Ginger, thanks for your interesting questions. Sort of farm--During my growing-up years when my father ran it (I was born in '51), it was basically a hog and grain farm. He grew lots of corn for the pigs and to sell, plus some oats, but started growing soybeans in the sixties as a cash crop as well. We had a few chickens early on, but found it more convenient to buy at the store. (I think even store-bought chicken used to taste better back then.) My mother was a city girl from 200 miles away and hadn't inherited the gardening genes of her father. She did like to grow yellow wax beans and freeze them, which we all enjoyed. During my father's growing up it was much more diversified. At present, having retained about a third of the acreage, 122 acres, our renter/manager/neighbor specializes in grain--soybeans and corn. Organic veggies?--I've gradually gone to organic and permacultural gardening for fun. I really love fruit, and since my husband and I can be on the farm only three months of the year (we teach up in Alaska and fly our Cessna down every year), time is at a premium. Therefore, perennial edibles are my priority, with maybe a few yellow wax beans. So I've planted fruit trees and small-fruit shrubs, asparagus, rhubarb, hardneck garlic (not really perennial, of course), garlic chives, and (my namesake) Egyptian onions, plus many other kinds of herbs. All of these are just jumbled together for a permacultureal type of system, though I do plant them in such a way as to enhance the ability to mow around them. In the east garden, for instance, I planted over the years three rows of fruit trees, plus another row of currants, rhubarb, and grapes. In between the trees, I planted within the rows all kinds of herbaceaous plants, for organic companion reasons, but also so that I could just run the mower all the way up and down without having to go around each individual tree. (I initially scoffed at the by-word "easy to mow around," but soon incorporated it into my criteria of good gardening once I actually started mowing.) Rainbow garden-- Blue: blue flax Darker blue: Veronica austriaca 'Crater Lake Blue' Annual blue salvia that either survive or reseed every year, c.r.n. (can't remember name)--Victoria? Purple: annual reseeding larkpur, Consolida ambigua Veronica spicata 'Blue Peter' Veronica 'Sunny Border Blue' Salvia X Superba 'Blue Hill' Salvia 'Superba Blue Queen' Red: Ground cover rose 'Red Ribbons' (Jackson & Perkins) Dianthus, 'Flashing Light' and 'Brilliant' Orange: Asclepias tuberosa Gaillardia, 'Goblin' and a bigger c.r.n. Gold: Coreopsis, tall c.r.n. Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm' Yellow: Achillea filipendula Coreopsis 'Zagreb' Green: Juniper horizontalis 'Plumosa Youngstown' Euphorbia cyparissias (am phasing out as juniper grows) Historical restoration--As I view pictures that go all the way back to 1900, I see many changes, including the location of fences, the coming and going of huge trees, and in the ground itself as I describe before with the double terracing. And yet there are still a couple of barns and a corn crib that endure. Times change and new personalities come in. My blood link to the past allows me to both have some knowledge of the past, as well as the capability of gathing more knowledge from pictures, written material, and friends and neighbors whose relationships with the family go back for generations. I cherish this, and often repeat plantings to mimic the past. Yet I can't put it all back and I don't feel the need. As long as I have the family blood, the farm is still evolving as the family farm. I try to do it justice, and though I enjoy it tremendously myself, I'm really only borrowing it from the next generation, whether it goes to my nieces (we're child-free) or whether it changes over to a whole new set of genes. Please check out the gallery again as I will soon have some more pictures in it. Egyptianonion

Merriebeth, I hear you--I can pick out the patterns instantly. The repeats in Noble Oak were so distinct, long, and dark grey against the light wood color it made it worse than usual I think. We are sticking with LVP because it's going in our walkout basement, and because I can't get my money back. I was lucky the flooring company we hired agreed about the repeats (they stopped work and brought it to my attention), and they are willing to exchange for a different color. We are going with Hayes Oak. There will still be repeats (the price you pay for LVP), but the pattern is much less obvious because background and markings are lighter and the boards are bigger.

Did you end up going with this one? Do you have pics? We are looking at this one also! Thanks!

Love the color, it is exactly what we wanted. As for quality, it‘s our 1st experience with LVP (we are more used to engineered hardwood), and we’re glad we went with the CoreTEC Grande line. I‘m not sure we’d like a thinner LVP that doesn‘t have that super realistic surface layer or the weight to it. The CoreTEC Grande planks are super realistic, heavy and thick, more like wood would be. And they transition nicely to floor tile. Plus, they have a slightly thicker cork layer on the bottom (compared to most LVP planks) and it does feel very nice underfoot. Overall, it’s holding up very well and still looks like new. It’s a little more difficult to get rub or scuff marks off but it resists dog claws and our kids‘ toys better than wood does. One thing to note…if you plan to use rugs with a polypropylene backing on them (most on Wayfair or Amazon have this backing), you need to use a special rug pad in order to protect the floor from developing serious surface problems. Wool or cotton rugs are fine, though. We have two rugs with polypropolene backing, so we bought a couple rug pads from Rug Pad USA before laying down those rugs. So yes, so far so good for us. Good luck and make sure you hire a good installer. There are definitely some tricks to installing the Grande line as the tongue and groove mechanism is VERY fragile. Use a scrap piece of a plank as an install block instead of a regular floor install block. The scrap piece fits together with the plank you are installing and when you hammer the scrap piece (or a regular block up against a scrap piece), it pushes the plank into place without breaking the tongue and groove material, if that makes sense. A regular block just crushes the tongue and groove material once you start hammering. Anyways, sorry for the long post. Hope its hepful.