My ninebark is the species. It grows to about 8 or 9 feet. It's just finished blooming, and while most of the fruit capsules are brown, I have some individuals whose capsules turn red and stay red all summer. Very pretty. Chokeberry is Aronia. I have mostly A. melanocarpa, because I can buy it. Slow growing, but pretty. Coralberry is not the same as snowberry. Same genus, different species. Snowberry is much taller (up to about 4 feet) and doesn't sent out runners. Coralberry stays maybe 2-3 feet tall and sends out long runners in all directions that root. It's good for my islands because it fills in quickly. I plant shrubs very close together--a foot or so. I want the islands to look crowded, and they do after a year or so. I'll try to post some pictures. Most species shrubs do have white flowers. If you're going to go natural, you start to think in terms of what the pollinators like, and they obviously are attracted to clusters of white flowers. I think it's fascinating that the second each species finishes blooming another takes up the slack. It seems to be timed so they don't compete for pollinators--first serviceberry, then crabapples & C. florida, then chokecherry and chokeberry and black cherry, then ninebark, then early viburnums, then shrub dogwood, then later viburnums, then elderberry. I find it fascinating, and I no longer get tired of white flowers.

You can start peppers and eggplants inside now. You probably would be OK starting tomatoes now and transplanting them outside in late April. For everything else that can be grown from transplants, look at the spring planting date for your part of the state, and start your seeds 3 to 5 weeks prior to that planting date, with 3 weeks being ideal. THE FALL GARDEN: You can plant almost everything in the fall garden that you would plant in the spring garden. Some plants do better when planted in the fall than in the spring, including brussels spouts and (for me) cabbage and other cole crops. The hardest part of planting a fall garden is that you must, by necessity, start new plants and seeds during Oklahoma's hottest, driest, most miserable weather. You can get around that by starting seeds in peat pellets indoors where it is cooler, hardening them off in semi-shade and the transplanting them into the ground, preferably on a cloudy day (or in the evening, so they have all night to recover). You also can give new plants some shade while they are getting established, using shadecloth and other methods, including spraying them with Wilt-Prufe. If you keep them well-watered, the tiny summer-planted transplants will catch hold and grow although you may not see a lot of topgrowth until the weather cools a little in September. Here's approximate planting dates for a fall garden in southern Oklahoma. If you are significantly further north, you may want to plant 2 weeks earlier so you can get a harvest before frost arrives. June 15th-July 1st: Cantaloupe, muskmelon, watermelon and any other European, Asian or American melons (seeds or transplants) July 1st-15th: Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers (all from transplants, not seed) July 15th: Sweet corn (seed) (I pre-soak it in water overnight to help it germinate more quickly, especially if the soil is very dry. July 15-30th: Cilantro (seed or transplants), pole beans (seed), southern peas (black-eyed peas, crowder peas, cream peas, etc.)(seed), winter squash (seed or transplants), pumpkins (seed or transplants) July 15th-August 15th: okra (seed or transplants) July 15th-September 1st: Summer squash (including zuchinni) (seed or transplants) July 25-August 10: potatoes (seed potato pieces) August 1st-Sept. 1st: collards (seed), brussels sprouts (seed or plants), cabbage (seed or plants), swiss chard (seed or plants), kohlrabi (seed or plants) August 1st-Oct. 15th: spinach (seed), mustard (seed), August 1st-15th: Rutabagas and turnips (seed), carrots and parsnips (seed), broccoli (seed or transplants), August 1st-October 1st: parsley (seed or transplants) August 15th-Sept. 10th: lettuce (seed or transplants) August 10th-20th: Bush beans (seed), lima beans (seed), cucumbers (seed or transplants) Sept. 1st-15: beets (seeds) Sept. 1st-Oct. 1st: peas Sept. 10th-Oct. 1st: Leeks (seed) Sept. 15th-Oct. 15th: Garlic (for a spring harvest) HEIRLOOM TOMATOES: I'm going to list the ones that not only have great flavor, but that have great production. Some that have INCREDIBLE flavor, like Brandywine, might only give you a few fruit per plant so they are VERY frustrating to grow. Black Krim (maroonish-greenish-reddish fruit) Cherokee Purple (or Cherokee Chocolate or Cherokee Green)(all taste about the same to me, only difference is skin color) Nebraska Wedding (Orange-gold fruit) Hillybilly or Royal Hillbilly Aunt Gertie's Gold Dr. Wyche's Yellow Mortgage Lifter (pink fruit) Dr. Carolyn (ivory to yellow cherry) Arkansas Traveler or Traveler 76 (not technically an heirloom, I suppose, but has been around Arkansas so long that I think of it as one) Earl's Faux (flavor almost as good as Brandywine, not technically an heirloom, but a sport or cross grown from at least one heirloom parent) Porter, Porter's Pride or Improved Porter (pinkish-red) Bradley (pink, an Arkansas heirloom) Marianna's Peace (pink) Snow White--another ivory to pale yellow cherry, fruit are larger than Dr. Carolyn Black Cherry--relatively new on the market, so I guess it is not an heirloom, but it has that special heirloom-type flavor Sungold--is not an heirloom, but it the best cherry tomato ever If I could only grow 5 heirlooms, I'd grow Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, Snow White and Arkansas Traveler OR Nebraska Wedding. And, if I could only grow 5 hybrids, I'd grow Brandy Boy (flavor incredibly close to Brandywine's), Better Boy, Sweet Million, Sungold and Porterhouse. If I could only grow 5 tomato varieties total, I think I'd grow Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Sungold, Better Boy and Mortgage Lifter. That's my list of favorite tomatoes, heirloom and hybrid. And, if you asked me on a different day, you might get a different list. Each heirloom has a flavor that is unique and special, sort of like fine wine. And, flavor can vary from year to year and also varies due to soil and growing conditions. You didn't ask about paste tomatoes for canning or cooking, but some of the best ones are Opalka, Amish Paste, Grandma Mary's Paste, Martino's Roma and San Marzano Redorta. For sun-dried tomatoes, you can't go wrong with Principe' Borghese.

Thank you so much everybody! First I will change the mat color in DS's pictures. I think I have some but if not, out come the paints! Next I'm going to look for some more casual pictures of him and probably change one to someone else. I can see how the hunt scene doesn't tie in with the others so I've an idea. I have some really good photos from a civil war re-enactment on horseback that I will frame to see if it ties in more. I do want to expand it a little so the Church painting won't seem so stuck on. I have a long skinny black table that I'm thinking of putting there. It is much wider than the hutch base. Most of these are hung with the 3M strips so re-positioning them will be fairly easy. I love those things! Thanks again, I really appreciate everybody's eye and comments. :) Patty

I pretty much like the larger window size. If you don't mind the 12" cab, which could be useful in many ways, I'd keep it. Candice (or Sarah?) did a Marmoleum checkerboard floor the other day using 3 colors. I didn't like the way it looked, although the material itself looked very interesting. One concern I have about the fridge size: 32" isn't a common size. They exist, of course, but in the larger scheme of things it might be tricky to replace it someday with another that width, and your opening in the cabinetry is very specific. Just be sure you think about that and are comfortable that you'll have reasonable options some day down the road. What's the thing on top of the fridge? It kind of looks like a mini wood-fired stove, but that seems unlikely.