Hi everyone, Well, I am double posting this in 2 forums - I hope nobody minds. As promised, here I am posting about what in the world I've been doing all summer while traveling to & fro Wisconsin. As some of you already know, I work with fish-eating birds: cormorants, pelicans, herons, egrets, gulls, wood storks, etc. My husband and I have been working in Wisconsin for the past 3 years, but we also regularly work in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Ontario, and a few other places. Yes, we are a husband + wife team, working together out of the same office. Many people are surprised that we work together, but it is great. We make a fantastic team, and are often at our best under challenging field conditions. Great minds think alike, and being dear friends & in love sure helps too. (ok, enough with the mushy stuff). So now for a few photos from the vegetation surveys we did this month. Background: We are working on remote islands in Lake Michigan, around the Door Co. Peninsula area. All the islands have nesting double-crested cormorants and herring gulls. Some also have nesting Am. white pelicans and Canada geese. Back in April, we put up some 6 ft x 6 ft pens (we call them exclosures) to exclude the cormorants because they damage vegetation with their nesting activities (too much POOP!). So then we went back in August to catalog everything that grew in the pens, by plant species, and weighed it to also determine biomass. That meant breaking out the field guides, studying up on botany and the flora of Wisconsin, and bringing the plant presses for species we couldn't identify on the island. We compareed the exclosure plots to some "control" plots, which had nothing but 4 wooden stakes at the corners. We had 45 plots to do on 3 islands, plus another 3 islands down by the city of Green Bay that we did simple vegetation surveys on (no pens). It was alot of work, but very interesting. The bottom line: there are lots of nonnative species on those islands, like motherwort, catnip, pigweed, common mallow, stinging nettle and sow thistle. The native vegetation was primarily lambsquarter and smartweed species. Almost done clipping this 1-meter plot: Looking for small plants beneath the lambsquarter The finished, sampled 1-meter subplot Who would even know what this was?!?! I saved seeds to winter sow and see if I can't figure it out. The very last veg plot to measure. You can tell, because we look so happy! A friend found crawling across the plant press The stinging nettle I hacked through to make us a nice trail to get to the center of the island. At least its not poison ivy! Ok, that's all for now. Have a great evening. Katie (heh - I've been working on this post for days!)

Thank you justgotabeme! It is true, we find ourselves in the FRONT of the house quite often! The first evening, we poured cocktails and just sat out front and stared. We are very pleased! CEfreeman-Ohhh, what a long, peaceful country driveway that is! I wouldn't want it to look too "maintained!" Hi Lyfia! I posted quite awhile ago, I was very gung ho on the faux wood grain...as a matter of fact, I wanted to do a faux carriage door look, adding the rustic hardware. Most people were against it...and this was when I was planning on painting my house a dark color. Now that my house is so light, I don't want a big dark expanse that takes up such a huge chunk of the front. If my house were bigger, or the paint darker,I would consider it. I do love that look, just not for this house at this time. birdlover-yes, we are thinking two big black pots on either side of the arch...and maybe on the far side of the garage...with bougainvilla or some flowering vine set on a trellis just a bit off from the house walls so they don't actually grow on the walls! The reason we are thinking black pots is...when you drive to our house, you first see the south side of it...with a row of windows with black awnings over each window. So we feel the big black pots will tie the side and the front together. lukkiriish-thank you, I just love those california spanish homes! Thanks for comparing my home to one of those! Ok, again, I really appreciate every single comment. It has been so much work and money and as much as my hubby and I enjoy it, it is nice to see it be well received here!

Oldhouse1 and Beekeeperswife - Thank you for sharing your photos - your kitchens are beautiful! I don't expect mine to compare to yours - we are just doing a much-needed and long-overdue update which will hopefully make our home more marketable when we sell it in a couple of years. So we're trying to keep our costs down as much as possible so that we don't overimprove for the neighborhood. The warmth of Cloud White comes through in your photos, and I really like it with your countertops and floors. I know that white cabinets are classic and timeless, and I always like them in other people's kitchens. I just don't know why I'm suddenly second guessing how it will look in mine. Maybe because I have had brown cabinets for 30 years, and white is such a big change....

But I didn't know this novel couldn't be spoiled, so I just now read the thread. I listened to the unabridged version, so my response may be a tad bit unlike others. I didn't see the spelling of many names and so missed a number of clues. On the other hand, Zachry's tale, when read by a professional performer, was absolutely lovely. The cadences of the language was delightful. I had no struggle to get into his story. I loved and I hated this book. I was charmed by the first half of Adam's tale and was amused by our composer's struggle. I hated, hated, hated the Luisa Rey story. But that should surprise no one. I am a nuclear engineer who has spent 25 years doing safety analysis, risk assessments, and environmental assessments. I get very tired of those who do not understand that in a modern economy ignoring safety is short-term, very short-term, thinking and just stupid. (Just ask Merck - Looks like their liability on Vioxx is going to be in the tens of billions ultimately.) Rant over. I began to enjoy the story for a simple tale of murder and may-hem. I also began at that point to realize that Mitchell was using differing styles to tell his stories and to become intrigued in trying to figure out exactly what that meant. During the Ghastly Ordeal, I began to realize that struggles to get home, even when we have no home, was a running theme throughout the book. Safe haven perhaps being a better term. Cavendish certainly had a struggle to get safely out of London to his safe haven in the north. Then he had the struggle to return home. Luisa's young neighbor risked the jump across balconies to get to the safe haven of her apartment. Luisa herself was frequently in need of a safe haven. The youngster ultimately found his new safe home. Luisa found her place in life. Adam was, of course, going home. His Maoriori friend no longer had a home. Frobusher had been kicked out of his home and was looking for another. Was his suicide in part because he no longer had any place to go? Sonmi's home was taken away from her and her interim home wasn't exactly a home. (Was that portion of her story an homage to the students struggling to improve their prospects who practically live at the university or library, played off against those who are just there because Dad said they have to go? Always was that way, always will be?) Later we see her as she escapes to a safe haven, and then as she prepares for her version of Paradise, which of course, wasn't. Zachry is already in what most of us consider Paradise. Is home to him the place where the family plaques reside? Is his story paradise lost and then perhaps regained? He lives long enough to know his grandchildren which is an improvement over his previous home. We have a bridge and a crossing of water in all the tales, don't we? Wonder what exactly that means? I'm big with the individualist thing, but I'm also aware that individuals survive longer in groups...