Congratulations on your newly aquired Lawn-Boy! Im glad to see someone who appreciates a fine machine. About 24 years ago I aquired my first Lawn-Boy, a brand new F series with aluminum deck. Man I treasured that mower, cleaning it like brand new every mowing and it treated me with one of the best looking lawns in the neighborhood for several years. I suddenly had to change jobs and move out of country for a couple years and ended up giving the mower to a young brother in law. I really hated to see it go but you have to do what you have to do for the familys future. I returned to visit family about 5 months later and when I asked brother in law how he liked the mower, well he kind of gave a dirty look and shook his head and proceeded to tell me how much of a POS that mower was and how the engine was locked up and he just threw it away! The ninny forgot to mix fuel with oil and destroyed it, only to blame the mower! Im very glad to see a mature person take posession of your mower and hope you have a lot of fun with it!

Thanks everyone! Now the fun begins. Digging starts today. It is a race against winter. Babies are definately exciting. My wife has not been feeling well at all, which is not fun. It also leaves me with a ton on my plate. I get a 2.5 yr old to take care, trying to keep the house decent, we just started a new year of school and my class is almost double what it was last year, and now I am building a house. I think I can see the hair turning gray daily. We are pretty far north of the moonlight fire (75 miles), but are feeling the effects smoke wise. Yesterday was a lot better than the last three days. It was like it was overcast, but you could taste the smoke. kats - it is amazing the power the FD can have. Our fire board hired a chief 2 yrs ago that had been fired from his last three chief's jobs. Smart huh! His practices pretty much halted growth. He made regulations that were much stricter than county code, such as needing 20ft wide driveways, super high flow looped hydrants, paved drives, ect. He also tried to implement a mello-roos district. The board backed him the whole way. It was ugly but we fought it and won. We now have a new chief and a reeling board (who will most likely be recalled). thanks again for the encouragement. I had some family and friends who have not made it up here request a video tour of our property. I now just need to edit it small enough to get it online. I will share when I am finished.

Hey, guys! Yeah, they didn't get as much attention as they have in years past. But now the timer is set (reset for daylight savings now), and all should be well. Isgen, this mix works great, and I've never lost a single seedling to damping off or other moisture-related issue. The only compromise is that it requires a little more work to keep consistently moist, but I solve that by putting plastic wrap over the pots during germination. I've made this seedstarting mix for years now. As for Jwala, yes I'm skipping it for the season. I have plenty in storage, dried and frozen. I'm thinking that I'll do a few extra Hungarian Wax peppers, and focus on making smoked paprika instead. In other news, I'm *still* waiting to see any germination from the new Bhut seeds that were sent to me by the same guy who sent me the Jwala seed. He picked up the pod in Assam, but he didn't know how it was dried...so that could be the cause for lack of germination. Either way, I planted more seeds in the pot, and I put a few in a paper towel as a germination test. Also, still nothing on the seeds in the greenhouse. Might be a bust! Josh

Well, hamamelis, you and 'justerrilynn' above WIN. All of the colors are nice, but a few other cyber friends voted for the 'Black on Brown'. I ran upstairs and took it off the closet door and held it up by the mirror, and it was quite striking. Plus, I wouldn't have believed this possible, but I seem to have a new appreciation for neutrals, as shown in the powder room above, which looked like THIS before I painted and changed the decor. Before I ordered the wallpaper, I wanted to look in my fabric stash to see if I had any fabrics on hand to make a window treatment with, and that sealed the decision. :-) I know that my pic below doesn't show the true colors, but for summer, the linen check on the right is great with it, and the center fabric at bottom, P Kaufmann Colburn Check in 'charcoal', and the black and cream one on the right would be great for winter - like a cozy flannel shirt! The stripe at top is also good, but quite heavy, so I'll save that for something else.