Wow. You are emotional and totally taking what I said in the wrong way. I said "Really?", not the "Really?!?" that you quoted and it wasn't intended in a snarky, beat you down, imply you're stupid kind of way. Your original post described the situation as "standing sewage". With that description, it is hardly unreasonable to question a decision by an insurance company to want to salvage the appliances. Insurance companies are out for their interests, not yours. I wouldn't describe less than 1/16th of an inch of sewage in the kitchen as the "standing sewage" that you first described. That being said, sewage in the kitchen is a big deal. You mentioned you were planning on putting this home on the market in about six months. As you'll have to disclose this spill when you sell, make sure you document everything really well. If I were buying a house that had a raw sewage spill in the kitchen that required replacement of the floor and cabinetry, I would question why appliances weren't replaced. Hearing that they weren't replaced because the insurance company said they didn't need to be wouldn't be good enough. I'd want details such as the depth of the sewage and what steps were taken to clean the appliances where they came into contact with the sewage. This post was edited by Poohpup on Fri, Jan 4, 13 at 13:56

dsnine, we've been so busy with the move then we finally made it month ago, I'm primarily working away hence not much at home and try and make the best of it when I am. I took these pics this morning; I'll wait for tile work to complete, then a few cabinets installed around bar and fireplace, before providing further updates. No it is not zero entry on one side, left side is a bench. The shower is 10'4" x 4'2". Two person? It is certainly large enough for a few but no way, be just one person with choice of 2 rain showers plus 2 large hand showers on rails and 4 jets, just about enough for fun showering. What you see in the view is the sea, its a harbor. We are a shade over a mile from the freeway and 16 miles to the airport.

Nancy, I knew y'all would be amused by my decision to make salsa. It isn't making it that I find so difficult---it is the struggle to get all the canning done in addition to all the summertime gardening chores, all in the endless summer heat---especially since my kitchen faces the west. Being able to make the salsa in autumn or winter is so much nicer. Also, it comes down to quantity. I made only about a third of what I used to make, so before I had time to get tired and burned out, I already was done. Anyway, it just didn't feel like Christmas without counters and tables covered with gift bags containing jars of salsa. So, now that I have cluttered up the house with gift bags (we buy them in lots of 100 online from U-line) and jars of salsa, it feels like Christmas. Like it or not, and on hot summer days I kinda hate it, this has become our tradition. I honestly did miss canning this summer, and I miss having lots of jars of pickles and canned tomatoes and such, but I put up enough tomatoes in the freezer to get us through the winter, and now we have enough salsa too, even after we give away a lot of it. Tim gave me a stripped down list containing how much salsa he needed for work and it was so short I told him he could add more names, so he added about 10 more. I'm glad he didn't go too wild adding more names to the list, or I'd be making more salsa. It helps that his current work group is about 1/4 the size of the work group he had back when he was a lieutenant. It sounds like you got into the spirit and are creating Christmas joy everywhere. I did decorate the house more this year than I have done in the last decade, purely because the girls love it so much. To me, there's something that is just so nice and cozy about spending chilly, cloudy, rainy winter days indoors in the kitchen, cooking or baking with Christmas lights twinkling on the tree, and elsewhere. Even when the dogs are grabbing ball-shaped Christmas ornaments and running off with them, and the cats are attacking everything on the tree, it still just.....feels like Christmas. Oh, and when I was making salsa all day, I didn't even have to run the furnace because the hot, steamy kitchen was heating up the whole house. I didn't even realize how hot and steamy the house was until I went outside around 5 pm to feed the deer and birds (and squirrels and coons and possums and whoever else shows up....) their dinner. It was windy and chilly, but not rainy that day, and I did wear a coat. When I walked back into the house, I was stunned at how hot and steamy it was just from the day-long salsa canning operation. The difference between the indoor air and outdoor air reminded me why summer canning is so miserable.... Rain makes our cats and dogs crazy. It is almost like they want to go out even more than usual because it is raining and they can't. They drive me crazy with whining and fussing and sitting at the door and wanting to go out into pouring rain. We had mostly light bands of the rain, not the heavier ones that hit y'all, so we only have about 1.6" in our rain gauge, which is plenty since we just had good rainfall last week as well. We have nothing but mud again. I guess winter mud season has begun. The wind has been pretty rough. I think our highest recorded wind gust was only about 41 mph or something, so we never got the drastically higher wind, but even wind speeds in the 30s and 40s create quite a brutal wind chill. Jen, Our dogs are the worst beggars when I'm baking. I guess the aromas drifting out of the kitchen fire up their appetites. I bet you will be busy with extra dogs during the holiday season. There's a pet boarding facility in our county and two of my friends used to work there. They always were insanely busy during holiday periods. It is so nice of you to make puppy gift bags. Jennifer, I'm glad y'all were able to cross getting Ethan a replacement vehicle off your list and now have one less thing to worry about. Traffic was brutal here too. We got paged out to a couple of wrecks yesterday, but the worst wrecks were well north of us, including a double-fatality crash in the evening where 3 VFDs had to extricate two people, both in critical condition, from the wrecked vehicles in addition to the one who didn't survive the impact. It was so horrible, and to think that two families lost loved ones this close to the holidays is just so sad. Hopefully the other patients recover well from their injuries. It is astonishing how many more car wrecks there are when it rains, and a crash like that can change families' lives in an instant. Chris just drove in from Dallas this morning, and told me a few minutes ago that he was battling strong winds in the rain all the way home, so the highways must have had one of those strong bands of wind and rain over them at the time he was driving. It doesn't seem that bad here at the house, but we are in a low-lying area and have acres and acres of trees serving as wind blocks, so I think we don't feel the wind as much here at home, at least sometimes. We did have thunderstorms, which seems odd for December, but our weather is nuts so that doesn't even surprise me that much. I'd say name the chicken whatever makes you happy. But.....sometimes pet names can sound ridiculous to other people. We once had a dog named Biscuit (Chris names him after Limp Bizket) and then got another dog named Honey. When they were out running on the property and I was out calling their names wanting them to come home, it sounded like I was calling my breakfast to come in, i. e. "Honey! Biscuit!" Both are long gone now, and since then I've been more careful about giving animals names that sound like food. Well, except for Pumpkin. He was orange so that name was just a natural for him. Your young roo will realize he is in charge in late winter or early spring when it is time for him to fertilize the girls' eggs so y'all can have chicks if you choose to let the hens set on eggs and hatch them. It is a hormone thing. I am sure it must be triggered by daylength or something once a rooster reaches a certain age. Trust me, he'll turn into Mr. Macho Man when he realizes he rules the roost and that the rest of the chickens are his harem. From that point forward, he'll have an attitude and he will be so proud to show off his boss-man attitude. He might develop a lot of swagger that borders on being obnoxious. We'd had a few roosters over the years who thought they'd spur every human who walked into the coop or the chicken run once the spring season had begun. Generally I could put a halt to the constant spurring by whacking a rooster once or twice (not hard, just enough to get its attention) with the broom. Once you establish that the rooster is not allowed to spur people, life gets much easier. It's all good, though, because once he reaches that point, he'll be a rock-solid protector of his girls, herding them together underneath shrubs or trees, for example, when hawks are flying over. He'll also fight fiercely to protect them. I agree that it can be hard to keep things looking nice when you have indoor pets. It is a constant struggle, but one that we willingly endure because we love both our home and our animals. I feel like I'm constant mopping up pet paw prints, wiping up assorted messes (we should own stock in Chlorox Wipes), and sweeping up/vacuuming up pet hair. It is never-ending. For as much hair as the cats and dogs shed constantly, I have no idea why they are not bald. I have nothing gardening-related, other than that first bloom on the first amaryllis has opened and it is solid white and so very pretty. I placed the amaryllis pot on a shelf in front of a black chalkboard today so the white flower stands out like crazy in front of the chalkboard. That plant has two blooming stalks, each of which normally produces 3 or 4 flowers over a period of weeks, and now a third stalk is arising from the bulb and will produce at least one flower bud. It is an oddly shaped bud, like someone sliced the top off (though it is intact) and gave it a flat-top haircut, so to speak. It will be interesting to see if that bud produces a normal flower. The next plant to bloom is one that has produced only one flower stalk so far. I had the four year old this morning while Chris went to Dallas and back again, and beginning tonight, we'll have both girls for the weekend while Chris and his girlfriend both work. We have lots of fun holiday activities planned and they are excited. It is hard for the little one to understand how much longer she has to wait for Christmas to get here. Every time she comes into the house, she asks if today is the day to open presents. By now, she should know that the answer is 'No'. Today she informed me that she needs a new baby doll because the two dolls she has here at the house "need" a little sister. I personally feel two baby dolls underfoot are plenty. Anyhow, our holiday shopping for her is all done already and I have no desire to fight the crowds to do more shopping. I'm grateful it rained. There were some pretty big fires (800+ acres) yesterday in parts of western OK that had the wind gusts in the upper 50s but no rain. Those of us who received rain could have had the same wildfire issues if we had remained dry. As annoying as the constant rain can be while it is falling (I feel like those rain bands have been circulating over us for days and days, and it really has been only two days), it is good to get the rain after the plants have frozen and are brown, crispy and ready to burn. After today/tonight, we get some better weather for a few days so that will be nice. I miss the sun when it is not shining and visible. Dawn

Megan, I don't really know of any bird feeders that can prevent the issue of dropped seed---it isn't a problem here because our free-ranging chickens scour the ground beneath the feeders searching for dropped seed. I don't suppose you can have free-range chickens there? Actually, there are some seed trays that you can attach beneath feeders that supposedly will catch dropped seed, but I've always wondered what stops birds from kicking seeds out of the dropped seed trays? One year, I put a piece of plywood on the ground all winter beneath the feeders so I could sweep up seed that fell to the ground and landed on the plywood. That works, but it gets tedious.....although I noticed the chickens policed the plywood for me most days. When you live in an area as rural as ours, for the most part, the existing wildlife takes care of the other wildlife. I'm mostly referring to rodents....everything eats them....snakes, owls, coyotes, bobcats, ring-tailed cats, etc., so they are not as big of a problem here as one might imagine. During the day, our own cats will hunt them, especially Pumpkin who is the youngest and considers himself to be the Great Hunter, but our pet cats are locked up indoors at night, because pet cats that stay outdoors at night usually don't last long around here. Jen, I'm laughing about the Indian princess comment. It is so true. dbarron, Your connection to John Ross is fascinating. I've read quite a bit about him. He lived a very interesting life to say the least. Jennifer, You can get bogged down in that genealogy stuff, and I just do not even want to go there and get started on that so I stay away from it. I know if I ever started it, I would be obsessed with it and would drive myself crazy. It is exciting to think about plans for the 2019 garden. Rebecca, I do have some Burpee exclusives that I like to grow , like Brandy Boy tomatoes and Biker Billy peppers, so I have to order from them occasionally, but I try to only order once every 3-5 years and to just be sure I order enough seeds to last a few years. Their seed prices have gotten so ridiculous and before I order anything from them, I make sure they are the sole source for it. (I have found that sometimes a seed company will claim to be the exclusive source for a specific variety and they are not, so I always search for another source to see if they really are the sole source.) I think Jambalaya could be a good one for you, but I haven't grown it myself. It is supposed to bear early and often, so at least on paper it sounds good. Cajun Jewel is fairly dwarf as well but bigger than Baby Bubba, and Jade and Lee are two other varieties suitable for containers. Shumway's has Pink French Quarter and Red French Quarter this year and they both are dwarf, and look good in the photos online, but I haven't grown either of them yet since they are new. Last year my Stewart's Zeebest plants produced so much okra I couldn't keep up with the harvesting, so I want to grow smaller, less productive plants this year. I know that sounds crazy, but not being able to stay caught up on harvesting and using all the okra drove me nuts. Jennifer, It was cold. It felt worse, I think, because it mostly stayed cloudy. We got a little sunshine late in the day. This coming week's weather doesn't look too great. Oh well, it is winter time and I guess we just have to deal with it. To clean chicken (or any sort of bird) poop off anything, you need Poop-Off. You generally can find it in farm supply stores, feed stores, and in most pet stores in the bird section. Or, you can order it online. I'm sure Amazon.com has it. Here is what it looks like: Poop-Off It really does work, but if the poop has been there a while and has dried out long-term, you may have to go through several rounds of spraying and scrubbing to get all of it removed. Wear gloves and a respirator type mask---not because of the Poop Off spray but because of the possible pathogens that can be found in bird poop. I hate buying veggies too. That's why I try to fill up 2 or 3 deep freezes every summer, but still, they are things we don't grow or that cannot be preserved long-term (like lettuce, for example), so I just try to buy organic and still must remind myself that purchased produce never will have the freshness or quality of home-grown. Going to Central Market for produce helps---their produce is superb in quality and quantity and going through the produce section for me is like a trip to Disney. I have a good time. However, being a gardener, I'm always tell Tim when we are there that it still kills me to buy produce, even when it is theirs. We still have fresh onions from the 2018 harvest, but some of them are starting to sprout now so I don't know how much longer they'll last. I do have a ton of them already chopped and frozen. It isn't the same, I agree, but I'd rather take my own frozen produce out of the freezer and cook it in winter than buy it at a store. I have enough frozen tomatoes to last us another year, and they smell garden fresh when I thaw them out and have them cooking away in a pot on the stove so I can make soup or chili or whatever. It is about to be chili type weather again, I believe, based on our forecast. It is time to go start next week's thread for all of us to post on. I cannot decide whether to make it December week 5, or January week 1. lol lol lol. Decisions, decisions, decisions! Dawn