This is really a great thread! I just wanted to chime in a bit. I just finished planting 140 trees on about 1 acre, and it went pretty well. I planted: 25 Common Lilac 15 Manchurian Crab 25 White Pine 32 White Spruce 10 Bur Oak 5 Paper Birch 5 Silver Maple 5 Black Cherry 5 Red Oak 5 Rugosa Rose 2 Red Maple 5 Red Pine 4 Hybrid Poplar In addition, this summer, I planted 4 larger trees... a bur oak, an Autumn Blaze Maple, a Siouxland Cottonwood, and a Red Splendor Crab It will be interesting to see how fast everything grows. The clone of Hybrid Poplar I planted can grow anywhere from 5-10 feet per year.. while the bur oak will grow at a glacial 6-18" per year over its entire life. In 1996, about 60 red pines, 10 white pines, and 10 black hills and blue spruce were planted on our land. In 2007, the tallest Red Pine is about 15 feet tall, the tallest White pine is about 12 feet tall, and the tallest spruce is 7 feet tall. Of course, these were all started from seedlings with no weed control for the first 3 years, and only mowing after that (when we moved in). We no longer mow the eastern portion of the property, where red pines are growing. There are a few clearings among the trees, and some shrubs are starting to become established. Among them are Rugosa Rose, low bush blueberry, chokecherry, and American Hazelnut. To date, not one hardwood tree has seeded. Under our deck, however, about 6 Boxelder seeds germinated, and one vigorous and desperate sapling is about 4 feet tall in its second year. I will transplant it to the edge of our property when the leaves drop... Otherwise, the land we own on a lake is already forested... and it's more of a question of management than anything. I desperately want to clear some of the underbrush (it's nearly impossible to walk through the woods here... so thick with underbrush). Between the Beaked Hazel, tree saplings, fallen logs, grass clumps, and various other shrubs, if yo'ure not tripping and trying to regain balance, you have several small branches trying to enter your head through your eye sockets. You basically have to close your eyes and bore your way through the woods with your hands in front of you, shielding your face.

I really like your interactive map - good job with it. Here are my guesses: 6: Siberian Iris 13: Azalea 14: Rhododendron 15 & 16: Boxwoods 19:Euonymus alatus 22: looks like some kind of laurel 27: that weed is probably garlic mustard - get out your shovel 32: Hydrangea Hope it helps.

We have several big bins under the bed, and the scooters are under there. But I find that it's not great to have tons of stuff there, bcs what is there, doesn't get tapped for playing. So we put the bulky stuff (Hot Wheels) and the "mom-related" stuff (sheets & spare mattress pads) under there And my DS uses the rest of the space for his clubhouse, LOL! The type of place we have our eye on (GOTTA have 2 bathrooms) would be 3BR, but it would only add about 100 sq. ft (the extra bedroom, 10x10). The second bedroom now , which they share, is 10x14. She also thinks it's funny that someone thinks she doesn't have enough room for her stuff. We did try to sell our place a while ago, and couldn't get a buyer, so we quit for awhile. We couldn't drop our price TOO much, bcs we need to be able to afford the bigger place, and can't have a gap of more than about $120k (even that is going to be a bit hard). DH & I just talked about the spiffing up that's necessary, and we are going to try again. I'd like to get DD in her own room once she's in high school. At the moment, she & DS are pretty content (I asked her). LOL on the overhead compartments like a train or airplane--except that, I had made the kids these really long cloth slings to hang on the walls above their beds (DS's was actually suspended from the top bunk) to hold their stuffed animals, so it really was a bit like an overhead bin on an airplane. I made them take the slings down when our apartment went on the market (that room IS pretty full, and I didn't want it to look unnecessarily crowded, and I didn't succeed--the one piece of feedback we got was that our place seemed crowded). I haven't had the energy to put them back up yet.

thank you everyone for your support. i love how the horse quilt is turning out. have loads of different horse print fabric. i'm just not sure if it would be to busy to add them. the bee quilt is a work in process, i'm still deciding on how i'm gonna finish it or just add a border. thanks again lady's. have a great week.. erica