The storm drain is finally fixed. The guy who's auger got stuck called last week. He said couldn't wait for our other guy to retrieve his auger and was coming out the next day to dig it out. We told him he could only do this on three conditions. 1) If he was willing to charge us the same price as the other guy we were waiting for. 2) Would either hand dig the hole or use a mini excavator so as not to disturb the tree roots. 3) I wanted this in writing BEFORE he started digging. He agreed to all. We were there the entire time. We even had a guy from another plumbing company come out earlier in the day and give us a quote. Their quote was twice what we were paying for this guy to be able to get his equipment back and finish the job. I have to say he did a good job. He was very careful digging. Instead of driving the gravel truck onto our lawn to unload the 2 tons of gravel that were needed to fill the hole, he used a wheelbarrow to do this by hand. When he was finished all that was left was a pile of dirt about a calf high, 6' long/2' wide. Looks like a grave! ;) In any case, I'm glad its over and no longer have to worry about my trees being killed. Much thanks to those who offered their advice/support during this time.

Wow...that would be great! Well...hmmm...I hate to come to a swap empty-handed tho'. Wish I had something folks would want...I just found out that hubby has that weekend off, so we may very well actually get to come to this one! I have a couple of azaleas I could bring I guess. They aren't special, but I am looking to dig them up and get rid of them... One of them is actually pretty cool. It is white with pink stripes. It crossed itself with a pink one we had next to it for years and now it blooms some white and some with the stripes. We don't have anything pink in our yard now, though, so I've been wanting to get rid of it, but hate to just dig it up and toss it. Think anybody'd want something like that?

That would be nice. I would love to have good peaches, apples and strawberries. The ones around here are horrible. To think I used to have enough in OK to fill an entire chest freezer every summer with fruit. I am planting blackberries, a fig, pomegranate and dwarf peach this fall. Also, going to experiment with annual strawberries and annual rhubarb this winter. This winter, our neighbor was putting big grocery sacks of oranges, tangerines and grapefruit on top of our fence. My husband was bring bags and bags home from school. We have two lemon trees and my parents have one. I drive by dozens of orchards and they sell seconds of oranges/grapefruit in 40-50 lb boxes for 4.99 if I need some before the neighbors start giving it away. My little electric citrus juicer for $29.00 earns it's keep! I buy a big box or two and juice 1 gallon at a time,getting about 2-4 gallons per box.

Wall can openers: *ew* those things were so disgusting. I know ... we've still got one. Caked, corroded, rusted vintage goo; yummy. I'm surprised you don't get tetanus just looking at the thing. It's hanging in an old family house along with all sorts of other vintage stuff attached to the wall: ice crusher, jar opener, bottle opener, huge twisty timer, old kerosene something-or-other (meter? tank?), double-string of hooks for giant pans and pan lids right on top of them. I love all the stuff hanging in that kitchen. You should see the stove (dual fuel: half propane, half kerosene I think?). And the sink is majorly wonderful -- huge double about, dunno, at least 15" deep on one side, covered over by a sliding coated metal drainboard. I love this kitchen....