Yeah there are a couple of things... The Bermuda Bible has been updated this summer, but not on this website. It's on another one. If you Google it, I believe the first result is the right one. I cannot link you to it because that violates the terms of service here at GW. Ask me how I know that!! Baby shampoo is perfectly fine. Why? Because baby shampoo never has conditioners in it. If you use a shampoo with conditioners, who knows what will happen. Oils and soils don't work well together. So any clear shampoo should work fine. I also like baby shampoo because it doesn't have any other additives or fragrances. The shampoo should work better than an aerator. Aerators are hard to use and a little on the dangerous side. I'd stick with shampoo a few times unless and until you are dissatisfied with it. Give it a month and apply at least 2 times. Sometimes it takes a few more apps, but give it the good ol' "college try." Do not expect the soil to become mushy. What happens is the shampoo allows the water to penetrate deeper into the soil. The deep moisture sets up the perfect environment for the beneficial fungi to grow in the soil. Those guys take weeks to fill the soil, so you won't get soft soil right away. And the soil will only be soft feeling when it is moist. As it dries out between watering, it will firm up again. Is shade an issue anywhere in your lawn? If you have bermuda on the north side of a fence, building, bush, or tree, it's going to thin out. You'll have to come up with something else for those areas. Don't try using seed to fill in the thin areas. Seeded bermuda and sodded bermuda are completely different animals. If you mix them it will look weedy forever. You should be fertilizing bermuda every month with something. Read the Bermuda Bible and it gets specific about which one to use. Beyond that, and in addition to that, I would strongly urge you to use an organic fertilizer application at least once per year. Texas weed used an organic program at home and a chemical program on his sod farm. He knows both. He wrote the Bermuda Bible suggesting only chemicals, because he believes it to be the most successful for bermuda. His only problem with organics was the cost for the frequent heavy doses of fertilizer. Having said that, there are people here on GW who use only organics on bermuda and they are very happy with it. Be sure you get before and after pictures of both the front and back. Sometimes you see things in the pictures that you did not notice walking around in it. Many of us have seen hundreds of lawn pix. It is not unusual at all for us to see things you weren't even concerned about.

PART I "I said, you are about to hurt yourself silly. And don't forget your necklace on the way out." I turned around, startled "Huh?... What??" I sorta said out loud to the chilly, golden light of the early Spring morning. I wasn't aware that a tree could sigh and speak in the same moment of time, but I experienced it in this way. "You're sweet, but go home to your kid and make yourself a nice cuppa joe, cuz It's not gonna happen". Just then, the 20 year old, 7 foot tall , Contorted Filbert Tree did it's best Guido - "ForGEHT about it". As my thoughts scrambled to present a solution, it became clearer to me while I dug a radial trench around the drip line . The careful work of my shovel was revealing a 2" thick root system, and I thought, the answer to today's transplant/relocation endeavor might be; "Damn. You're right. I know your probably right. I need to take a break and think about this. I'll be back in an hour. Don't go anywhere..." "If you say so..." "But believe you me, when I tell you, I'm not going anywhere today." Three yellow finches flitted as they merged within the inner canopy of this otherworldly specimen, this magnificent Hazelnut, who's future was on the chopping block of it's existence. The new home owner's botanical sentiments being, "Curly whatever's just not our thing, ya know? " No. I didn't "know". "We want it gone because we are going to put in a fabulous stone stairway from our front door to the sidewalk, and that helps keep the carpets cleaner." I literally bit my tongue and flinched from the pain. I needed a quick mantra before my tongue recovered enough for ego to make a bigger mess than this pile of dirt I'd been digging up. "Focus on the tree, the tree is your focus. Focus on the tree, the tree is your focus." How do you make it your goal to stay in the good graces of someone you don't agree with or hold respect for? By remembering they are you. If I pick this battle, I am jousting with an aspect of myself, albeit one I may have grown away from. Somewhere in my shadow is the quality of preferring nice carpets over sacred old growth trees. Not today. Invoke love, not ego's spite - thoughts of being better for experiencing reverence for this living symbol of life's bridge between worlds. I did some affirmative nodding while projecting a thoughtful countenance and said, "Yes, yes. Let me see what I can do - the root ball is getting a good soak, so I'll be back in a bit with some help". I left with my necklace still dangling on one of the tree's lower limbs. Earlier that morning, when I first arrived, I offered my respects and sought the tree's permission for the task at hand, offering a bit of brown bread and ale, and hung my stone on it's branch as a calling card. Now, I kinda felt silly for the whole thing, because I could have just asked. Who knew? Wood could talk. PART II When I returned to the site, it was not with help and it was not with cakes and ale and a reverent attitude. I plopped down under the branches atop a large, well established ground root, which had surfaced itself long ago into just the right shape to keep my backside from slipping off down the slight decline of the current landscape. A landscape scheduled, soon, for sheer destruction. A little flock of purple Crocus shuddered together in unison, causing a usually cheerful patch of Forget Me Nots to worry that their namesake would be for naught. "Pull up a chair. Talk to me". Why did I get the feeling I was the one being comforted? I was curious about the calm demeanor emanating from this non-human entity in the face of it's hingey future. I thought about this Filbert Tree being felled for selfish, cosmetic purposes. "..but, you're so beautiful... you're - so beautiful", was all the internal language I could come up with. Could I really get teary over this? "Hey, I brought espresso, biscotti, pears, and a cheese c.., canna, cannelloni." I said, in a morning-breakfast-picnic-voice. "Would you care for any?" In the original draft of this writing, the spell checker went off on me as I typed this last line, listing the goodies. So did the tree, right then. "Holly Saint Julian, no, It's, ... CAHN-uh-LOWWW-nee. Bees-CAA-tee." "What do you know of St. Julian?" I asked, between cookie bites. And without saying so, I understood the tree to take it's coffee with 4 packs of sugar, and that the Finch Clan would have a bit of the ricotta filling from my pastry-pronunciation-disaster. "She was a dancer." Right, no. I was expecting anything but that misinformed answer. But, to remain respectful, here...I responded in the least patronizing tone possible, "Okay, - really? She danced?" "Yup. That is just exactly what I originally meant to say. She- was- a -dancer. And, she IS the patron Saint of all things Hazel." Okay. I thought, now I'm talking to a Catholic tree. Maybe the original owners of the property were Italian Roman Catholics, which could then do my needy, pitiful, Gemini mind a favor, and throw me a bone. That info could wrap me up one clean, tidy, logical explanation of this Goodfella sounding Filbert with it's East Coast pizza-pie accent. So I asked. " I was wondering about the other family, if they....." "Nope. Not even close. And no cigars from Cuba, either. Atheists. They was both of them math teachers, no time for the Who-What-When-Wheres & Whys of 'Thee Uni-verse'." Awesome. At this point, I just wanted to munch on my pear for a minute, and process my head. I flashed to the other night, in my son's room, helping him with his homework. "Mom, do you hear that?" "Hear What?" I said. "That really fast piano music, like a chase scene in a cartoon?" He explained. "You don't hear it?" He was asking, worriedly. I said, "Well....not right this minute, but if you give me a chance I might hear it..." His eyes started to water up as he asked, "Mom, am I crazy for hearing music by myself?" I said, "Not even a little. I think you are ready for piano lessons, that's all." I promised him, "Hey, everyone in the world hears someone saying their name just before they doze off. Just ask around. Its very, very, common." I thought, now would not be the time to share with him about these tree talks. Later, for that. So, I took another bite of pear. "Yup. A- tee-yests." ...cont'd (c) E. Wyndrose

Wow, I guess I better check my local laws. The concept that city government or a disgruntled neighbor can stop you from taking down or trimming trees on your own property is unbelievable to me. That's all we need, tree police. "Sir, did anyone tell you that certain varieties of holly sustain rare insect life and that by trimming that holly at the wrong time of year, you might have caused destruction of a colony of the super special and rare AB12 variety of Hungarian beetle? This beetle is a food source for the local box turtle population so in effect, you've now put at risk the ability for the mature turtles to feed their young. Yada, yada, yada." Give me a break. "But Officer Evergreen, the holly was rubbing against my siding and causing damage to my house." "Sorry Sir, that's no excuse and that'll be $1500.00." Don't anyone report this SF guy to Al Gore. Next thing you know, the type of pruning he had done will be the reason for global warming.

Nancy, the above fridge doors are 18W"x24"H each. The vertical pieces are the big cover panels from Ikea, I only used stained plywood for the horizontal pieces which are not very visible. One of the door is attached to the end panel. I had a difficult width to work with (like, 35.5") so that was what was needed. Most people would use the 24" deep cab and shim it out. I don't have the formula with me but Sherwin Williams I think matched it for me. It's still a bit off and I will have them make a new color for me for the next stain job. To join the butcher blocks I cut the edge close to one of the planks and then used a 2" router bit to clean up the edge. I think that's very much mandatory. Glue up using tite-bond 2. The edges needs to be almost perfect, you must NOT rely on the glue to fill any gaps, it will not work. I forgot to pay attention but if I had flipped one of the pieces, it should be more flat. Also please alternate the clamp to one on top, one on bottom, which I didn't do and I think that contributes to the warpage. You also need to sand off any glue and lippage but you shouldn't need to correct so much like mine. Hope this helps..