We do plan to spend more time in the greenhouse. Only trouble now is that by the time we get home from work, it's dark out :( As far as costs it's easy to see our heating costs are drastically down, but not easy to calculate exactly how much. The GH shares a propane source with our garage & studio which we are heating about the same as last year. Just a rough estimate but we have two 100-gallon tanks that cost about $500 to fill. By this time last year they had been filled once and were about 50% full. As of Sunday, both tanks are 60% full and have not been filled yet this heating season. I don;t know this years propane rates but I'm hearing they are pretty close to last year. I'd say that's a significan savings. Keep in mind we did see an increase in our electric bill by about $20 per month for late Oct & Nov when we were only heating the GH with electric. Even so I'd say the savings in just a few weeks in propane have already paid for the solar pool cover. As an added bonus, we're seeing much more reliable GH temps so we can start to us ethe GH more. In fact we're planning to start some salad greens from seed this weekend. Our tomatoes are starting to fade and our cukes are fading also. Any other suggestions for winter vegetables? We don;t plan to add supplemental light so I know we;re limited by that but I'm betting there are crops that will grow even now.

Morning all! Fran, I put in a bit more postage than what it was for me to mail my package to you. I don't think that I'll get back what I sent because we have a lot of veggie growers here, BUT if by chanace you dont have enough postage I'd be happy to send more if you need it to get my package back to me. I'm so glad that I bought the veggie seeds, I could almost hear how excited people were when I offered them up for grabs! Thank you to anyone who sent flowers in for me, I assure you that every single seed will find a good home. Lisa

i would love some of these if i could!! that would be so cool!! armenian cucumber tortarelo cucumber golden gopher musk melon? royal golden melon lee okra zolotistala melon casaba melon 1 bosc pear 2 mustard gai choy 1 garden peach tomoto 4 okra mix 1 daikon radish 1 canary bell peppers 2 lemon balm 1 sweet chocolate peppers 1 bok choy 2 green zebra tomato 3 peppers yolo wonder 1 peter peppers this year, i think will be a great year for that square foot gardening!! especially with all that is needing to be put in the ground!!! **big smile** i have lots of 6 blazing star liatres 21 single white angel trumpet-smells awesome 14 lavender datura- don't smell but is pretty!! 4 sesamie seeds so if anyone want's these, let me know. :') these are filled pretty good!@! ~Medo

Speakers outside good, amplifier outside bad.... Amp has to be out of the elements, either under cover or inside. I run an Apple Mac Mini computer through a Denon A/V receiver, which is connected to speakers throughout our home as well as outside in the pool area. I can play my entire iTunes library or access my Sirius Internet Radio off the Mac Mini. All the speakers have their own volume controls located throughout the house and outside at the bar, cabana and hot tub. We power 5 pairs of speakers around the pool. 2 rock speakers, 2 inground, 2 "PipeAudio" speakers in the cabana, and 2 Bose 301's at the bar and 2 marine waterproof speakers located in the planter pedestals that surround the raised pool spa. I can control the Mac Mini from another laptop that sits in the cabana and is connected to my wireless computer network. I use logmein.com to do that. It's just like gotomypc.com, except it's free. This allows us to choose channels on the Sirius Internet Radio, and control what plays out of iTunes, never leaving the cabana. W Sounds complicated, but it's really not. I did all the hookups myself. Here's some photos.