LOL...with grandparents born in Italy I thought "my people" were the only ones who did the thing with a little St. Joseph statue! Had an Italian college roommate who also put a little statue of Mary in the window before bed in hopes of holding off rain for the next day. Mary had to be facing the big outdoors, mind you. What a hoot and blast from the past...my aunt buried a statue of St. Joseph in the little patch of grass out in front of her townhouse when trying to sell it. By the way, your house is beautiful. I love the color combo of walls and shutters. You can get a little statue in any "religious store" and there are plenty of online sources for them. This "explanation" on Snopes web site offers a humorous explanation of tradition. Had no idea realtors were getting in on the practice! Best of luck in selling your house. Here is a link that might be useful: Snopes - St. Joseph Statue & Home Sales

I did pipe boot connections on my retrodrain through the wall of the pond. Didn't make my hole as large as what Horton suggested--only 1/2 the diameter of whatever size pipe. Most recent was 3" and made a 1 1/2" hole in the centre of where I wanted the pipe. The liner stretches but it takes strong fingers. Easy to do and as far as I know no leaks. Curious why aren't you looking at external pumps for your pond? They are more energy efficient, easy to winterize. I have a priming pot on both of mine even though they are below ground but had a problem with quilt batting getting wrapped around the impeller of the older pump before using a priming pot. I have a Sequel 4350GPH pump that is very quiet uses 175W. This year I plumbed this pump to my sc and the old pump (Sequence 750 4200GPH but only pumping about 1/2 of that due to bent shaft) to my skimmer. I probably don't need both pumps as also changed my waterfall out this year so is smaller. The Sequence is noisy and leaks a little on start up around the shaft. Long story short I love the external pumps. Aquaart carries good external pumps and also the bottom drain that is mentioned either here or other forums. I also like the skimmer--it collects alot of surface stuff like dust! In the fall I run my pond on the skimmer only so that I can remove my drains (have a midwater drain now which is also awesome) before the water gets too cold. Like Horton my pumps/sc are hidden under a deck. Two pummps might be an idea for your pond as you need less flow through your biofilter and more flow through your waterfall. One idea I saw here if you only use one pump and need the circulation (in your case at least 5000GPH) was to pump part of the water back into the main pond and the rest through the biofilter/stream. Aquaart has a diagram of how to do this. As for valves depends on if you have a drain on you skippy filter etc. I have a knife valve between pond and sc on the bd but on the midwater drain which also goes into sc I don''t--I use a standpipe. After skimmer and sc 2" ball valves--I know could have used knife valves there but ball valves are more reliable. My check valves are after the pump but before the ball valves to the waterfall filters. This is to keep the water from the waterfall filters coming back down through the pump and into the pond if power goes off which it does here frequently. Because I have priming pots, sc and skimmer I don't need check valve before the pump. Can't remember when you need check valve before the pump--sorry. Ball valves after the check valves to control flow to filters. I know that I could get away with running one pump now due to the changes I made in adding a midwater drain to my sc (had alot of draw down!) and waterfall changes as the valve on my Sequel pump to higher waterfall is turned down more than 1/3rd. It's just time consuming and more pipe to change it out again. I don't know if you are allowed to use ABS in the US. I use it here as fittings are available and it stands up to my climate. Also because it's black any pipework in the pond lie retro bd don't show as much. You have a fun project on your hands! It can get rather overwhelming but there are many knowledgable people on this forum who can help you. Good luck. Patti

another option is to get the very cool little powertoy for xp assuming you have xp of course, if you have vista there is an alternate one for it. here is the xp resizer powertoy link, with it you will now have a new item when you right click a picture, a resizer you just click the size you want and it creates a new version of the pic in the new size. Image Resizer for vista since there is not an official powertoy image resizer made by MS these are the current options Prish Image Resizer VSO Image Resizer if you want to use an online resizer those are also a good option I use these Resizr Resize Images Online

Thankyou, Kim and Robyn! Kimberly, yes, Magnaverde loved my room and said he could move right in. Of course,I'm sure it wouldn't take a week with my three rowdy dogs and he'd move right back out again, but yeah.. he quite liked the space. Told me not to change a thing. Fast forward two years and I found myself in the position of having to make changes. See that furniture in the first photo? My sons' 9 month old pup ate most of it. lol. And what was left I accidently tried to drown. The furniture.. not the dog. (thats a whole other story!) But gosh, I couldn't even yell at her because I didn't actually catch her in the act. When I walked into the room and she grinned at me from the leather chair that had a nice new five inch hole in the arm, she was the only canine in the house with burgundy leather fluff on her teeth. In the course of two weeks, she munched on that chair, my coffee table leg, the back of the cream leather sofa, the woodwork up the stairs, and took a nice big bite out of the drawer front on my pot drawers. Then she went into heat.. which explained her unusually destructive behaviour. I miss the little darling. She has since been spayed, and is living in Australia with our son. Who could get angry at this face? ;)