We continue to be ver pleased with hown the new bed is working out. It's filling in a lot faster than we expected and makes a big improvenment to the front garden. I need to get a picture of it from across the street to get the big front bed in the picture too but here are a few views from this morning: This one showns the south end by the Chinese wisteria (which is doing its summer sparse bloom phase) so you can get a feel for how it is filling out since the similar June picture above: From the road, looking south: From the end of the wisteria path looking north - you can see how I didn't have room to make the bed wider because of the ditch...: One thing that is really bugging me is that the variegated weigela I had planted several years ago in the main bed seems to be refusing to grow! That is leaving a void where I wanted a show of green and white foliage (and pink flowers in early summer) so I think it will get yanked this fall and replaced next spring with another one that will hopefully grow a bit more vigorously! rhodium - definitely a gardener's landscape here! :-) It's actually not too unusual in the immediate neighbourhood as there are a lot of avid gardeners on this street and the one behind us. Gardening is the local competitive sport! :-)

PM2: There are eagles and vultures in MA, too. I've seen both of them here (turkey vultures and bald eagles). The turkeys definitely connect me with food - if I look closely, I often see a turkey scout in the driveway next door, or across the street, or in a tree. Soon after I put food out they'll come sauntering over to grab a snack. Sometimes I try to outlast them so the smaller ground-feeding birds can eat in peace, but just when I think they've gone to roost and put food out, they come right back. Yet every once in a while they'll disappear for a week or two, which I think is their normal routine in the wild. Feed for a few days or a week in one area then move on to another. I also don't see them much during the breeding season when the big flocks split up and there's food available in the woods. I put mixed seed out so I'm not sure what they prefer, except that they really like nyjer. I had a low-hanging nyjer sock for a while and the turkeys discovered they could peck a hole in the sock and the seed would spill out onto the ground where they could easily slurp it all up. That sock is now encased in a metal feeder. The best thing I've read that they eat is ticks! In fact, I haven't seen any ticks here for a few years, although the other birds could be eating them too. I don't know if everybody is willing to keep a flock of turkeys in their yard for tick control (sort of like keeping goats to eat the poison ivy) but it's an added benefit. I've been thinking about that Ilex "Honey Maid" for a while - do you know if the Ilex "Blue Stallion" will pollinate it? Claire

We inherited a Kohler Heartland cast iron sink when we bought the house and I love it. I decided to keep it when we changed out the countertops and I had the undercount sink in our other home and this one has A lot of room inside. When I need to clean it I use Mrs. Meyers llama purpose cleaner, baking soda scrub, or the vinegar scrub. It’s holds up very well. Most of the time I just use Dawn detergent. Good luck! If you are worried Joseph Joseph makes some fun tubs with a drain you can wash or dry your items in but you still have to clean those really well at times.

I partially but only partially agree with both zep and mike k. I don't think an 8 year old PC is worth spending any money on, not a cent's worth. Tomorrow it will be something else that will go kaput. And you don't know if the damage is restricted to the keyboard. Use it if you can with an external keyboard but first be sure to take backup copies of any files that are important to you. Yes, I did that once (with red wine) with a brand new net-top PC I'd bought to travel with. Fortunately, the manufacturer's US sales and service HQ is in my area and I felt comfortable having them do the fix. In my case, the damage required replacement of the keyboard AND the motherboard. The cost was just a bit less than half of the purchase cost brand new, so I figured it saved me some money to have the equivalent of a new unit. Again. It taught me to be more careful. Today, I know to never have liquid anywhere near a PC or keyboard. It's not worth it.