About the only thing that seems to grow well under the pine trees is red raspberries, when I planted some under the pine trees. At first, their foliage was puny and yellowing. After a couple of doses of copper sulfate in that same area in the last few years, the raspberies have done much better. Next to the pine is my compost pile, so its mostly bare ground there. If you don't see the Ball plastic covers at Ace, try a True Value store, or ask the manager to order them for you. Nice thing about the plastic ones is they are reusable for quite a long time, so any that are given with gift jars, be sure to tell them to save the glass and plastic.

The canning process uses glass jars, lids and rings. The lids have a rubber ring and plastic coated center on one side. The rings are all metal. When you can you process the jars in either a hot water bath (if you're using enough vinegar for an acid mixture) or a pressure cooker (if not), you have the jars covered with a lid and a ring. After the jars cool, you can remove the ring and reuse on another jar. NEVER reuse the lids after opening the sealed jar EXCEPT to cover the product while it's in the refrigerator. Reusing lids can allow bacteria to enter the imperfect seal. After taking the time to grow veggies, it's crazy to take a chance of contamination because you want to save a few cents. Now the rings also rust but if you take them off and wash and dry them, they will last many years. Ball also makes a plastic cover for the jars that can be used in the refrigerator. I would get some of them and use them after you open the canned veggies. Get the Ball book on canning and follow their directions. They know what they're doing and do testing. Good luck...it sounds really tough but then cooking sounded that way at first too. Once you've done it a few times, you can do just a pint or two in no time.

Well, mine has nothing to do with natural lighting. It's a 100 year old farmhouse, and the bathroom in question is on the first floor, so to vent it all the way through to the roof wouldn't really work, unless I had a vent fan something akin to that which you might find in a fast food restaurant's kitchen! LOL Also, because of the way the bathroom is arranged, as well as the other areas around it, there's no way I could really set the bathroom up any other way and move the tub/shower combo to another part of the room, so I'm pretty much stuck with what I have, and it's more a matter of making sure when I redo that area that I make it water tight to the frame of the window. Here are a few pics of the bathroom as it is right now: Now, as you can see, that's a brand new recessed vinyl clad window in there-- What I'll do is Kerdi the tub enclosure and then seal the Kerdi to the frame of the window, and that should seal it up tight.

Hi Winker! I just want to say that I know how you feel when you don't get a response to a post. So many times I feel I leave a post that closes the entire thread! Hope I don't your thread, tho! Another thing: It's hard to picture where the window and iron gate will go because I've never been to your home and can't picture the perfect place. Sometimes posting a photo of either a problem area or the newly acquired item goes a long way. Being on the Garden Web forum I wonder if you are a gardener? I hung out on that side so long it was only recently that I even browsed the home forums. Many gardeners love the iron gates to support their climbing plants like morning glories, sweet peas, cucumbers or pumpkins....anything viney. I'd love to see your window. I do have a few panels of leaded glass that we removed from my in-laws built in buffet when they were remodeling. They sat in my garage for about 10 years before I saw someone else mount them with chain and hang them on the wall. I'm attaching a link to a photo album to show you. HTH. Here is a link that might be useful: window idea