Wow, Blackie-you're a natural with that camera! I love grasses-what's that with the yellow flowers at the front of the hedge bed? That bed looks like a natural to fill in with some spring bulbs, especially that would play off the yellow of the forsythia. Your monarda looks great. I've tried a few, but they just don't seem happy in my garden. Nice maple! How much sun does that area get? I'm a fan of Heuchera 'Amber Waves'. Not everyone likes it, but the colors would be great with the maple leaves. The backside of the heuchera leaves is a lighter shade than that of the leaves on your tree. That shot of Smokey ought to be on a cat calendar! Brenda PS-the first set of pictures opened just fine for me...and I've got slow dial-up and usually have trouble with pics loading-go figure!

I have a small 250 gal. pre form pond & I too have had success with using peroxide to keep the algae growth down. I use half a quart bottle of that WalMart 3% &dump it near where the water comes out of the Skippy filter (& make sure there are no fish directly where I dump!). I don't want the peroxide to kill the mint I have growing in the Skippy. I read to use this somewhere on this forum & it sure seems to work! I empty the filter in winter & toss the mint but I always have more in the herb bed to use the next year! I put the peroxide after it comes out of the filter as I didn't want to harm the filter/mint system in the Skippy. Have had clear water now for the past two years & only the short green stuff that clings to the pond sides that the fish love to nibble at. Thank you Jill for verifying the use of peroxide!!

I have to agree with Jessy on this, only because of past experience. It's been gnawing at me as I got to know about you and your mother. A personal story - my parents had a cottage in Maine, we went up every summer, I loved it. (My father and grandfather built about a dozen cottages on the lake and sold all but two of them.) I still go to Maine every summer. After I married, my XH and I would go up to the lake (different cottage), and when we had kids, we took them up. My parents were there and we would all do things together, we had wonderful vacations. My kids loved it, especiallly having their grandparents at the lake for swimming and fishing, etc. When my parents got too old to make the drive by themselves, I would drive them up, get them settled, and later come up with my family. At the end of the summer I would bring them home. My sister never went back, she did not like Maine or the cottage - too rustic. Apparently, this bugged my dad. I would talk about how much I loved it up there, and looked forward to having the cottage some day for my family to use. He never really commented about it. Well, when my sister took over the financial management for my parents, she reviewed the will, and found out that my father was leaving the cottage to her, and not to me. He told her that if he gave her the cottage, maybe he could somehow change her mind about coming to Maine. She had a lot of long talks with him, and he finally undestood that his reasoning was wrong, and changed the disposition of the cottage to me. Well.......... then he started worrying about lawsuits (god, I never want to get old!?), and decided to sell the cottage to my cousin, who owns the adjoining property and cottage. He sold the cottage just when I was getting a divorce - I have to say, losing the cottage hurt me more than ending the marriage, I can't afford to replace it, but husbands are a dime a dozen! LOL Your mom my have the same reasoning - my poor son, if I give him money, he'll love me, I can win him back. I've seen this happen to friends - it destroys families.

I had similar issues but then figured it out. The trick is to slide the can housing over as far as you can to one side - then hold the can pushing it against the truss or rafter you are nailing into with one hand. With the other hand nail the two rails on that side in and that should hold the housing in place. Then swing around and you can do each of the other two rails one at a time. When nailing - use one sharp blow rather than small taps. When I tried to take smaller taps I had a greater tendency to bend the nails. The screw thing works too but it is more time consuming. Another trick I figured out was how to spot cans. I took a 4" piece of PVC drain pipe and cut it about 1.5 inches lower than the height of the ceiling. Then took a toilet flange and turned it upside down and stuck the pipe into the flange - so I could stand the pipe vertically and it would stay there. I used round cardboard cutouts and layed them on the floor where I wanted the center of the light beams to shine - then used my pipe jig to make sure the housing would fit in between the joists with enough clearance. Made adjustments by moving the cardboard pieces around on the floor. Once I had the right spots - I spray painted around the cardboard cutouts to mark the locations. I did this for 87 cans without ever getting on a ladder. Once all the cans were spotted, i went back and placed my pipe jig on the painted spots. Got up on a ladder and hammered in the can - using the top of the pipe as a reference. One shot install - never had to play around on the ladder with adjustments of the housing due to joists in the way. This really works well if you have a cluster of lights and you want perfect spacing between them. Plus you get precise markings on the floor so when the drywallers cover up your cans - you know eactly where they are. I had about a dozen cans covered that were easily located.