but would never do that for safety reasons, of course. George, I'm glad you got rain. Y'all sure did need it. That's a bit too close for a funnel cloud though! Dawn

This is a structure that must be designed by an engineer. An engineer would first need to know the dimensions between the foundation walls. He/she would then decide if the slab would be structural or if the slab would be supported by a substructure like metal decking or Pressure Treated wood framing. Your solution would probably work if you held the wood framing back at the edges so only concrete was exposed to the outside. Anchor the turned down slab to the foundation wall as you would any other structure. Welded wire fabric might reduce slab cracking. Use a durable mix (air-entrainment, etc.) For the waterproofing membrane I recommend Grace Ice & Water Shield (without substitution) self-adhered directly to the plywood with the overlapping joints rolled with a steel hand-roller (very important). Grace makes a water-based primer (WB Primer) that greatly increases the bond to porous materials (it is sold in 5 gal containers but a foundation contractor might have some). The insulation should be high-density extruded polystyrene mechanically fastened in place with concrete poured directly on it. The size and spacing of the joists depends on the span, the weight of the concrete and the regional outdoor deck loading. Provide adequate flashing at the wall of the house and any penetrations for posts and railings. The walls of the shelter should be waterproofed, drained and insulated as needed for your climate and site conditions.

Valley, where DD lives, is still without power. She helped evacuate all the elderly people in the assisted living place she works, that's 1/2 blk from her house. Her and the kids had gone to Omaha to get something to eat for supper because she'd lost power. She came back, about 7:30 or 8:00 and saw the fire trucks and rescue squads there at Orchard Gardens and went to see what was up. Then she volunteered to help. She called me about 10:15 last night to come get the kids, and bring them here. They were so tired, and no lights at home. When she got done, about 12:30AM she came here too and crashed. Can you believe that assisted living place doesn't have a back up generator? I can't. They had lights for 2 hours, until the batteries went out. Those poor people had to go to relatives homes, if they had anyone that could come get them. They brought 8 of them up here to Fremont's care center. What really torks my jaws is the way people act like it's the staffs fault this happened, and beotch at the care takers because they had to "come get their parent when they have a house full of company".