Morning!! Margo, it's not as bad to take care of as people think. I think because its bigger, its pretty self sufficient. I do need to get in it every month or so and weed. My water plants reproduce so quickly they would cover the whole top if I didn't. What's nice is I put all the pulled ones in a wheelbarrow and bring them down to the veggie garden. Pile them up and let them dry. I about a week they are bone dry. So dry they crumble! I use them for fertilizer. I don't know if its the pond water, fish waste or what but those plants work almost like miracle grow ;) Shirley, we have a Master Gardener's plant swap usually every year here around Mother's Day. I say usually, cause this year we didn't have one? I was so busy at the time, never asked why, and till you just mentioned it forgot all about it :) My fair swap has been growing a little every year by 1 or 2 people. :) A lot of the same people come every year once they get hooked. The like the variety of different things I bring every year. What's awesome is that it all comes from the gw. :) The seed swaps in the fall produce nice little babies for my swap. This year I tried a bunch of Dianthus.... I have Ipswitch, Black Adder, Yellow something I can't remember, Black Magic, Fire Witch...as you can see I got most of these from the Halloween swap last year :) I also have some different Althea's that I can't remember right now, lol. The turtle is officially done. He's not a fancy turtle, but, he does look cute. ;) The kids are so excited I hope he wins. Taylor was looking through the entry list for ecology classes. She's entering photography, art (painting and sculpture), sewing, flower arranging (gee, wonder where she's gonna get those?), and house plant arrangement. I have 1 house plant in my house. Taylor's zebra plant. This thing has produced 8 babies! She took my tea cup planter and planted them around in it. She then used one of my old spoons and stuck it in. Made a tea bag tag to tie to the spoon, " Taylor's Tea" It came out so cute! Billy is entering art. He made the most beautiful pastel drawing of a fish this year in kindergarten. It won an honorable mention at the school art show. I framed it. He's also entering the house plant arrangement too. We didn't have any house plants for him, but, we did have some hen's and chicks. So yesterday we got a pair of his old sneakers, washed them, and filled them with hen's and chicks. They are so cute!! Little blue sketchers!! So adorable!! My neighbor saw them when she was walking her dog and asked if they were going to be at the plant swap...lol! I have to get a photo of them. Have a great day!! vina Here's a weird one...found this double gaillardia. It looks like a science experiment gone wrong, lol.

The Eureka Tetragon 9 (a 5-perfon tent, roomy for 3 and probably OK for 4 if 3 are "miniature adults") is a fairly easy setup, is available over the Internet for good prices, but it's square footage might not be big enough. Any bigger however, and setup becomes difficult and these less-expensive tents use smaller diameter poles that become more fragile as the size of the tent gets larger. Unlike the Eureka Sunrise series, the Tetragon tents have flys that offer more coverage in the case of rain and are of like quality. Ramsey Outdoor is offering it now for $120.00. It had decent reviews at TrailSpace.com.

Erika, I got my soapstone from Dorado Soapstone in Shrewsbury, MA. I know you followed my countertop saga so I won't repeat it all here. But in a nutshell, I had 2 slabs of Nordic Black Antique granite on hold with a local granite fabricator when I drove down to look at soapstone one more time. I was so pleased with the selection and the education I received at Dorado. They only deal in soapstone and knew so much more about it than granite dealers/fabricators. They referred me to a strictly soapstone fabricator, who gave me an excellent price. However, I had already put my deposit down w/the granite fabricator and they were going to charge me a restocking fee if I did not have them do the work (the granite was still at the stoneyard BTW), so I had Dorado deliver the soapstone to them and they fabricated it for me. They did a decent job. But if I had to do it all over again, I would definitely have a soapstone fabricator do the work. We had to call down to Dorado several times with questions as the granite fabs did not know enough about soapstone. They were trying to treat ss like granite and it is a totally different stone. The good thing is that they did listen and were open to being educated about soapstone. I can't say enough good things about Dorado. They even called and checked on how our install went after the fact and have been available to answer any questions I have had along the way. If you decide to go with soapstone, drive down there and talk with Dave (the owner). You will have a much larger selection than you will at Marble and Granite, Elemar or Boston Granite Exchange. (Boston Granite Exchange has an enormous selection of granite and marble, triple anyone else around, but they know very little about soapstone and some of the stones they call soapstone are really serpentines.) I did not get runnels. If I had to do it over again, I would definitely get them. Private email me and we can set up a time for you to look at what my installed soapstone looks like.

Thanks, Sally. It only took a couple days to make. It probably would only take you one day. @:) Beverly, I thought those melon slices added a bit to it. The strawberry fabric has a blue background so used it for the narrow border to help break up the red. There aren't any plans for it, so it'll go into the stack. SharonG/FL