I finally had time to sit down and properly enjoy your slide show. Your pictures MAKE me want to take a stroll through it and discover all the little nooks and crannies and things you have tucked away. That is what I envision a garden ... little things tucked here and there, things around the corner that make you want to continue ... lush plants, tiny plants, architectural interest, little plant groupings and pottings ... man! ... you guys are going to turn this quilter into a gardener! I vote we all meet up at hostahillbilly's house next month for coffee and a stroll. But alas, do I read the "header" information correctly? You're in zone 3 or 4? Isn't that like 2 latitudinal lines below the arctic circle? Just kidding. Seriously though, how long is your growing season? Did I see a rubrum lily in your slide show? The picture of the sunflowers reminded me that I have an "art" sunflower quilt on my "to do before I die" list. I NEED to make a HOSTA quilt! Have to think now ... how to best give the feel of the various kinds of hostas and their flowers. Man I just don't have enough years left! Drat! It's 8:19, how did that happen? Robin in NC

Steve, Breeze is a crushed rock fines + clay mix for driveway/walkway base. You can find a descriptiong here: Pioneer Landscaping Materials Ah, the over zealous government. Well, that side of my fence is not my property. It belongs to the town (formerly 230 residents now about to boom to 1500 homes and a super WalMart). At one time long ago when the town was still a small country town, during which time most of the current residents that weren't born here moved here to avoid larger obtrusive governments, the volunteer government enacted an ordinance that requires residents who live adjacent to town right of ways to keep the right of way clear. We have no sidewalks, just gravel & weeds. So, we all mow and keep up the area surrounding our properties at our own expense so that our neighbors can walk along the trails beside the road. All well and good for a small town until.... In 2005 the new town council decided to enact HOA type rules on all the landowners in town w/o anyone knowing they did it. Then, last year, they hired a little college girl to go around and report every yard that had "weeds" in it, rv's or trailers parked in their driveway, construction materials stacked behind the house, etc. I had allowed that tiny 1 ft strip in front of my fence to grow up while waiting for the proper time of year to pull out the iris I had planted there that were over run by the grass. The rest of the 15 ft right of way to the road was mowed. I was written up for allowing the grass to grow along my fence. Now also keep in mind that my neighbors, who have a natural "prairie garden" filled with the same varieties of grass in flower at the same time as that along my fence, were not written up. So, since the fantastic law writers could not distinguish in the law between ornamental and native grasses, such that "any grass that is allowed to flower or is greater than 6 inches tall" is considered a "weed" under the law (however subjectively it was applied), I planted the whole strip in ornamental grasses- the tallest I could find. The town now has multi-million dollar budget and still can't be bothered with taking care of their own right of way at their own expense or even put in sidewalks but they have the gall to monitor our private property for weeds! This is my protest. People on the exchange boards here even sent me grasses to contribute :) I've also allowed an 8' high by 6' wide thistle to grow and bloom inside my fence line. It is some strange variety probably from some bird seed. At first I thought it was going to be a white prickly poppy which I had scattered some seeds there. But since it isn't a poppy, and I'm Scottish by heritage so that is a national flower for my family, I thought I'll just let it feed the birds and annoy the town government. If they have the nerve to write me up about it I'll complain that they are descriminating against my heritage and see how far I can take that. Someone has got to start standing up for landowner's rights or we won't have any rights to our property left. So there you are, the whole darn story.

Movie Maker has a 60 transitions, 28 video effects. You can add titles before, during, or after a video clip or still picture. It is VERY easy to add music and narration. You can do both if you want. It is super easy to edit the lenght of the song to your pictures by dragging the line on the "timeline". My best advice is to add the pictures, then titles. Then add the transitions/effects. Add your music and/or narration last. If you start moving things around - you can mess up your transitions, etc. Also - it is a good idea to decide how long you want each still image to be shown before you start. It is easier to have it like you want it from the beginning. Go to TOOLS->OPTIONS and set the length of time to show a picture, and the time for a transition. I set mine at 10 seconds per picture and 1.75 for a transition. You can always lenghten the time you want to show a certain picture by dragging it longer in the timeline. I don't know of any other programs that are this easy to change the lenght of images - usually it is only one time for all. Have fun - these are a blast to make. But give yourself some time to work on it :)

For a "regular" kitchen, without a pro style range or range top, locating it in an island or peninsula with a downdraft can be doable if you don't mind a bit substandard ventilation. THe laws of physics dictate the behavior of heated gasses, and you're not going to contravene the laws of physics without a lot of power, which translates to a high CFM vent fan. High CFM vent fans need big ducts, and are not that quiet, even with remote blowers. It's just the nature of moving air to make noise. If you go with a lower CFM vent fan like JennAir did forever, then you don't even manage to remove the steam from a low wattage electric element very well. If you have a gas cooktop, think of how a campfire behaves on a windy night. THe moving air pulls the flame and creates a "hotspot" directly opposite the direction of the wind, and on the side next to the wind you can stand right next to it and not feel very much heat at all. You can have similar behavior with a gas cooktop and a downdraft vent. The laws of physics, besides stating that heated gasses rise, also says they expand as they rise. That's why you usually see overhead island ventilation hoods be larger and deeper than the cooktop they're venting below. That can work---IF the ventilation is overhead. You really can't increase the capture area when using a downdraft vent. Yes, you can use a 36" pop up vent for a 30" cooktop, and the extra 6" will help, but it still won't really be able to capture much from the front burners. And, if you'll look at most cooktops, the high BTU burners are usually on the front and are very rarely changeable in location. I am in the camp that tends to agree that most kitchens have inadequate and improper ventilation, especially newer homes that are very "tight". That's MY bias. ;) But, I understand that many people don't consider ventilation that important. For multiple reason, many health and safety related, I don't agree with that viewpoint, and I will try to inform and persuade. But, in the end, YOU live in YOUR kitchen, and with YOUR decisions. I just would like people considering island or peninsula locations for cooking to fully understand the drawbacks associated with that choice. Including the fact that it is a LOT more expensive a choice than is a wall cooktop location.