Thank you so much for your responses everyone. Each and every word is so helpful to me, and i just soak them up. A few specific replies: Makete, would you believe there are coyotes in the woods around me? Although i never see them together, the deer and the coyotes both share the same paths, so i'm not entirely sure a scent mark would cause the deer enough dismay to keep them away. But i do remember when there was a bunch of coyote fur around one of my apple trees, and that tree remained entirely unmolested for some time. So you've definitely given me food for thought ... while it's easy to convince hubby to pee around the edibles, the coyotes might not be so compliant ... :) Heather, no i-deer! I LOVE that! And i also love your suggestion about the bird netting, because i happen to have extra from when i decided i had to protect the strawberries from pecking beaks. Although it may not be as permanent solution as some of the other excellent suggestions here, it's on hand so i might as well give it a try. Wayne, your observation is keen. There are woods on both sides of me, and the deer move through my field on a fairly regular basis. I know i should chase them even when they're not being naughty, but i just can't seem to bring myself to do that unless they're being destructive. I actually find them to be so beautiful, with their odd combination of frailty and force, the goofy ears and swatting tails. So i don't mind sharing - to a point! Why oh why won't they respect my rules? Caavonlady, i tried your mix! I used water, eggs, garlic, Tabasco, and hot pepper because it's what i had on hand and poured it around the beds. I also shaved Irish Spring soap around the beds, so hopefully, the mix of deterrents will provide a little more incentive for them to move elsewhere should they return. For those of you who have found netting and posts to be successful, thank you for the encouragement there. I think that's the route i'm eventually going to move towards, because these deterrent approaches are just too sporadic in their effectiveness. Meanwhile, i've cleaned up the damage and top dressed the newly empty squares with compost to help them recover from their trauma. :) And i'm actually pretty happy at the moment, because i have all kinds of space now to play with another wave of seeds. So ... all seems well with the world. Thank you again for your support and suggestions everyone. I really do deeply appreciate it.

Welded Wire Fence from Home Depot. I like the 5' tall stuff, 50 feet cost about $45 recently. With your layout, you could probably just make a circle for each bed. I just bend some of the edge wires back inside the circle to hook into the other side of the loop. The fencing will last many years. I have found the green coated stuff to come apart much faster than the plain. Even around a fair sized garden, deer won't usually jump it if there's no clear place to land. After several years deer did jump a couple of my fences last year so I tied bamboo poles on to the fence at intervals and ran wire around at 8'. I have tried heavy T posts with wire run between them and bamboo poles at close intervals, that worked a couple of years then deer started getting through it. For deer repellents, which I consider not really worth bothering with compared to something permanent, I have blended egg and cayenne pepper in water and dribbled it on plants with a dish detergent bottle, and also deer don't like blood meal sprinkled on things... but would you want it on your lettuce.

I'm enjoying you bothering the adoption folks as it's usually me doing it . You make great points and are really making people think. You are on the international board - you found the scam board and the 2 adopt board or do I have to tell you where those are too! Tell your husband, college is running $50,000 a year, so by the time the kids are in school, it could be $100-150,000 a year, so spend 1/2 that much on granite and put it in the college fund... well, depending on how much the adoption costs.... granite is cheap compared to what we are spending trying to adopt.

I spent my morning looking for two separate grids for my 32" sink that can't fit in the dishwasher. When I couldn't find two that I liked enough I started thinking about alternatives. I was just considering Jim's idea with cutting mine in half, but was wondering if there would be any stability issues. Thinking about adding a bar to the cut edges, etc. Ended up reading Sedeno77's comment about removing the top half of the dishwasher, which I had also never thought about for some reason. Literally just threw it into the dishwasher now, but it barely fit. I can imagine a 36"+ not fitting. Might end up cutting for ease of washing anyway in the near future. During my search I came across the Circuit Chef grid from Elkay. Two halves, but they are still wire attached. Probably foldable and in line with another one of Jim's suggestions above. Really wish more companies would start offering this as standard for larger sinks.