Thank you! That picture is very, very helpful! Mine looks far from ready then, although some of the pods on the one I picked were starting to darken on the outside...I'll keep checking them daily or every other day. I'm really hoping I can get them at the right time. Not so sure the knee-hi thing works here...last year our strong winds blew them all off and away. Nice if a neighbor needs a spare pair of knee-hi's Linda

My garden and house caters first and mostly for my dog - he's the most pampered pet you can imagine :-) This includes his own doghouse in the garage (that he hardly ever uses, but is used by the roaming cats in the neighborhood, much to Timmy's distress), an enclosed front porch with doggie door, basket, rug and private sofa, free roaming of the garden, two more beds inside the house, etc. You get the picture - he's the king of it all :-) As for wildlife, since we live on the foothills of a small mountain range and part of a natural park, we do get quite a lot of critters. We have a birdbath that is used not only by the birds but also by the bees and wasps, of which there are gazillions (we are in a honey producing area). Birds in the garden include sparrows, robins in Fall and Winter, loads of blackbirds, gold finches and a multitude of others I can't name. Last Saturday I saw my first swallow of the year. Above us on the hill we can frequently spot hawks, of which there are some colonies in the park. At night owls are a frequent visitor and we can hear their calls many times. Cuckoos are also a familiar sound as soon as Spring is here. I have a lot of evergreens in the garden and this provides excellent nesting sites for the birds. Preferred are the bay trees, laurustinus and the conifers. I'm constantly finding nests whenever I prune anything. I had a resident bat for about a year, sleeping in a closed garden umbrella we had on the patio. Unfortunately I had to remove the umbrella because the wasps decided it was a good place to nest, so it had to go. I was already stung twice, didn't want to be stung whenever I opened the umbrella! Still, bats visit frequently and it's common to see one or two flying around the garden at dusk. Some years we have glow worms in the Spring, which I absolutely love. It's magical to see them hovering around the garden at night. Other assorted critters include geckos, small lizzards, snakes, mice (yuk!), crickets, locusts and the occasional hedgehog. In terms of specifically catering for critters, I keep the birdbath going all year (we don't have hard freezes) and try to plant things I know will be used by the wildlife. This includes berry shrubs like pyracantha which are a major hit with birds in the cold Winter months. I also have a weeping mulberry tree and let its production go to the birds, who have a feast with the fruits. The compost pile is also a good feeding ground and there's a little bird that spends hours there hunting for the small fruit flies that proliferate inside the pile. Butterflies are catered for with things like lantana, mock orange and buddleia. I need to add more larval food to cater for butterflies, but haven't come quite up to it yet. I don't use any sort of chemicals in the garden, don't even spray the roses, and this of course translates into a welcome sign for critters, even if it means that slugs and snails are huge, sigh... I don't use a slingshot to get rid of them, like Edna does ;-), but I do throw them onto a neighbooring field that is kept wild. All in all, I consider a privilege to have wildlife in the garden and have been slowly educating myself to encourage it as much as possible. Eduarda

I won't even admit how many exercise DVDs I've tried. My very favorite is Karen Voigt and, in fact, I just bought her Ballet BodySculpt DVD http://www.amazon.com/Ballet-BodySculpt-Karen-Voight/dp/B00466G5XA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342028935&sr=8-1&keywords=ballet+sculpt+voight and I love it. I was worried it would be too easy, but it was a good workout. I have most of her other DVDs also. I also like The Method All in One http://www.amazon.com/Method-Pilates-All-One-Workout/dp/B000067J06/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1342029138&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Method+All+in+One, altho some people think it's too complicated. Sometimes, tho, I think that's better than multiple boring reps. I also recently bought Supreme 90 day http://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Day-System-Cal-Pozo/dp/B004S2YN5O/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1342029208&sr=1-1&keywords=supreme+90+day+10-dvd+set+workout for the Tabata workout, but you get 10 DVDs for $20. I also love Yoga DVDs. The reviews on Amazon really help me decide if a DVD is something I'd like.

Hmmmm, bmorepanic, I found this interesting from your link: "Regrettably, the aforesaid (and much-respected) Cook's Illustrated Guide to Essential Cookware (which we cited earlier on this page), has now been hidden behind a fee-pay requirement of the Cook's site (well, one can hardly blame them--though you could sign up for the "14-day free trial"). In it, they chose cookware makers item by item, rather than by "set" or "line". Excepting a few items that All-Clad does not make (such as cast iron and enamelware), their picks were uniformly from All-Clad. (We should also note that for a stockpot, they recommend the cheapest thing not actually trash that you can find, inasmuch as all they recommend using it for is boiling large amounts of water, as for pasta; for true stock-making, they much prefer a Dutch oven.)" Ok, I went from thinking I liked the Dutch oven shape the best for soups and spaghetti sauces because I didn't really know what I SHOULD be using or wasn't doing it right, to thinking I am not a complete idiot after all. My own personal experience and just what works for me counts, too, and I need to keep that in mind. I am going to do some more reading over there, I find it interesting. It seems like All-Clad or similar brand like Cuisinox will be best in a dutch oven type shape, with or without a copper bottom. I still haven't clarified that one. I think the copper will win out but may get eliminated due to price and less available bargains in that line. Then I am going to have to examine some of these more interesting shapes and maybe add one or more onto my wish list. :) I also have a yearning to try at least one piece of Le Creuset just to see if I like it.