What is the greatest (& shortest) height & width you'd be open to? 'Medium' is subject to interpretation. How far from the house, driveway and side-walk/street will this tree be? Be mindful that some fruit trees can make a mess with fallen fruit; is there a little kid who'll be running around under it in a small yard & track in fruit juice on your carpet? I'm reminded of someone posting not to plant Crape Myrtles where you'll park cars under them, since the shedding flowers can do a number on your paint job. Japanese Maples are like dogs; one species but so many sizes, shapes & colors that getting one different from the neighbors is a non-issue. I think Bloodgood is said to handle sun better than some; not sure how it'd do there. Some people think burgandy red foliage is beautiful and some think it's gaudy, so be mindful of your husband's preferences. Someone asked if this will be near a septic system; that's a very important question! I wonder if a Paperbark Maple would be a good choice for you? Peeling bark, nice foliage, good-sized but not huge, rather unusual but you can get a hold of them, option for mult-trunk if memory serves. Some people like Japanese or Korean Stewartia, although it's my impression from reading about them that they're not as broadly adaptable as some trees so I'd research before I committed to one. Shantung Maple might serve for maple lovers, although as I believe Ken Adrian has pointed out elsewhere due to dense, fibrous shallow root systems, it's often hard to garden under maples, so if you're been on planting hostas or something under the tree, such a maple might not be your thing. Do you want an evergreen so it stays pretty in winter? Something like an Oakleaf Holly might be workable - self-pollinating (unlike most hollies) so you get pretty berries. Richard.

Geez, mate, give it a rest! Since you readily admit you are not a heating engineer or electrician or anything else vaguely related (nor am I) you have no way of knowing HOW MUCH oil should be in it. ALL oil heaters are partly filled, perhaps for reasons I have theorised before. I also doubt you could buy less than a rather large drum of it, if you could find it. Tell me - any signs of a leak? Do you have an identical heater? If so, weigh both with good scales. That would indicate if oil was low. As I've said before, oil-filled heaters have a very gentle heat, so may not feel as 'warm' as others, still, with a little time they will fill a smaller room with a nice all-over heat. If you could compare identical heaters you might be able to say one was hotter than another.....I suspect it's fine apart from the thermostat, and, chances are, you're on the low setting. I don't think running it without a thermostat is safe, even if you do watch it..... Trust me, I've seen/bought/used a lot of heaters in my day, probably more than most posters here, since I lived in Australia and portable heaters are all 99% of the population use, since few people have central heat. Just chuck it. Get another sort, if you don't like the oil heat type. Personally I like them almost as much as baseboard heaters (and they're easier to cover up accidentally, although I don't know how much risk of fire they pose) - I bought an oil heater for both my daughter's rooms since they were the safest we could find, and they may well have been Delonghis. For us, they worked well but to this day, they still make a hot paint smell when they run. DON'T BOTHER ABOUT THE OIL - YOU CAN'T RESEAL IT, AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHETHER MORE OIL WILL HELP OR WILL EXPAND AND CAUSE LEAKAGE ETC.

I'm with you Miz, except I use the Melitta cone, because it's just so easy and unbreakable, like when I knock it off the cup before I've had my coffee. For one cup, it is the easiest, low tech way to get a delicious cup of real coffee. I didn't watch the video, but I do wet the grounds and let them swell (for about 15 seconds or less) then pour the rest of the water over them. I have a cup of the best coffee possible in less than a minute (not counting the heating time in my electric water pot, which might be 2 minutes or so). Nothing to clean, the filter and organic coffee grounds go into the compost (I buy unbleached filters). If I am making a whole pot in a thermos carafe for guests, I do wash the grounds off the sides of the filter (a larger one I use for that) a time or two, after the initial wetting. Then I discard the grounds and fill the rest of the carafe with hot water and shake it up to make sure the plain hot water isn't sitting on top of the stronger coffee below. Everyone raves about the coffee served here. We are a very "good" coffee appreciative community. I don't know anyone with a Keurig or electric coffee maker. We all make it with a cone. I have no problem being called a coffee snob. Unless I can have good coffee, I'd rather not have any.

Iseltzer: We have jap beatles all around me yet luckily so far, they are not in big numbers where I am at. 30 miles away they are horrendous so I suppose some day they will be a problem for me. I grow grapes too so I hope they stay away. When they come, I will try carbaryl since I heard it is supposed to work great on jap beatles. I grow tart cherries too and find I must net at the first sign of pink on the fruits. If you wait a few days longer, it will be amazing how much of the crop just vanishes to birds. Even with a net I got one crafty robin who always walked around the tree every morning and finally found some way in. Very hard to remove the birds once inside the netting. Thankfully I only had that happen twice. Never did find any opening how it got in. My biggest pest with cherries is birds. I do spray for curculio, cherry fruit fly, cherry leaf spot (if and when it happens). I do not spray once the tree is netted so I have had an outbreak or two of powdery mildew if we get very cloudy and rainy weather for a long period at this stage but it was only bad once and more so on some varieties than others. Cuculio season here runs potentially from petal fall to about mid-June. Just before I net, I like to spray one last time at the first sign of pink on any fruit and that seems to do the trick for me (only found one larvae in all the fruit I picked and pitted over the years). If I get leafspot, I will spray chlorothalonil AFTER harvest as not cleared for cherries after shuck-split stage in spring. Not a huge issue so far except for one year and again definite differences in susceptibility based on variety. Most of this pertains to my tart cherries since I have only tried growing sweets the past few years. I do not think they will be much different that the tarts as far as birds,insects and disease issues except that I avoid using Imidan insecticide on the sweets due to phytotoxicity.