Hi there - thanks all for the feedback - I have kept the grass pretty high based on some advice from my neighbor - he mentioned the same thing AgroCoders stated: that the tall fescues are meant to grow pretty tall (hence the name I guess :) ) maybe 3-4 inches and can lay flat, which is sort of why I was inquiring as to why it was dying...I did cut the grass again since posting keeping it at about 3 or 4 inches. Actually, the grass has gotten worse now too...the parts in the middle that were yellow are now pretty much dead...The grass does look like it was matted - it could have been because of the rain too. I mean the too much water theory could be true, but I would be surprised - I couldn't really control the storms and rain that rolled through for about a week straight :). Regarding the fertilizer - yeah, that could have been some misleading information from both the seed (Pennington) and fertilizer (Scotts) manufacturers - they both stated the conditions for spreading and I followed those accurately. I actually just lightly spread on fertilizer to this newly grassed area, but perhaps I didn't give enough time from my previous fertilizer application and also I am sure the weed/feed itself didn't help. I would think all the water we got would actually help wash out the fertilizer though if that were the culprit. I don't know if it will rebound at this point or not - even though it's dense shade I am starting to wonder if just the total lack of sun, minus a few tiny parts, is the culprit after all...Or just a perfect storm of my misconceptions of fescue (letting it get too high, getting wet, spreading an ill-advised fertilizer, and lack of sun). Oh, and to the comment on the shade mixtures: Dense Shade mix: Virtue II Tall Fescue Rebel Xtreme Tall Fescue Razor Red Fescue Survivor Chewings Fescue Tall Fescue Mix: Justice Tall Fescue Rebel XLR Tall Fesuce Rebel Xtreme Tall Fescue Virtue II Tall Fescue Note: I only spread the Dense shade mix at the bottom of the land (where there is the most dense shade) and the tall fescue mix is pretty much covering all the rest. The grass seems to be dying right in the middle - it does run down hill, so maybe all the rain we got matted the grass -it stayed wet for several days and then just died...too many theories. Attached is a picture today - we had another storm last night, after about 2-3 days of really hot 80-90 degree weather (without rain), but I did water when it seemed dry (one day). Thanks All! Any advice on helping it rebound? Usually light rain + sun helps, but I will be missing that whole sun component in dense shade so it could be bon voyage for my grass.

Plums have been a continual disappointment to me. I'm about ready to chop them all down. I have Opal and Green Gage in the ground, but they don't seem to want to grow. I had a beautiful Toka tree, but it never bore fruit and just up and died a couple of springs back. Ptitsin #5 and Brookgold (I suspect was mislabeled and is really Brookred) will grow and survive the winters OK here -- but they either bloom too early or fruit too late, and are aphid magnets. Frankly, they're not worth the space they take up. I've tried Black Ice about five different times, because I heard it's hardy to zone 3b and fruits earlier in the season. But it always winter kills here. We are supposedly in zone 4 under the newest classification, but I have a hard time believing it. I grow a variety of apples, pears, and sour cherries ... even got a few apricots last year. But I've come to the conclusion that this is just a tough area to try to grow plums.

Vinnie, I would suspect your limits are out of adjustment. Take your chain off the sprocket. Grab one of your remotes and climb on top of a ladder positioned directly behind the opener facing the door. With the chain off the sprocket hit the remote until the sprocket is turning clockwise, let it go until it stops. This will set it on the down limit. By manually moving the trolley (i.e that thing that slides on the rail with the chain connected to it) position the trolley close to the down position. Depending on the way the opener arm hooks to your door it should be around an inch or so from the stop nut on the rail. Put the chain back on the sprocket and tighten everything back up. This should get you back in the ball park. On the left side of your opener ( if you where standing inside and facing out) you will find two knobs. These are your up and down limits. Hit your remote and see where you are now as far as door travel. You may have to tweak the limit knobs a bit to get you back to where you want to be. Let me know if you have any problems.

The trouble with "rules" in general is that they tend to be a little "one size fits all." They are useful to know, and I broke the ones I broke, knowingly, and after a lot of consideration. I have never understood the 15" seating overhang guideline, but it must be made for long-legged people who really like to belly up to the counter. That's not us, we measured what we have and found 12" to be plenty, even though we are not short. Some people really want to unload the dishwasher without moving their feet, so dish storage near the DW is important. We are used to a more "point of use" dish storage system, so the coffee stuff is in one place, the dinner dishes another, the breakfast dishes another (not that any are very far away.) I unload the dishwasher maybe 3 times a week, so it just isn't that big of a deal. Maybe it is if you do it twice a day, though! Our fridge is at the end of our U-shaped kitchen. With a large family or even a few kids + friends running in and out, that could be a disaster. In a retirement home for 2, it's fine. (Obstacles to easy access to the fridge for snacks are probably a good thing at this point!) Plus I don't want to see the fridge from the LR, pretty as it is. And we could have had an island instead of a peninsula, but we didn't really want it THAT open to the living area. And you can't get into the dishwasher and the freezer drawers at the same time, but that seemed to be a conflict we could live with. I am a person who has to know the details of the "why" before I will follow a rule. Then I see if I think it fits before I decide whether to follow it. The list of advice I took to heart is a much longer list, though! Much longer.