It was fun. This is the third time I have met Tami and the second time I have met her husband. We had lots of laughs and great food. Toured Niagara Falls and Niagara on the Lake. The leaves haven't started to turn as much as we had hoped but we had a wonderful time sightseeing anyway.

Hi everybody, I’m Mark and I’m studying a Masters in Innovation and Product Development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. I’ve just started a project researching color choice, exploring and developing new methods to drive consumer thinking about the color selection process. We all know what a chore this can be and I’m here to try and fix it. I’m hoping I can use this platform to reach out to some of you and understand your thoughts and process when choosing color or undertaking a painting project. Thanks for having me, and hopefully we’ll chat soon.

I buy about 500 cubic feet at a time. I tried buying it from local sawmills, but it always came in with bugs that ended up being a LOT more trouble than they were worth! So I switched to using bags from Lowes a few years ago. I didn't have a truck to haul it myself, so by time I paid someone to haul it for me it ended up being about the same price as the bags, anyway. But no bugs with the bags :-) If I chop up my own trees, though, then at least it won't bring in NEW bugs. @toxcrusadr, most of the trees I'm cutting back are field pine. No one uses that because they (falsely) believe that it causes excess creosote in the chimney. Which is kind of funny, really; I grew up with wood heat and my dad ALWAYS used pine because it's what we had. But now, you couldn't pay him to take it! LOL I've given away a ton of beech, birch, and oak, though. The issue with renting something is that it's going to end up costing almost as much as buying mulch, so it kinda defeats the purpose. I mean, $400 /year on a rental is still cheaper than buying mulch, but I'm not sure that saving $200 is worth the extra work (especially if the price goes up over time). So buying a used one might be the ticket :-)

Progress is being made and I’ve found someone who seems willing to work to solve the problem. The valley was redone and he mention it was a mess of nails under the shingles. The leaking was drastically inproved but still had some leaking during heavy rain and seemed to coming from the area just right of the window will all that caulk. i replaced window and rhe wood next to it and the flashing was redone correctly behind it Gutters were installed on the upper roof and the left end of rhe lower gutter capped and additional punch out to allow more drainage if back up. ifnit doesnt work we’ll need to look at valley above as well but its been raining the past two days and its been dry inside. Will need to paint new window to match the storms but i think the window style fits. i saved the old window but so far i am happy