I just found my way back a couple of weeks ago! My guys Cooper and Bailey crossed the Rainbow Bridge 5 years ago. And now we have our 4th beloved Golden Retriever, Griffin! loved rereading this thread too. ah The memories!

Relax, the little one will pick up on your nerves and not really know why the pretty lady he's meeting today and having a good outing with is so 'afraid'and he may take it to mean it's something he's done or said or that you don't like him. I've seen a group of little ones come together all speaking bits and parts or no mutual langauge of the others present and they brush it aside and play all day together having great fun. They understand the basics: laughter, smiles, a willingness to be friends. I myself have had to visit with and entertain in my home and on sight seeing outings both teens and adults, and we've all been very understanding and leaned on the one present who can repeat for us what is said. As long as all were comfortable and had a desire to be warm and friendly and relaxed, a convo and/or a pleasant story/joke just takes a bit longer to share, but is still enjoyable/interesting. The main thing I had to watch myself from doing as I came to know and communicate with was not to slip into slang and to stick to basics of meaning with words. Where my langauge has words that can be flipped around and exchanged for other words, the person I was speaking with could then not follow me in this manner. In your case, you might try an ice breaker with the little boy, ask his dad to help you pick out a storybook that you could present to the boy as a welcome gift. Or some favorite candy or along those lines. Something that speaks without words that you are very honored to be meeting him and very willing to get to know him even though there is a bit of a hurdle to cross. Dad might read the book to you and the child if you choose a book. And study up on the basic language, carry the little booklet in your pocket that assist, a desire to learn and accept I think I have found to be my key to language differences. Good luck to you, hope you all have a great day.

I did a quick read through, but have to come back and digest this better later. I will answer a few questions, but my brain isn't awake yet and will suely miss some. I probably should get some more printer paper today and print this out so I can answer questions better. I'm not really very concerned about security. Although I know fences can be cut, we installed nasty barbed wire all the way around our 10 acres, with a farm fence strong enough to keep horses in. Seems to be the norm here. It keeps the cows in, and sends a message to outsiders. We will eventually put a sensor alarm on the gate and on the house, etc. That said, we don't have problems in this area, since everyone living in this area is of a self sufficient mind set, and have no problems whatsoever using the means necessary for self defense. If someone wants to get you bad enough, they'll get you, so I don't worry about glass doors. There are a few cracker styles in existance. The dogtrot was one of them, but there were also single pen, double pen, saddlebag, shotgun, I-houses (were two story), and in the early 1900's the Georgian, Southern Plantation, and Victorian styles began to appear. The most important theme that ran through all of them was the protective porches. If fireplaces were used, they went on the gable ends, and because of this, had no porch in that area. The kitchens were almost always an outbuilding, but generally attatched to the porch. Haven't made a final decision on the loft yet. I guess I am leaning away from it after looking at my husband's engineering drawings. It makes for a VERY complex construction. We also ran into logistics with floor planning and subsequent lining the sight lines of the upper windows with the open lower area (great room). It all ripples, and I've about given the loft up. I don't have the energy anymore to deal with making a complex situation work out. Ten months ago, maybe, but I'm getting burned out now and just want my house. Over the weekend we visited a building that had a large gazebo connected to the house at the porch deck. I could envision that as a sewing studio. What surprised me was there wasn't a feeling of going outside the house to another building. The 8 foot porch span to the other structure didn't seem any different than a hall, and had a "safe" feeling. I will have a kitchen island, but have decided on not having a fixed one. I.m afraid of it eventually annoying me by having something in the middle of my room that couldn't be moved without demolition. We would never sit and eat at it, as some people do. We like the kitchen table. I actually have no problem with the table in the kitchen, as long as it doesn't block a working path. What I am planning is to purchase a 60 inch by 30 inch Boos brand kitchen island, with the bOos Block maple top, and put their heavy duty casters on it. I will need to provide a spot to put it when not in use, but I have an idea of the east side having two storage closets flanked by a window in the middle. That makes a storage spot for it. They are expensive, but not nearly as costly as a built in unit. A foyer, as this idiot has redrawn it, should never be a narrow corrider. I don't even really care if there is a foyer or not, but unless the kitchen or great room were in a position to make a logical entrance, we may need one. Foyers can also make a logical transition space in which to branch utilitarian rooms off of, but they have to be done just right. i would most likely opt to keep it large and open, and making sure it could double both as entry and a sort of "library" area. We decide that one really nice master bath is what we will do, with the second bathroom close by. An optimal design would place close enough to be convenient to the master, but still convenient to the rest of the house. Most of the time my husband and I don't really have issues with sharing the bathroom, but there are certain times when I'd like more privacy. I saw pictures of glass french doors connecting the master bedroom and bathroom. It was situated where a beautiful bathtub and vanity were in view, along with the windows there, and the toilet and shower, linen closet out of direct view. How the indirect area was arranged, I don't know, but that shouldn't be too difficult to figure out. It evoked a feeling of being on vacation in a serene and luxurious setting. If you were to look at a blank rectangle in front of you, the long side near you is the "front" of the house (east). The other long rectangle that is the "back" is west looking at our woods. This is where we want all the good stuff. The right hand side is north, which is where the driveway will lead to, and my kitchen quadrant. The left side is south, and where the master quadrant is. No point of our property has view of any other homes, and no aspect of it is unattractive. It's just that the backside has the mature oaks, so is a little prettier. At least until I get some other trees going. I have no problem rotating directions of rooms. In other words, the master area can run sideways rather than up and down, IF it worked better with the whole layout that way. I'm thinking where the original "study" was, give or take some rearranging, could be the entry, with laundry area or bathroom or whatever could flank off of. However, the entry could also be into the kitchen area somewhere. We are not formal people. I would like to come up with a neat idea on how to have my large freezer and an extra refrigerator convenient to the kitchen, or even a part of it somehow. I don't want these items stored far from the kitchen ever again. Maybe I need a kitchen entrance where they sit, which then opens right into the kitchen. I don't believe in garbage disposals either. I compost all my scraps. I have two Can 'O Worms vermicomposting bins in the barn. They keep my husband company in his office. I am not going to short change myself on space within the needed areas. With this amount of square footage and no other bedrooms needed, it would be silly to make our bedroom and bathroom, kitchen etc. cramped from the get go. I would actually prefer a 16 by 15 bedroom, so that I could put an old fashioned makeup dressing table in there, and a nice blanket chest. Things that make a room. After living in this small mobile, with a 12 by 12 bedroom, and a king size bed in the middle, I never want to go back to that. If this wasn't temporary, I would be moving out. There is no reason for me to "settle" since we have a clean slate. Though a 32 foot depth on the gable ends is an economical foundation to build, if we need to go a little wider we will do it. Most likely, we can make a satisfactory layout based on the 32 ft depth. I need lots of storage, but not because I got into the habit of hoarding, like many people do. I use everything I own. Some more often than others. My fabric collection is quite extensive, but that's my hobby. I could fill a large 8 by 8 closet with sewing supplies. I have lots of books, all used at various times. There are also various embroidery hoops to my machine, cutting mats, which all need careful storage. many things, like threads, interfacings, stabilizers, can be bought bulk to save money, so that's what I do when I see a good deal. So...I could easily fill space and gave up on trying to cram it in the house and not being satisfied. I decided I was not going to communicate with this most recent designer again. I'm done. There is something wrong with this man. Maybe it is medical. Maybe it is self induced. I don't know and don't care at this point. I've written this off as a $500 loss. I told my husband if I am doing all the work I am certainly not giving this guy a floor plan that he will sell to someone else and profit from. Thank goodness my husband has the Chief Architect software. It appears very tedious and "I" would never be able to figure it out, (also known as no desire to figure it out) but am sure happy he has the knowledge and enjoys computers the way he does. So anyway, I think it best for me not to look at the screwed up plan at all any more. It makes planning a good design impossible. Well, have to run. Have my doctor appointment.

Johnny, I wish we had had someone plow our entire property when we bought it, because then I would have done the same thing. As it is, I just dig it when I can and dispose of the roots in black trash bags. Despite the fact that my husband is our local fire chief and my son is a professional firefighter, we don't burn brush often. In fact, it probably has been 5-7 years since we've burned it. For most brush, I pile it up, hugelkultur-style on badly eroded areas, and keep adding to those brush piles for years, but I don't put Johnson grass roots there. Eventually the hugelkultur brush pile decomposes to the point that the once eroded area is now filled in with a rich compost/humus from the years of piling on the brush, and then the native plants return to that area on their own. If they don't, I collect seeds of native grasses and forbs from the pasture and scatter them over the newly healed area. It makes me happy to see once-eroded areas that featured ugly red clay eventually return to native grassland. Dorothy, I have let it grow on the west side of the new back garden for the same reason. I figured if the hoppers could stay there, maybe they'd bother the new garden less. I am not thoroughly convinced it worked. Once rain started falling in June last year, that stuff really started growing and hit about 8' in height. I hated it as it started to invade the garden, where I'd largely dug out all of it the year before. This year (and I haven't done it yet) I may try smothering it with black plastic held down to the ground with U-shaped staples sold for use with landscape fabric. I might be accidentally creating a snake haven underneath that black plastic, but the back garden has a major vole issue, so if snakes were living underneath that black plastic just outside the garden fence, then maybe they'd spend some time eating voles. That would be a win-win situation for me. However, what I fear will happen is that the Johnson grass will just move into the back garden even more. Scott, I think we ended up right where we were meant to be. I love this land and I love all the friends we've made here. It is a perfect fit for us, but I hate the Johnson grass. Everyone lets it grow and run wild here, so we'll never be rid of it. I just try to keep it out of the places on our property that we try to keep looking civilized. With the Johnson grass, and I cannot remember the exact details, but the prussic acid builds up after a particular set of circumstances occurs in a specific order. I think there's two or three different ways. George, Oh, you know how it is, everyone here lets livestock graze on it but then the experienced ranchers do know (most of the time) when to pull the cattle out of a pasture with a lot of Johnson grass so they can avoid the poisoning. It is when a rancher guesses wrong, or the cows escape their pasture and graze on Johnson grass alongside the road when they shouldn't that the cows die. They also cut and bale it as part of their hay crop, as you mentioned. I know that some of the stresses that can cause the poisoning include drought, freezing weather and excessive nitrogen in the soil. Oh, and excessive moisture. One of the most dangerous times for cattle is immediately after you've cut and baled it (usually the first cutting, which normally is in May here) when there is enough available nitrogen and enough soil moisture that the Johnson grass makes quick, lush growth. I believe that is what happened with the cases our vet saw last year on the day we were in his office. We'd finally had rainfall return here in a big way after months of drought, and everything grew like mad. Dawn