wow, Tony...what a MESS !!! ewwww. But, hey...did ya see that artwork down by the river...!!!?????? By the way, if you're driving, Tony, and want to see some very neat bit of nature..get to US 641 and then go South on 453. An area there that is called The Land Between the Lakes offers a beautiful drive...complete with a bison and elk preserve. It was the best 'wrong turn' we have ever taken in our travels! ...worth the extra time. There's supposed to be some excellent restaurant in that area, but we never did find it...we did love that drive down through Golden Pond, tho...... Hope you're having a grand time! I'm sure Mary Beth is just beside herself there in Paduca!

Last summer I got a little lazy and kept filling my watering can from the pool to water the deck plants....it took a while but eventually it messed them up. Didnt kill them, but their coloring in the leaves and stems turned light green and yellow. Oops:0 They survived going back to hose water. I do not have a salt system. Neighbor next door doesnt have salt either. When she drains out excess rain water, they do it to the lawn and it doesnt seem to bother it. The ground is very wet after a rain so that probably helps disperse the chemicals. My guess is if you did it on a regular basis to the same spot it might eventually have an adverse effect...not sure if the salt in pool water is strong enough to do much harm. There are many grasses and plants that tend to be salt tolerant to live near the beach...so maybe the salt could be a problem. I will be curious to see what others post.

Weed block fabric, bad. Weed block plastic, positively evil. That's all I'm sayin' about that. There's always going to be differing opinions about whether or not someone "should" have done Project X to his/her house, and I think it's rather a waste of time to discuss taste. But what I don't understand is when work on a house -- or a garden -- is done 90% of the way, when just a little extra push/time/money would've made it a great job. Examples? How about the houses that have "finished basements" -- but there are no switch plates, base moldings or light fixtures installed? Just a couple of bulbs dangling from the ceiling. How much more work would it have taken to add those little finishing touches that really complete the room? Or the back garden where they've splashed out on quality paving materials and had them delivered to the site -- but then they're dropped randomly onto the ground instead of being properly placed, and they're wobbly and unsafe to step on. Why not take the extra time to prepare the base and secure that material in a way that's appropriate for your climate and practical for people using it? Or the "sunroom addition" that's larger than a bump-out but too small to hold usable furniture... I was in one not long ago that was five by seven feet. If you could afford to hire the workers to pour the slab foundation and build the "room," how much more cost would've been involved in making that room 9 x 11 instead?

My daughter's house backs up to a national cemetery - a VERY small national cemetery, in which a long-ago KY native President is buried. The entire neighborhood was once part of his family farm, Springfield. The family home (now privately owned) is around the corner from DD's house. The cemetery is surrounded on three sides by houses, and on the 4th by a busy road. On all sides, there is a beautiful old stone wall that is about 4 1/2 ft tall and 2 ft thick. What a gift! A wall like that would cost a fortune today! In a national cemetery, all the headstones are the same simple marble markers. To see rows and rows of these, is very lovely and very moving. My grandsons have always played in the cemetery, climbing over the wall. When they were little, my daughter had Easter egg hunts there. She asked me if I thought it was disrespectful, and I said if I were buried there, I could think of nothing lovelier than happy children, gleefully hunting eggs on Easter. None of the houses surrounding this small cemetery have ever been hard to sell. Most people adore the stone wall, and like the quiet as well. Kind of nice to not have noisy neighbors behind one!