hi again! sorry for the absence, i just didn't have much to report - but today a local landscaper came and i'm all excited again. we have a retaining wall that must be replaced, (between the garage and the front of the house) it's 6 feet tall at the highest and about 19 feet long, the landscape company that is associated with my favorite local nursery sent their designer out to give me an estimate on the wall. i've been lurking and reading past posts on this site, i'm reading backwards down thru the 60s - and have learned a lot in just 10 pages of links to posts ;) and a lot of what i learned may have made me a better customer. the LD who came today seemed to be having fun, and to be excited about the project. one of the nicest things i found out today was that he suggested instead of replacing the whole wall as it is, that we could terrace back instead, creating some new planting areas, and also that it would be possible to widen the narrowest "choking" area of the driveway when we moved the wall. he also assured me that it would be possible to reroute the sidewalk thru the trees, without harming them, and mentioned that while this was being done, it would be a simple matter to address the slope toward the house, creating a small slope that would drain away from the foundation (something that we knew we needed). he's also going to break the plan down into stages, so that if i can't afford to do something now, i can at least plan for it. i'm so excited. so. excited. and lpink, lol - i think my 7 year old knows just who would loooove to paint that sun on the side of my house. she already chalks my sidewalks with art constantly. oh and btw, as per orders i moved the harry lauder's walking stick to a different location, in front of one of the tall oaks. i have marked out a different curve for the mulched area - more of a grand sweep instead of all the wiggly ones - and so far no deer have eaten any of my woodland plants. when i chose plants i shot for prickly, herbal or poisonous (charming i know). the only thing not going well is that i bought 40 cleome plants for near the mailbox that were supposed to be white - but in fact they are very very pink, which delights my daughter - so okay. Oh, and with much persistance, the landscaping fabric is slowly being dragged out from beneath 9 inches of mulch. I'm about half done the front yard. Even when I'm not posting all the time, think of me, endlessly poring thru the old threads :) And if it's okay, I'll post some particulars about his plans when they come back! Thanks guys!!

There's two meanings of "organic" being intermingled and confusing the issues, I think, harmonyp. Whether or not something is grown "organically" (a cultural movement based on sometimes questionable premises, in this ecologist's opinion) has nothing to do with whether or not it is an organic form of nitrogen (i.e., nitrogen as part of a large organic molecule that breaks apart slowly into plant-usable forms of nitrogen). Nitrate and ammonium, which are inorganic, ionic compounds, are considered the plant-usable forms of nitrogen, although this view is being modified as more and more evidence piles up for plants sometimes using organic forms of nitrogen directly. As opposed to nitrogen in large organic molecules, the inorganic forms of nitrogen, provided en masse by synthetic/manufactured fertilizers, are highly mobile in the environment. If they aren't taken up immediately by the plant, they readily move into waterways or the atmosphere where the excess becomes a problem. So, probability of over-application is the main issue, first-order, not the form of nitrogen. Don't use excessive amounts of synthetic fertilizers and it's not a problem. Over-application of synthetic fertilizer by rose gardeners would be less than a pittance, anyway; it's large-scale use of excessive amounts of synthetics in big agriculture that is of concern (plus concomitant doubling of "in-play" nitrogen in ecosystems due to the need to feed exponentially-growing human populations, but THAT problem is second-order and beyond...). My preference for alfalfa lies in it being an organic molecule form that makes nitrogen slowly available over a long period of time, having other benefits for the soil, and posing less potential for application of excessive amounts. It is cheap, easy to obtain and use, and my roses look fine to me. I am too lazy and busy to keep track of multiple applications and timing required for synthetic fertilizers over the growing season. So, win-win on a number of fronts; who could complain? As a consultant in restoration ecology, I'm actually a big fan of Roundup. It's an important tool-of-the-trade, though usually considered only after non-chemical means are considered and rejected.

in the end we realized/decided that the 42 or 43" wide sink was just too big for our under-10-foot long kitchen (12 feet long including the fridge), and that the biggest sink we could get would be 30" unless we want to skip a dishwasher. 24" would be better for a sink for our space but I prefer a double sink even 28" 70/30 double basin sink. so off the above sink goes to the backyard perhaps, or perhaps it will be given away. apparently the cast iron sink is around 500 pounds, so not used lightly. we're in an old house so there's something to be said for a lighter sink. we're also on a parlor floor (and the sink was removed from a third floor apartment) oh well! I love the sink but practicality prevailed.

Igloochic, No, I'm not definitively certain because I'm happy to say I wasn't around pre-WWII (or even pre- any wars that weren't Gulf war or later). ;-) I have asked the most knowledgeable person I know on all things Victorian and otherwise older furniture to please weigh in here so that somebody learned in the area can opine. That said, all the "older" pieces of furniture I've ever seen which haven't had fixed brackets and fixed shelving have had the brackets affixed to the cabinet sides (sort of like oven racks) that the shelves could be slid in and out on - I'll dig up some pics of antiques and post so you can see what I mean. I've always understood the pin & predrilled hole system for adjustable shelving to have been introduced with the standardized template which was part of all the standardization adopted post-WWII during the massive reconstruction happening in Europe. Much of all this standardization was to enable rapid production to meet the huge demand at that time - none of the centuries old custom methods which, while artisanal and all, took eons to complete. As I said, if this is incorrect, I'd love to be edified. I hope Rococogurl or jon or one of the other furniture and woodworkers will pipe up - they actually do know what they're talking about.