Hey there, Brenda. Lots of research does make things easier and total immersion in the topic, just like learning a new language, helps you catch on to the things that are important. This forum has a lot of info being talked about by lots of people, some of whom get pretty technical. There are plenty of others who keep it simple. Now I am going to be mean. Sometimes the limitations we cannot change make us give up some things we really want. A list of each can help see the realities. After I looked at the pond you like and read what you wanted, I realized you can't have all of it. I don't want to discourage you. You can still have a lovely and totally satisfying pond/water garden. The pond you like is a rigid preform. It is probably 72"x48" and 18" deep. It holds 125 gallons and will take 3-4 3" fish. Those dimensions are for Maccourt ponds which seems to be the most common preform. There are some new ones that are foldable made of virgin vinyl but that doesn't seem to be what you are looking at. There are also some pond kits that include plastic liners and EPDM rubber liners are very versatile. The volume of water in any of these ponds would prevent you from having koi. Koi grow to very large proportions and soon your fishies wouldn't have room to turn around, literally. I have a 1000 gallon pond and some of my 6" koi are now 12-14" after only one season. One that is 3 years old is now even larger than that. In addition I have a population of comets, sarrasa and other related fishies and they started breeding last year. Many of them started as 1" feeder fish. All of them need room to move! Fast! I'm getting nervous. There are many colorful fish other than koi that you would enjoy but you would need to control the numbers and figure out a way to keep them over winter. I put my gourami and guppies in the pond for the summer and put them back in aquariums in the winter. The cold would kill them. In your zone, it is possible for an 18 inch pond to freeze solid but more likely it would only have ice to 4-6 inches. I would wait through a full winter to see just how deep the ice goes before investing in fish other than goldfish. Gases that accumulate in the water could kill larger fish with only that much free water. An EPDM or plastic lined pond could give you the depth you need but the volume still would limit the number and type of fish. Don't despair! No one ever got it right the first time they were designing a home and you are designing a home for fish... and plants. Now that I have managed to scotch some of your dreams, (sorry, sorry, sorry) the necessary hardware can be put up for discussion. Sandy Here is a link that might be useful: preform ponds

So they finally refunded my money after seven weeks, three emails, and four phone calls. For those who want to defend Rogue Valley Roses - (1) The reason I describe RVR as "under new management" is, the not very polite man I spoke with told me, during the first of my four phone calls, that "the owner had fired everyone and put in new management" and, according to him, that was why they hadn't responded to any of the emails I had sent them. (2) If you are personally acquainted with the owner and have reason to sympathize with the owner's problems, that's fine. If you have had a recent good experience with RVR, that's fine. But, in the real world, those of us who deal with internet businesses need accurate information on whether they can expect a good experience and this means that individuals should post accurate accounts of their own experiences. My experience with RVR between February and May 2017 (typo corrected, this originally said 2015 causing confusion infra) has been absolutely horrible and I strongly recommend against dealing with them until they get their management issues straightened out.

I am doing square foot gardening with a twist...I use to live in the country with lots of room and did the Ruth Stout gardening technique....but with less room, I am doing the square foot garden this year...I have harvested so much form just one bed it is amazing,,,we have four 4x12 boxes and a long 12" wide bed in the back where I have these wonderful Sunflowers...I plant a few marigolds here and there too..I don't know if they help with the bugs but they are pretty. I tired to plant just the number of plants two people will need, so I have a variety but not too much of anything. I love this method,,,no weeding,,,and mulching everything the way I do,,,,I really am not watering that much although it is in the 90s here now. Right now, I have squash,,several types of beans, broccoli and peas are just going,,cabbage,,onions, peppers, hot and sweet, basil, tomatoes, carrots, mustard, eggplants, bausch, and I just noticed I have little watermelon and cantaloupe...I also have strawberries, only six plants, and cukes,,pole beans (Kentucky Wonder and Contender) and patio, cherry tomatoes,,I tried to grow lettuce but only got one picking,,,I think it got too hot... Here is a link to my blog...

If it is 61 minutes interval, that eliminates nearby scanning radar (some small boats have that). Audio engineers can tell you that sometimes you can elinmate some interferences by reversing the electric power plug. Obviously you cannot do that with a grounded plug. If someone has a USB sound adapter ($4.00 ebay). You can plug it in your computer and find out if the problenm is the computer's sound card or there is another problem with the computer. There is agood possiblity that the built-in sound card is the problem, a leaky capacitor is a possiblity. CD DVD machines also plug into the sound inputs on the sound card. You can try unplugging the power connection to the CD and DVD and see if that would stop the beep sound. I don't think so, but worth a try. dcarch