I like your haircut -- and hair color, too. If the cut is easy to take care of, that's the most important thing for me. Which is why I've worn my hair very short and "spiky" for the last two years. It really doesn't matter much if it's combed or not; one can't tell the difference, anyway! I just wet my fingers and run them thru my hair and I'm good to go!

I've got a yard full of it. A light frost will knock it back, but it rebounds from the roots. I like the way it looks and I thought I had it restrained by a 3' walk area, but it is relentless. It grows well under my Crimson Queen Japanese maple, where nothing else would, but now it has invaded my Elfin Thyme so I'm just letting them duke it out. We've had our house tented for termites a few times over the years, and even that gas (that kills every living thing) just burned the surface of the baby tears where the tarp covered them. -Babka

Glad to hear that your yardlongs are doing well, Dennninmi. It sure is a good year for them in our neck of the woods. What variety(s) did you grow? While I am a big fan of yardlongs, I wouldn't go so far as to say that I prefer them to P. vulgaris snaps. Both have their distinctive flavors & textures, but I still prefer 'green beans' as a vegetable side dish. Normally, those snaps would be bearing early, followed by the yardlongs. But this year, the yardlongs started at the end of July, and I have yet to pick a snap. Furthermore, given frequent deep irrigation (a trick I learned during the flooding of 2010), the pod quality has been outstanding, and the plants are loaded. Isn't bean diversity a wonderful thing? ;-)

Well I've run into some major hurdles, the big problem is there obvious and the solutions are complex. 1 st we know what we want(just based on our experiences from a previous) which seems to make it that much harder. I have no problem admitting that I went into this blind and that at some point I would need e help especially with roofs and stairs ( Ive learned to hate stairs with a passion). An old fashioned t-shape Pennsylvania farmhouse is our dream. I many worried about getting proportions right to keep with the look we like, too wide of a gable end and your house easily becomes a church. So any time we saw a home we thought was bell balances we would simply stop and ask the owners to let us measure. Finally we feeling comfy with the dimensions,'I've done nothing but ram and smush everything into this mold, problem it just won't fit naturally, of course ive been able to keep adding square footage to house but I lose the simplicity, my motto is " it always comes down to adding just 2 more feet". So we began hunting for architect which feels like a step backward at this point because we have a logic behind our placement. ( ex: we have beautiful views to the right side of our house and garage on left so naturally the pantry/mud room/bath plus keeping the kitchen close by for groceries has been part of the problem all though I've made work before just never felt right. Factor in I need 4 bedrooms and love an open floor plan ( no cathederal ceiling, just raised living room) and the simplicity of simple old farmhouse gets complex. 2) I decided I would try to find an architect to basically "bless" a floor plan and then draft into prints for us , logically if he was happy with it and there were no major blunders I wouldnt expect to pay full rate. I think he quoted around 15k for a 2500sq ft houses with a significant amount of the concept done. I believe it was $75-$80 for 220 hours, after the sticker shock, we decided to stay the course. Even found multiple plans from timber/log home companies that would not sell just a floor plan to convert without purchasing the entire kit. I could produce over 50 cad drawings I've done and probably 3 graphing notebooks of half-a$$ sketches that all come out the same, close but never perfect. Even the drawing i submitted was basically to confirm that the issues were not in my head but legit concerns, which is why the criticism didnt bother me. ( I've been yelled by more important people than you mainly. renovater8 ) , since I've posted my print I've already been back at it but this time better equipped with your comments and this site in general. I like "how long have you been at it" comments. I'll probably keep at my drawings myself until I truly feel like I'm at a dead end, and with the help of a friend who is an engineer/draftsman I'll try to stick t through but not until I'm comfortable with a finished product, I love learning and still feel like I won something when someone points out a potential problem I would of never caught myself. If anybody has used an architect geared towards the rustic/country/t-shaped farmhome, I would gladly be interested.' always enjoy finding that diamond In the rough website that leaves the vinyl siding and cookie cutter plans to their 1000 page book and recreates the classics look. Would also love any pics or comments from anybody who's been on the same path. My apologies to renovator8 for coming across harsh, i use a lot of sarcasm and I dont specifically hate don Gardner , just sick of the seemingly identical planss we poured through over the years. Thankss again everybody.