Hello nanner, I thought I'd post a bit about what's been going on around here the last few years. I wish I could say the stone house is done, but it isn't. (I feel very silly about the fact it's not done. We had every good intention of finishing it and we have laid more stonework every year, but other stuff keeps getting in the way, namely, life!) We got involved with finishing and remodeling the quarry garden and a whole bunch of other stuff, like moving the little 'barn' again (for the 4th and final time--at least, that's what we told our son, who wasn't amused!) Last fall, our furnace gave out, so we installed geothermal which meant we had to tear up the entire west side of our yard (about a half acre) and saw down trees, dig up hundreds of hostas and perennials and relocate as many as possible. The bright side of this was the opportunity to change the entire landscape of the front of the house, AND to get more rocks! Our 'digger guy' "C" is still around, too, and he was instrumental in the geothermal excavation and in loading another 130 tons from the local quarry for us. We had "C" make a berm close to the house and that's where we started the new rock garden. We're not sure if it fits in the landscaping or not, and we jokingly refer to it as 'the elephant burial mound' which is kind of self-explanatory. :-) The first pic shows one of the four trenches: Below is a picture of Carl & I after two of the six loads of rocks were delivered. By December 2009, this was as far as we got on the Elephant Burial Mound: I have to take more updated pictures of this garden, especially after the dwarf conifers and flowers are planted. I started a blog about the garden with lots of pictures and all the other goofy stuff that goes on around here which goes into much more detail, if you're interested, the address is: http://krensgarden-karen.blogspot.com/

Well, it happened! We did it! Yesterday the rocks "magically" moved to my house. Last week I went to my friends house and Farmer Ed used his loader to pull the rocks from the woodsline. I was worried because I thought he had a farm tractor, but it was a heavy duty loader and it treated the boulders like they were bowling balls. Once he got them all out of the hedgerow, there were a few more than I thought - 26! Probably 5 or 6 BIG (bathtub sized) 12 Medium (32 inch TV) and the rest Small (microwave sized). Seeing how easily he handled these rocks was very reassuring, so I made arrangements for the loader, truck driver, and unloader for the following week. The weather was terrible here all week. We had a tremendous windstorm with gusts up to 65 mph that uprooted a few of my newly planted trees. Then we had a very heavy rainstorm. Then a spell of our first "winter weather" - 40 degrees, crisp, biting wind. But Saturday dawned warm and sunny and still, a great day for moving rocks. Farmer Ed and his son both arrived with loaders. For some of the big rocks, one loader would push the boulders into the other loader. You could see that the smaller one would not have been able to lift the heaviest of the rocks. They were quite skilled at what they did, I took my four year old son to watch and he loved it. Mike the truck driver was great. Acted as if he did this every week. He said he had hauled some very unusual things in his time, and raw boulders was another on the list. He took longer to tie everything down than it took to load. He was very thorough and professional. Made a phone call as we were leaving so Dick the backhoe driver would be there when we arrived. Dick and Brian were waiting when we arrived. Just immediately drove up in the backhoe and started tugging them off and they rolled away. It was slow and steady work, but happily was done without incident. Just like that! Wow! Now we still have the work of moving them from behind the barn to be placed in the backyard, but that seems a lot more doable than having them magically move 30 miles south. With the fall rain we've had the ground is rather soft for heavy equipment. We'll move them next summer. So watch for another post then asking how to move them into position. But for now I am quite happy! I'm sure enquiring minds want to know, how much did it all cost? Things improved from my initial conservative estimates. The $150/hour was for a quarry loader, which we didn't need because the farmer's loader was one of those BIGGGG ones. Farmer Ed did me a huge favor and did all the loading for $150 plus various baked goods and bottles of wine. Really he was being nice to my friend who owns// owned the rocks. Truck driver Mike was very professional and very reasonable, I thought, for $250 since it took his entire afternoon. Dick would only take $100 for his work since "it didn't take him very long" and he lives just around the corner. So total transport cost was $500 for 25 very nice sized granite rocks. $500 isn't a small sum of money, we've just blown the landscape budget for 2006, but at $20 rock it seems fantastic to me when I think how much work was done. I'm still working on getting a very nice something for my friend too, who was so fabulously generous with her stones. What a long winded post, as you can tell, I'm excited. Here's some photos, I've never done photos before so we'll see how they work.

Thanks everyone for your insights. Over the last 29 years, between DH & I, we've had 10 Fords. Every one has lasted 10+ years and the lowest mileage one we had when traded was 135,000. I think this 2002 Taurus is just a "dud" but I've had 3 other Taurus' since 1986 & had excellent records. I had a 1989 Ford Explorer that ran over 200K miles & 13 years. I sold it for $2,000 when I bought the current Taurus and some college kid is probably still delivering pizzas in it! And the love of my life was my 1983 red Thunderbird - DH and I traded it back and forth for 13 years, until our 2nd son was born and the back seat was way too small for 2 car seats. My mechanic gave me a good insight on the "gas guzzler" Crown Vic when I discussed with him what he would buy if he were looking for a used car and had less than $10K to spend. He said he'd go for a full size sedan becuase they still get around 20 mpg, and cost around &8 to $10K. If I kept the car for 6 years, and gas even went back to $4 a gallon, I'd still spend way less total than buying a small car for $14K or more. Plus with 3 unusually tall boys, a small car just won't fit us. He said his top pic for a used sedan would be a Nissan Maxima but it's just not big enough for us. I am very hard on cars - I only live 3 miles from work and most days drive 10 miles or less of 'stop at every corner' type driving. That's really hard on a car, so if my Fords have lasted 135,000 or miles or more, it's like double that in highway miles. I will most likely buy another Ford, mostly because of my good experience up to now, and also because Ford is in better financial condition and will be around to honor any warranty. I know intellectually that I should get rid of this car before it blows, but emotionally I'm just not sure I am ready to spend the $$ on a "new" car. Every time I say I'm going to look at cars, I come up with an excuse not to. I just took 2 weeks off work and had several days with no plans, but never managed to make it to look at cars. I live right in the city & near a major business corridor with 5 or 6 dealerships in a 5 mile stretch, but still can't seem to make it over there!

LOL - I think 18" d/w's were *invented* for NY! As were 24" stoves and refrigerators! (I vaguely considered a 24" stove, but didn't see any with a self-cleaning oven...) (Oh, and abjadulce, I only think the handles of my appliances should match because they'll be in such close proximity to each other... But it's just a personal preference.) Not sure what size d/w would be considered normal in Queens (as opposed to Manhattan, where a high-end 18" like a Miele would be considered routine). I know some apartments in my building have squeezed in 24" by doing full-depth cabinetry on both sides of the kitchen, but I think those kitchens look *terrible* - much too cramped, the window gets partially blocked. The kitchens end up looking much smaller than mine. I will look into alternative appliances - I had no idea d/w's came 23-1/2"! Not sure what that would mean for the cabinet above it - 21" with 2-1/2" filler? It's an idea. Will also look at the Liebherr refrigerators, but I suspect they're *way* out of my price range. (Then again, so is a Miele 18" d/w, so why not spend the money on the fridge instead? Hmmm....) Lascatx, your message made me laugh and laugh!!! 50% more DW per BR indeed!!! Thank you, everyone, for your responses! I can't believe you all *read* my entire message!!