Character? This is a very polite of you to describe Dr.Waldman this way :-) Temperamental, moody, outright rude... all those words could be applied to the man, but...never before or after I met a such knowledgable in woody plants person. I talk to him on several ocassions personaly and once on a phone and learn how to touch his nerve. As soon as you start talking about rhododendrons (his whole life passion) and show him that you know something more than run of the mill PJM and Nova Zembla from the nearby Home Depot he become interested in you and begin sharing, sharing and sharing all kind of practical tips and other not readily available information. He was a great plantsman and a terrible businessman. I miss him.

There's Molie and Ms. Swan! So glad you're not floating down the river, Molie. And your photos of the swan have me considering how amazing it actually is, that birds and animals manage to figure out how to get through such awful weather. You would think they are so lightweight and small that they would just get tossed up into the sky, but they know just what to do. Bill, I did remember you were in RI, I just thought aside from Carl, you might be the southernmost member of the forum. Glad you got through it in good shape! Another 37 hr power outage, Jane?! Well, I guess it was an improvement from last year. Glad you are back in business. I think we did fairly well in our neighborhood too, in part because last year, we lost so many branches and after the power outage last October, NStar was here for a week trimming any tree branches that were near the wires. I thought the whole neighborhood did very well, then this afternoon, I had a service man here for an appliance and as he came in, he was saying ...'wow, I see your neighbor has a tree on their car.' I was shocked, because I had not seen it. They live on the corner of a street that is only a block away, but we never drive that way. (g) I had to go out and look and sure enough, there was a Spruce laying right across their car in the driveway. I imagine they are waiting for an insurance adjuster to get there. We didn't get the microburst in our area, but wow, the rain came down in a sheet of water for about half an hour about 10:30pm last night. More rain than we had in the previous two days. Thunder and lightning too. And today the sun was in and out. It was so great to see sunshine! Glad everyone is okay. Fingers crossed for Carl.

i just got a quote from HD for my soapstone at $88/sf installed. the sample they had in the store was called savonpierre -- which may be a made-up name, b/c when i searched for info on this variety, it went directly to innovative stone's site, the dealer for HD. the sample has georgeous yellow/gold veins, and i hope that when i go to see slabs, (only after we template), the beautiful color will be available. also, after reading this string, maybe i'll check out garden state and the texx one in hackensack for additional quotes -- HD has assured me that i can cancel if the color is not available.

Well, Philadelphia Soapstone is actually in NJ, but if you are willing to take the drive south, I would recommend a visit. They had quite a bit in stock when I visited a few weeks ago. I learned a lot about soapstone from them and they were really nice. I'd read about places that were reluctant to show you many slabs, but the guys at Philadelphia Soapstone insisted on wetting every single slab for me - I had to convince them that I'd seen enough. I am still in the planning stages myself.