I've put the hosta, which is in a pot, in a shaded spot outdoors. It won't be moved at all this year. There are weatherproof time lapse cameras available on the market, but I decided to use my DSLR, a Canon Eos 550 (I believe it's called a Rebel in the States). The camera is on a tripod. It is put in exactly the same spot every eveneing, just before sunset, using the same settings every night (100 mm lens, AV 5.6, automatic whitebalance). Of course there will be slight differences in whitebalance and position, but nothing that can't be fixed with Photoshop. After a week (7 pictures) you can see the pips come out of the soil and grow. I expect the first leaves unfurling in a day or 10.

The vast wealth of knowledge on vermicomposting is easily available to anybody who takes the time to simple read through the free archives. All it takes is time. I spent enjoyable months reading through the entire library of vermicomposting posts at gardenweb before taking on the responsibility for the lives of compost worms. I learned tons from others failures making my first system much more likely to succeed. That is why others took the time to post for me and for others like me. When I post my readers know by my name they will get good value for their time spent reading my words since I can distill the the knowledge of 10,000 posts to answer their specific question. Basically it boils down to newbies please add tons more bedding, and a bit of $$$ for a pound of bedding with a touch of worms can be avoided by a wee, tiny bit of reading. For those in too much of a hurry or too lazy or who purchased worms and then realized they may need to learn a bit about their living charges long time posters patiently answer the same questions over and over and over and over and over again for new posters. If I asked a person how old they were 5 times in a row in one minute they might eventually appear rude. I could do this now. Imagine how it might feel. A good or standard rule of thumb is to lurk at a board for a month or more before posting. This helps the poster gain knowledge of the culture of the board and get the best response to the post. Celbrise I admire your enthusiasm for the topic. But you are killing us here. No doubt you are among the sweetest, most dedicated vermicomposters here. My fear is you are leading newbies who may not know a poster who has a phd in worm knowledge, or a worm farmer since age 7, or a worm seller of tons of worms from a person with 3 to 100 worm who has been vermicomposting for 3 weeks down an unusual vermicomposting path devoid of moisture absorbing bedding yet including materials that have been known to be less than good for worms such as material that has not had access to air and may have VOC's. My advice is to read the archives 10 times more often and advise newbies 10 times less often. My apologies since I really should of mentioned something sooner to help guide you. But I mistakenly thought you would get the hint with the first 6 posters to mention it and I did not want to pile on. My error. sbryce: Please leave a forwarding website since we have all been needing migraine medication lately. P.S. I took mega care to not be rude. P.P.S. I have no problem being rude. It is a bit rude of a poster to ask a question that can be answered by 27 seconds of research. It is gracious for an expert vermicomposter to take 15 minutes to answer a question for someone lazy. It is more than gracious for an expert vermicomposter to take 15 minutes or an hour to answer with details a question for the 18th poster who is so lazy. I bet just reading my redundant sentence twice made everybody reading it unhappy. It is telling for said poster to then experience richeous indignation. Basically please keep enjoying vermicomposting. We will answer endless questions despite the answers being posted by us millions of times. But please stop confusing newbies. I am looking forward to your next post... in a month.

cawfeegirl, I'm going to say the same thing here that I said in the other post. You are supposed to love the granite you install. If you're still not sure, it's because it's not the right one for you. Wait until your cabinets are installed or take a door sample to the yards with you. Go in without any preconceived ideas about what you're wanting and when you see the right one, you'll know it. What I wouldn't worry about is if a granite that you like, truly like will look dated. IMHO that term is way over used. Now a days, people can't afford to update every couple of years and I think trends and styles are going to be hanging around for a lot longer than they used to. I wish people would put more emphasis on using designs, styles or elements that just make them happy as opposed to worrying about how dated they may be.

Egad, again, I managed to put my foot in my mouth and "annoy" someone.... What I really meant to imply was NOT that GWer's do not have "expensive" kitchens.... What I wanted to convey was that if one is worth hundreds of millions AND has homes that are worth tens of millions, one does not often do one's own shopping.... Peacock kitchens are bought by people that have homes that are worth many or tens of mil. They "hire" the people to execute what they want. Seattle is full of these people (but not even remotely close to the number in NY). There are many companies that cater to these wealthy people. You should be able to find someone that should click with you. Igloochic, If you want to embark on a project that is less hands-on, the most imporant part of the work is to find a designer/architect that you trust. Many of my friends/colleagues builds houses/remodels with architects/designers without being very hands on. They end up with very beautiful kitchens/houses. The way they go about it was to have the architects/designers present them with a "few" options on much of the finish work and they just "picked" from those options; door handles, cabinets, appliances etc. Obviously, if they felt strongly about something, then that stays in the design. Sometimes, they go shopping for what they want with the designers. Often, they don't worry if the project cost them 50k or 100k or 200k more than what they thought that it would cost. They just pay the bill and move on. If you are comfortable with this type of arrangement, then you can build with much less hands-on involvement, leaving you time to get on with life. Money can give you the luxury of time if you don't care whether or not you spent 100k more than you needed/planned or not because having someone take care of the details were worth it to you. The end product can be and often are quite well done, "IF" you pick the right architect/designer. To do this, you have to trust the person you are working with AND let them do the work for you. This is not necessarily something that "control freaks" like me can let happen. As I am getting older and my budget is getting "more" comfortable, I am tyring to figure out a good balance of when to call in the calvary and when to trust my own design sense. There is an amazing designer/artist that works near where I live. His projects are all over US. He has been written up in many art magazines. Rococogurl may find his work intriguing. I WISH I could afford to have his work. But at 20k for a simple couch, mere mortals cannot afford his work. http://domesticarchitecture.com/ I asked one of my friends who spent probably about 2mil for their remodel, if she talked to him. It is the type of architecture that would interest her. She said even she could not afford him. What I am trying to say is that like everything else in life, there are people working at many different price points. Design/architecture is no different. You have to find good people at your own price point. Here are a few other contruction companies in Seattle that do good work. http://www.schuchartdow.com/ http://www.dovetailinc.net/ http://www.loganshammer.com/ Luxe interior magazines for Pacific NW also feature nice homes that are multi mil in price point. They often list architects/construction companies. You can get the magazine at Barns and Noble in Seattle (?Port Towsend). I wish you the best.