"how then, do people make fountains, etc? they must drag them inside over winter?" I wouldn't even be tempted to invest the energy and materials to make a fountain out of tufa, a product with a finite lifespan. Yes, people do it, but I visualize a real mess when it starts to fall apart. WHEN, not IF. People who make concrete outdoor fountains drain them (and make sure they STAY drained) before the first freeze hits. And if the concrete wasn't made with care and attention to details, it may not last long, either. I have the feeling that local climate has a lot to do with the lifespan of hypertufa. Here in the PNW, we get a lot of rain, then sudden freezes. If some water has migrated into the concrete, and then expands when freezing temps hit, the concrete is going to deteriorate. But there are probably places that are dry when the cold temps hit, and there may not be much moisture within the concrete piece itself, and that may promote less cracking and less damage. But that's just my theory. Someone in CA once said: "You can argue with the laws of physics all you want, but you're going to lose." And that's really the bottom line. Sue

"Unfort smelling green bean juice again. So I guess I am losing liquid aain in the raw pack green beans. DANG. The instruction booklet is poor for the American.... So I have underlined stuff in it. It says jigging 1 to 4 times per minute, NO WAY. if do so guage goes down past the 10 lb mark on the dial...... DUH>>>" Yet another example of why it is often said here to never use your canner manual for directions for canning. Use it for cooking instructions only. Rather use the current existing directions found at NCHFP. You are losing liquid from the jars not only because you are using raw pack but primarily because you are adjusting the heat while the processing is in progress. That should be avoided at all costs. Trying to get a weight to jiggle just right by playing around with the heat source will always cause liquid to siphon out of the jars. It is far better to allow higher pressure and more frequent jiggling than it is to adjust the heat setting once processing has begun. With a bit of experimenting we can each determine where our heat should be set for uniform processing so no further adjusting is needed. Dave

Dh and I have lived in our current house for our entire marriage, 17 years. Truthfully, it was being built when we got married, so we lived in an apt for 2 months, then my parents for a month then it was ready. We live on the outskirts of a waterfront tourist town. We were supposed to be here for 3 years. Dh was in the Navy and this was not supposed to be our forever home as we anticipated being transferred by the Navy. However, dh realized the Navy was not meant to be his career as he didn't want to constantly move once we had kids. We wanted to live close to one of our families, but unfortunately, they live on opposite coasts. He is from the San Francisco Bay Area, and I am from the Wash DC area. Since it was the height of the tech boom at the time dh was getting out of the Navy, and we simply could not afford a home in the Silicon Valley, he got a job here, which fortunately is only 25 minutes from my parents. And here we've stayed. It is NOT my dream home. I don't even really like it. It was small when we moved in, and even smaller after having four kids! We looked around at moving to a different home, but absolutely love our neighbors and our community so finding a home that fit our needs was very difficult. We live in a high COL so home prices made it hard to find something that fit our desires while still being affordable. 10 years ago, we added on and while the space has helped, it hasn't changed the fact that our floorplan isn't desirable to us. We live in a waterfront community with very strict building codes, so we worked within that and have maxed out what we can do w/o completely gutting the house and starting over. With four kids in private school and one off to college in four years, I've pretty much resigned myself that we won't be moving anytime soon, nor can we really afford at this point to do any major changes that would help. I am constantly looking at houses for sale in the area, but the only affordable ones are in tract home subdivisions and that's not type of community we desire. So we make do with what we have. And it's not that my house is bad, but it's not set up well for entertaining, something I'd love to do more often, we had to give up our fabulous screened porch when we added on and cannot add another due to space constraints. I miss that terribly. On the bright side, we have wonderful neighbors, live in a waterfront neighborhood so the kids can fish, swim, kayak, ride their bikes freely (community is a peninsula w/no through traffic), etc. My dream is to move into the historic district in our tourist town where we can walk and bike everywhere. We live 5 miles from there now, but not on bike-friendly roads (though dh is an avid biker and rides them, no way my kids can). There are some really fabulous Arts & Crafts cottages, as well as many other architecturally interesting homes that date back to the 1700s. My hope is to move into one of them some day and have that be our forever home, with a second home in another climate. I wish I could love this home and think of it as my forever home, but it is not ideal for aging. We have three floors, with bedrooms all on the third floor as the garage/rec room are "under" the main living level. My parents still live in the house I grew up - they are going on 50 years there. They will stay until it's too much for them as it's perfect for aging, a rancher. All that said, as much as I want to move, the idea of moving is dreadful to me, which is probably one of the reasons I haven't really pushed for it. The thought of trying to keep my home in "show" condition with four kids, a huge dog that sheds, well, not fun. So perhaps a small part of me continues to find something undesirable about any of the houses I'm always looking at. I figure if I'm going to go through the hassle, the house has to be pretty close to what I want! Love all the interesting stories!

It is very beautiful and it kinda reminds me of striatum? I have one that I purchased on Ebay as 'Old Timey Orange' and the seller said that it has been it in his family for a long time. I have mine in the front window and it's sending up two scapes at the moment. I only purchased one bulb and it's got a whole potful of babies next to the mother bulb. Also, it seems to bloom several times a year :-))))