Good morning gang! Lots of great ideas & alot of input. :) I've been potting up some of the smaller brugs & getting them ready. I have the following with buds: 'Day Dreams' 'Pink Perfektion' 'Triple White' (from Brenda - gottahosta) 'Adeline' 'New Orleans Lady' 'Xena' I'm going to let them go ahead & bloom! I've got to enjoy them while I can - right?? :) And I still have a little time. Spent some time yesterday at the new house talking with the painter. Interior looks great! *Gloria I'll keep that in mind - but hopefully I won't lose any! :) And I still haven't found a Datura Missouri Marble - but if I do, you'll be the first to know! *Kylie Yes - alot of work!! I sit on my porch now & ponder this & ponder that! lol! Where's this going & where's that going! It will be worth all the hard work in the long run! *hong How many do you need?? :) *Kristy I'll send you plane tickets right along with hong's!! lol! *Judy You'll probably have to stand in line for plane tickets! And thank you very much for the offer - as it's appreciated! :) *Brenda Wish you were here too!! lol! I'd put you to work! The 'Triple White' you sent me - soon to bloom!! Yay! *Jim Will do - on the homeowner warranty! *woodsgranny In 30 years it will be mine! lol! But - it's still a very nice feeling! :) *Karyn Thanks very much for all of your help & your input! Some of the larger ones I think I'll move directly & do ALOT of praying! :) *Barbara I really, really hope so! :) *Kristy Yep! It is awfully high & it's going to be one of my first projects - take out some of the landscape timbers! I really don't understand why the previous owners made it so high! Obviously NOT Brug people! lol! *Mary Come help! Come help! :) *Jim I will contact you if necessary! Thank you very much for the offer! It means alot! *Diane Glad I'm not the only one that has had to do this! I'm just hoping I can pull it off & see some of the brugs bloom before fall! I have friends here who I have GOT to enable with many cuttings this fall! :) And thanks to all for your congrats! I think & I'm hoping - I've done the right thing! :) Mike

Good morning sada, And you certainly said nothing wrong - if that was directed towards me. I just haven't been here for a couple of days... If you were looking to replace your windows and you didn't have storm shutters already then I would be very much recommending that you consider impact windows in your home. Since you have impact shutters, then impact windows would probably be overkill. Still, I would suggest that you at least consider the possibility. Impact windows are passive protection which means that you don't have to be there to protect your home - the windows will do that for you - if, for example, you do decide to travel overseas again one day. Triple pane is also probably overkill in your environment. Without knowing specifically what your neighbor put into his home I cannot comment on his windows, but there are a number of options for you to consider. If you want ease of maintenance in your location, then vinyl or fiberglass frames might be your best option. Both of those materials area able to resist the effects of weathering, including salt spray as well as anything on the market. For energy performance and comfort, then you will want at least a dual pane window with a LowE2 coating. The LowE2 coating will work in each of your micro-climates and it will give you significant energy performance improvement over single pane or clear dual pane alternatives. You can also get a tinted LowE2 to block even more solar heat and glare - or, you can opt for the new LowE3 coating which has the same low SHGC (Solar Heat Gain Coefficient - or how much solar heat gain gets thru your window) numbers as the tinted LowE2 but virtually the same visible transmittance as the untinted LowE2 product. All that means is that the LowE3 blocks as much solar heat as the tinted LowE2 but without the darkening of the window that relates to the tint. But, if solar glare is a problem then the tinted version might work for you. Don't get "ordinary" tinted glass - without the LowE2 coating. Some window sales folks may tell you that ordinary tinted glass is your best performing product. Not true. Ordinary tinted glass will cut down on glare and it will block some IR so that you may not notice the direct solar heat gain as much, but non-LowE tinted glass absorbs heat rather than reflecting heat and a good bit of that absorbed heat will eventually end up in your home where the air conditioner will be working extra hard to make it go away. So sada, my next suggestion would be to do talk with a few window folks - even big box folks - just for more information gathering. I suspect that after a few salesfolk visits you may end up with more questions than answers. What I have said here is very general information and if you have more specific questions please feel free to ask away! And I cannot overemphasize installation! Install is so very important in window performance - energy, sound, water infiltration - even more so in a climate like yours where the windows do tend to take a beating. Guy - thanks Bud! And from me to you a very Merry Christmas to you and your family as well and a safe and prosperous New Year.

I am so far behind on this week's news that I feel like I cannot catch up. First, the mudroom report. Knocking out the north wall so we could expand into former sunroom space was very hard. Amy, if you'd been sitting and watching, I believe you would have heard a curse word here and there. Apparently when Tim and Chris sectioned off the mudroom from the sunroom about 4 years ago, they built that wall to last forever. It had a gazillion nails and screws to hold it all in place forever, and there was a thick wall there. From the mudroom side, we had to remove the following materials in the order listed: beadboard wainscotting, drywall, 1/2 inch plywood, insulation and then, on the sunroom side, more drywall....and all the framing to which all of that was attached. Tim started demo while I was cooking a big breakfast of bacon, eggs and grain-free pancakes (made with almond meal and I think I like them better than regular pancakes, too). After we ate breakfast, he continued demo while I cleaned up the kitchen, did laundry, etc. I think the demo alone took until a little after 12 noon. Oh, and he removed the flooring from the part of the sunroom that is becoming part of the enlarged mudroom. Then, in the afternoon, we built the new west wall of the mudroom, getting the framing up, the internal window put in (it will allow the sunlight from the sunroom to enter the mudroom and help keep it light in there), the drywall put up on the sunroom side of the wall, and a new light fixture installed. I love the new light----it is a gooseneck style barn light. Then the fire pagers went off (for three grass fires) and that was it for Saturday's mudroom work. On Sunday, we put up the insulation and the drywall on the mudroom side of the wall and framed in the closet and cubbie storage area at the north end of the new mudroom area. We tried to intermittently watch part of the Dallas Cowboys game---we had the TV on in the living room so we could walk into the house and check on the game periodically. After the Cowboys seemingly gave up in the second half, we quit trying to watch the game and just tried to work on the room. We stopped for dinner around 5 pm after cleaning up all our construction mess, and put the mudroom furniture back into the mudroom so the room is functional, though nowhere close to being done and it is a good thing we did because about as soon as we had finished eating, our fire pagers went off for back-to-back wrecks on the interstate. I was hoping the mudroom would be a 2 or 3 weekend project, but based on how busy the fire pagers are all of a sudden, I fear it may be a 4 or 5 weekend project. That's okay. We'll get it done in October and will have a much more useful space. Part of the storage area is a garden closet where I can store my seed box, which doesn't really have its own spot inside the house so it tends to float from room to room, and my garden tool bucket, which I tend to leave in the mudroom year round. At least now I'll be able to hide it away behind a closet door. Nancy, We have gazillions of deer here along the river. They come to the compost pile daily to eat whatever I've tossed on it that they find edible. I probably see 8 or 10 visit at a time, multiple times daily (not necessarily the same ones in the afternoon or evening as we had in the morning). They often cruise along the fencelines of the two enclosed gardens and eat bean vines and such growing on the outside of the fence. However, they don't like to go inside an enclosed area if they cannot see what is inside of it, so they tend to not step foot in the garden at this time of year, even if I leave the gate open, because they cannot see beyond the plants growing on the garden fences. They'll go into the garden as soon as frost (or lack of rain) kills the plants growing on the garden fences. I put out deer corn and other goodies for them in winter, and every day/night of the year, they scarf up any hen scratch or sunflower seeds that the wild birds and chickens don't devour during the course of the day. During canning season (they know exactly when canning season is) they often stand out by the compost pile waiting for me to bring my compost bucket out to empty out all the waste product so they can gobble i t up, I have to yell at them to go away just so I can walk out to the compost pile safely, It is a wonder I get any compost at all because the deer and other wild critters love to feast on stuff that I think I am going to compost. One reason we moved here was that we wanted to live surrounded by wildlife, and we have almost everything imaginable here---whitetail deer, cottontail rabbits, skunks (striped and spotted), possums, raccoons, armadillos, snakes, turtles, frogs, skinks, lizards, coyotes, beaver, bobcats, ringtail cats, ferrets, feral hogs, squirrels, moles, voles, field mice, pack rats, all kinds of birds--including eagles (which is the coolest thing!), and an occasional cougar (they stalk the garden a lot when they are around), and more. I think we got more wildlife than we bargained for, but you learn to coexist with them and to avoid the dangerous ones. Occasionally there is an alligator spotted in the area, usually in a farm pond when the Red River is low during drought, but we've never had one on our property, as far as we know, The nearest one we know of was in a farm pond about a half-mile from us. We don't have ground hogs this far south or bears either, though they've been seen this year as close to us as Pontotoc County. which is closer than usual. Kim, I am sorry for all your troubles and especially for your poor head. I hope you don't have a concussion. Take care of yourself. Your tomatoes would be growing fine here as we have abundant sunshine and mostly a lack of moisture. Yesterday was hot, today is supposed to be even hotter, and then I think we cool down again, though the heavy rainfall in the forecast this week is expected to miss us for the most part. I think we might get a half-inch or inch. We'll see. I'd say the autumn fire season started up here this past weekend, despite most areas getting close to an inch of rain last week. Sadly, an inch of rain is not much when you have waist-high dried, cured grasses filling pastures---the August rainfall caused rampant growth of grasses and brush, but the almost total lack of rain in the month of September allowed everything to dry out and become fuel for fires. Tomatoes, peppers and beans are exceptionally happy thought. My squash plants died suddenly over the weekend---not sure if it is SVBs (I'll look for signs of them next time I step foot into the garden) or if disease hit them along with last week's rain. Amy, I hope you can just take it easy this week and recover from the draining effects of your mom's surgery last week. Dealing with aging and ill parents can be so exhausting, and I think the strain is every bit as much mental/psychological as it is physical too. You just need some down time to chill and relax and not feel so stressed and worried. Nancy, When sweet potatoes fail to form tubers, there can be several different reasons. One is that the soil is too rich and they plow all their growth into foliage. Similarly, too much fertilizer can cause the same issue even in poor soil. Another is too much shade. It also can be a variety thing---there's a few varieties that need really, really long growing seasons, but in my garden, even those will produce tubers by October if I planted them in May. Sometimes if you let the long runners root into the ground, that can prevent you from getting large tubers---I believe it diverts the energy from forming tubers and keeps the plants overly vegetative. One way to prevent that is to use a stick or garden tool to move around the rambling foliage every few days so it does not root into the ground all over the place. Rebecca, Where Tim is from in Pennsylvania, those brown marmorated stink bugs have been invading homes in the autumn for years now, and they show up by the hundreds and by the thousands. (I hopt that is not what you are starting to see up there now.) They do sell traps with scent baits to draw them in so that people can (hopefully) trap them outdoors before they find a way indoors. Kim, Roselles usually bloom most heavily in October here (sometimes they start blooming in late September) but it can depend on exactly which type you have. Some bloom later than others, and all the ones I've grown have been daylength sensitive. I seem to have more blooms from the ones I grow at the shady west end of the garden as the afternoon shade may trick them into thinking daylength is shortening a bit more than it actually is. Some years, when I have had tons and tons of calyxes on the plants in October or early November as the first frost approaches, I have had to cut off the limbs (the plants are too huge and too deeply rooted to pull up) and take them into the garage or the house to keep them from freezing. Then, as the calyxes dry out a bit indoors and the blossoms fall, I can harvest and use the calyxes. If frost threatens before you can harvest enough roselles, since you don't have a lot of indoor storage space, you might be able to cover the plants with frost blankets or even regular blankets to keep them alive long enough for you to harvest an ample supply of calyxes. Not only are the great for tea but they also make a wonderful jelly---I like it better than any other fruity jelly I've ever made. The rat snake in the camper is horrifying. It is that time of the year when they are looking for places to den up for winter, and also looking for food to gobble up before they hibernate. I am so very careful in October to not leave a garage or shed door open because I don't want unwelcome residents. I do leave the greenhouse doors open so that cool nights will push snakes out of the greenhouse just in case they are thinking of overwintering there...poor Ryder! His daddy played such a mean trick on him. Nancy, To fill up raised beds, use anything and everything you can get your hands on---logs (preferably partially rotted ones, a la hugelkulture style), chopped/shredded autumn leaves, twigs, grass clippings, animal manure (local farms or rabbit raisers often offer it on Craig's List or Freecycle), hay, straw, wood bark, mushroom compost from eastern OK, etc. If you fill up the beds with all that stuff from now throughout winter, then by Spring you'll have a surprising amount of decomposition and it will be ready for planting. I have built our garden bed soil the same way the woodland builds its own soil----by piling up organic matter of all kinds and just letting it decay in place. I raked up and used lots of leaf mold from our woodland in the early years here because it is so good for the soil, but I can only collect stuff in the woods after we've had several very hard freezes. Otherwise, I have snake encounters even in winter (I learned that years ago with a pygmy rattler encounter during what should have been the snake-free season). You can add layers of cardboard to attract earthworms. Earthworms love cardboard. They'll come to eat it and stick around to devour everything else. I have to go now---Jet is demanding his morning walk whether I'm ready to go now or not. Dawn

I told my neighbor that if he can wait to put up a fence until after I closed on my home I wouldn’t mind going half with him. Not put up the fence before I closed and not include me on the fence plans, type of wood, poles etc. After I moved in he didn’t approach me for money directly, we used to talk on the phone here and there and I offered to help pay some of it and asked him for a figure or an invoice. He never did that until this week when my new fence was put up. HIS back fence has been up since late 2017. His wife also complained to my fence guy that my top trim was on top of their top trim. I WENT AHEAD AND PAID MY NEIGHBOR $800 because it was never about the money for me. After I paid the money we had a long conversation and I told him if he had an issue he should’ve given me figure a long time ago. He thinks he’s being generous because he only asked for $800 and not more since the back side cost him $3300. Mind you he didn’t get the regular poles that most people get. His are black aluminum or material which I think costs more. It’s 150 feet of fence and $800 is a small price but IMO I’m being generous because I’m not lawfully obligated to pay anything when he decided to do the fence on his own. Could he tear it down one day? Sure. My only issue with this is why he waited so long to request money When I asked for a figure almost three years ago. He thinks I should’ve taken the initiative and brought It up to him again. If I ask someone to go half with me and they say they can’t right now and I go ahead and put up a fence I’m not going to ask for them to pitch in. It’s important to note that I recently bought a ”new” used car. Nothing fancy but it’s new to us. I’m not sure if that bothers them that I have money for a new car and a fence but never helped pay for the back fence that we share. Sorry for the long read.