Because many years ago I lifted a bag of dirt, equal to my own weight, I managed to really screw up my back. For years I have been careful and in pain, different levels of pain but in pain never-the-less! About 2 weeks ago at a doctor's office I heard this woman tell another how she got rid of excruciating pain in her lower back. I went home and, don't you know, a few days later I woke up with a back pain and, I remembered! I sat (carefully) at the edge of the bed, at the corner or the mattress where is stiffer, and with my back straight I rocked from side to side (like a clock pendulum) for about 5 minutes AND THE PAIN WAS GONE! I could not believe it and I hate the fact that I don't know her so I can ask more questions but she did say something about Yoga and stretching! Don't quote me on the Yoga part because I am not 100% sure of it but try the rocking part and go talk to a Yoga instructor see what they know. I for one, don't have the money for Yoga, but every time my back hurts that is what I do: 5 min rocking at the edge of my bed!

I have more sympathy for your situation than I can express. My greatest fear is loosing shade. I fought with Com Ed for 6 years about a mulberry jungle I have inherited on my rear easement line. It has a single ComEd line for street lighting running through them and I didn't want to cut them down and break their power line. They show no interest. Their attitude is when it breaks they will fix it. If I break it I will be billed for the repair. I've had my fill fighting with thousands of mulberry seedlings, poison ivy, wild grape, and tons of mosquitoes, So finally I plant to remove all the underbrush and build a new bed there. Knowing how that goes, my greatest fear is that after all the work a storm will cause the line to break. Then ComEd will come in and cut down all the trees on the easement including the black walnut with an already established hosta garden under it. In doing it they will be merciless and totally destroy everything I have done and the habitat to redevelop my hosta gardens. Les

It was good to get a few things done - and still this wk yet. It'll be good to have a/c in the car, that'll help when it goes over 107 again. and the hair! yikes, it'd gotten soooo long and was always in my way. does the garden forum have much on desert planting? I'll have to take a look there. ML - I'll be doing xeriscape also. I took a class in it with my sister about 12 yrs ago. There are a good number of desert trees, bushes, plants to use. I need to start out with fast growing ones. probably desert willow (love those), Palo Brea, Eucalyptus and Jacaranda. the Jacaranda has beautiful purplish blooms - a former co-worker had one in his front yard and I loved it. It grew a LOT in just 2 yrs. I want another mesquite too but will probably plant that in the spring. I have to check the root growth on a few because of the conduit underground. I'll put out a few Oleanders - not my favorite, but colorful and drought hardy. a few more Bird of Paradise plants and bougainvillea. I want colorful! Several will be clumped but unfortunately a few will be loners (or I'll plant some flowering bush by them). I told dbf I wanted at least a spigot on each end of the mfg home. He did mention putting some irrigation pipes around too. If he'd do that in a few directions it'd help. 2 spigots would help a lot - I only have 1 out back now. probably only 1 tree will be difficult to water. most will be close to others I water. Want to put a tree on the westside of boy's pen also. I want an ironwood out front so I can see it from the kitchen and porch - that's slower growing tho. Organpipe cactus and prickly pear too! the prickly pear I can get cuttings from my sister. Somewhere around here is my desert plant book - I need to look for it! we do get water sometimes - usually during monsoon season. That's been rather iffy the past few yrs. We should have had rain by now. humidity is up, a lot of overcast days etc. got about 20 drops the other night. my steps were wet but you couldn't tell by the ground that even a drop hit it! sometimes we get lots of rain in the fall also. the first yr when I was putting in the conduit for electrical it rained so long and hard I came out in the rain to dig the trench. my then roommate/co-worker felt sorry for me so he came to help. it'd rained so much we gave up and headed back to town. I had to follow his van in my corolla to see how high water was to his tires - just to know if it was a dip I could make it thru. I thought we'd drown. the dogs' holes would become lakes out here! but I think total we get just 7-8 inches a yr. I do have 2 plastic barrels here - tho they will probably disintegrate when I touch them... will get something at the feed store to collect water. will have to see how it runs off of the 'new' roof. when I asked dbf why it didn't have gutters he looked at me like I was nuts. even with our little rain I think it should have something to direct the rain off of the roof. Someone just came out to get the dozer. both the dozer and water truck need worked on. they took the water truck a few nights ago. I'd never know they were back there if boy didn't raise a ruckus. He thinks those are our machines now. I did notice while out there that my head started hurting once in the humidity. ick.

kaismom, I almost don't want to answer that question because I feel like we sound like such idiots, but I will. First of all, I am a little shy. We were new to the area and I saw his van working on a neighbors house. All the homes in our neighborhood are down sweeping driveways. I plucked up the courage to go down one when we bought the house and knock on the door to ask about the house and neighborhood, but failed to do it on this occassion. I figured if they were working on a million dollar home they must be decent. I googled and found no negative reviews... in fact no reviews at all. Of course his next customers won't find any reviews either. I checked his license and insurance, but failed to realize just how easy it is in PA to get the license. Basically I could get one tomorrow if I wanted to. Then once we hired him our mistakes continued. I KNEW that he hadn't vented the hood, but whenever I asked about it I was brushed off and told it would happen later. I KNEW that was wrong, but I didn't want to be an ahole and question every single thing he did (I had kicked up a fuss about greenboard in the shower). I did ask many times, but I should have stopped him and made him do it the right way. Of course I tried to do that with various other things with no success at all, so I would have got nowhere, but I should have tried harder. Also one thing I have learned, is that anyone who repeatedly says "I'm a good guy" generally isn't. Genuinely good guys don't need to go on and on about it. Next GC who tells me to trust them because they're a 'good guy' I'm running in the opposite direction as fast as I can! Also never believe someone who repeatedly tells you that all his other clients let him A: use their credit cards for materials, B: make all the design decisions and C: never question any of the process. So yeah, we're trusting idiots. The end. : (