Until we cut down our five pine trees, we had plenty of pine straw. Esox, you crack me up: "I just plant hostas anywhere I feel one needs to be, which is pretty much everywhere." I never throw out any leaves, unless it happens to include a lot of camphor berries, which sprout by the millions. Those I happily donate to the twenty-six trash pickups our city provides annually. I also go collecting the bags of leaves the neighbors put out for trash pickup--what a bounty they are throwing out! My DH operates the shredder but ours is not heavy duty enough to deal with any large twigs, so he sorts them out as he goes. He is a patient man. Who is learning to count hosta a bit too readily. Anyway, I'm thinking about getting straight bark delivered, it doesn't look like the shredded bark in the picture above. It is more like the bark in a commercial potting mix. I had one truck load of potting mix delivered to my driveway last week, and I'm using it just about everywhere. Filling in holes where tree roots (from 6 or 7 trees we had cut down) are rotting. Building up a slope in the back garden where water tends to run off--I need it to hang around for the blueberries. Making a mound for the hosta shade structure so they will display better. It is so flat in my garden. Add some depth to the front yard driveway southside under the neighbor's trees--I swear those trees are eating my soil!! Where does it go? But I can see endless uses for straight pine bark. Like someone mentioned using bark for a walking path. Pretty good when you don't know exactly where it should be located, better than all that hard work moving stones. And you can create a curved path with the bark. Don't know how the two doggies will like the bark though. They don't like to get their feet wet.

It is phenominal how many 'Career Change' threads appear on this forum! I came to this lifestyle through the world of working with animals. Started out as a zookeeper then moved into the Exhibit Design dept and ended up being a Graphic Artist. Through a lot of those 18 years I worked side by side with the zoo's horticulture department. Now I work with plants. The same types of people are drawn to animal work as plant work. The part that doesn't get said much when someone approaching midlife/career-change-time comes in looking for an application is that only a few people can handle the physical demands of outdoor labor. Its nice to think about working with your hands, nuturing plants..etc. but after the age of 40, skin cancer is a reality for many, arthritis is a reality for even more. Most humans just aren't built to work hard physical labor outside in the sun. Many would love to, but few actually can. There is a reason companies seek out young people for those jobs. Entry level positions in a lot of hort fields don't come with complete benefits which only adds to the misery. Now I know there are people out there past the age of 40 that work harder than many of the teenagers in the workforce, but overall I think many people looking for a career change view animal/plant work with rose colored glasses.

Morning all! Fran, I put in a bit more postage than what it was for me to mail my package to you. I don't think that I'll get back what I sent because we have a lot of veggie growers here, BUT if by chanace you dont have enough postage I'd be happy to send more if you need it to get my package back to me. I'm so glad that I bought the veggie seeds, I could almost hear how excited people were when I offered them up for grabs! Thank you to anyone who sent flowers in for me, I assure you that every single seed will find a good home. Lisa

I must agree with both Donna and Rosefolly. I am not much of a church-goer but think applause is only appropriate if the church building is being used as a concert/play venue. I'm still not quite at home with the now quite common habit of serving 'refreshments' after a service. I know that many medieval churches over here have no separate facilities for such things (some don't even have a cold water tap let along a church hall for meetings etc) but crumbs in the nave or Coke spilt in the choir-stalls doesn't seem 'quite the thing'. Donna, does the congregation clap after a particularly rousing sermon? I seem to remember seeing on TV that in some US places of worship it is not uncommon to hear "Alleluia" or 'Praise the Lord" during an address from the pulpit. I guess I'm showing both my age and my stiff-upper-lip Englishness . . . and am probably too old to change!