I don't know of any way to tell an Aloes' age. There are hundreds of species, and thousands of cultivars and varieties. They can be 2 inches across, or 30 feet high. Flowering is more likely with more light, but the smaller growing varieties need less light to bloom than their larger cousins.

Andy,I think what Mike said is the correct way to go but I think we all know that your not going to do that-LOL HaHa,how much snow was covering them?I really don't see the harm in checking in on them as long as its not going to alter the level of protection but for sure wait until the snow is all gone.My palms under the styrofoam protection have held up the best, (well I guess the big"G/house" also as the cover is more opaque)because the sun was not beating down on them,they have a hard time pulling up water when the soil is cold and it just stresses them,I will post some comparison pics tomorrow(hopefully)I have been pulling the covers on my S.louisiana, T.campestris and needles when ever the temp is above 45 which has not been to often lately,I don't want to wake them up prematurely but I do like keeping them in the game,however I will stagger their exposure to every other day at most and keep a close watch for any leaf stress,like I said I will post some pics of the palms that are in the clear plastic for comparison-our forecast starting tomorrow is-44-48-51-45-54-51,then back to more"normal"Feb temps in the 20F to 35ish range,we are almost out of this $*** Did I mention that I am a little obsessive about these palms?well I have some free time now so I will pull the mulch back and let the sun warm the soil a little and then push it back at night to retain some warmth,I will try this on a few and see if it makes any difference this late winter,early spring and on all when it really warms up later in March,hey,anything to help my little green friends get a jump,within reason!

Plant all sh2 varieties close together, they are correct that sh2's can grow side by side with little variation in flavor. Do not plant any other corn type that can pollinate with sh2. When sh2 crosses with su or se+, the result is very starchy poorly flavored corn. Planting sh2 with synergistic is the opposite problem, the sweetness and flavor of the synergistic variety will be reduced. Cold tolerance tends to be pretty weak in sh2 varieties so I highly recommend planting into thoroughly warm soil. IMO, su varieties should be limited in your garden because they are less useful in terms of ways to be prepared. There are very few corn varieties that can be compared to Country Gentleman for making creamed corn so please consider growing this variety. Silver Queen is the standard of comparison for a su variety. It makes a decent flavored corn on the cob variety, but I personally do not like the thick pericarp. Cold tolerance in su varieties is the best of the sweet corns. The se+ varieties are less viable in cold soil so I advise planting them a bit later than su varieties. I advise finding a few different se+ varieties than you currently have on the list. Silver King is a commonly available standard se+ variety that can be found in most seed stores. I usually don't recommend a vendor specific variety, but Burpee's Breeders Choice corn is much better than most other mid-early yellows. Do not plant se+ varieties with su types. The result is that the se+ corn is significantly less sweet. I have less experience with synergistics than with the other types so do a little more verifying on this info. Synergistics are intended to combine several different genes into a single package which means you don't have to worry about planting them near just about any other type of sweet corn. However, most of the synergistics are less sweet if pollinated by other varieties. The only synergistic I have grown suffered from the same issues as sh2's. They are very sweet, somewhat watery, and imo, have poor flavor. Corn endosperm is triploid. When the pollen grain grows down through the silk, it splits into two nuclei, one of them combines with a specialized cell to become the germ. The other combines with a diploid cell to become the endosperm which is what we can taste. This means that corn is one of the very few foods that tastes different depending on which direction a cross is made and depending on the dosage effect of the pollen that fertilizes the kernel. If you plant an se+ variety and cross it with sh2 pollen, the result is two sets of genes for se+ and one set of genes for sh2. The dosage effect means the se+ corn will taste like a standard sugary corn but with a slight starchy flavor. In the other direction, an sh2 corn pollinated by an se+ will get two sets of genes for sh2 and one set of se+. But the se+ variety has a gene that patches the defect which causes the sh2 corn to be sweet. The result is corn that tastes like very starchy field corn. My preference is for se+ corn. I am in the process of stabilizing a cross of Country Gentleman X Silver King in an attempt to combine the shoepeg trait (pi2 gene) with sugary (su gene) and sugar enhanced (se gene). I am at the F2 stage which means this year I have seed that will segregate for the desired traits. The tough part is that only one plant in 16 will have the desired combination so I have some work to do to pick out just a few plants with the desired combination. Anyone want to help me taste 100 ears of corn to find 7 that taste really sweet and have the shoepeg trait?

36" is a compromise that works for a large part of the population. After all, tall people can bend down, but shorter people can't easily get taller. Of course, the downside is that tall people find their backs hurt whenever they work in "standard" kitchens. That's why you hear from all the homeowners who decided to raise their counters by a few inches. Since @Ellen said that she doesn't suffer from the problem of being too tall for her kitchen. So, there would be a good argument made to lower it to 36". On the other hand, another 1/4" higher than standard is barely noticeable. So, it might not be worth the hassle, when there are perfectly good solutions to adjust the appliances. This is a relatively common problem that contractors have to do deal with all the time. And that's ultimately what I would suggest doing. Defer to the expertise of your contractor. No matter what you decide to do, I bet than 6 months from now, I won't be able to tell the difference.