Hi Christy, First of all I want to offer my sincerest condolences on your friends passing:( I know how difficult that can be. I lost a good friend my first year out of high school. He jumped off a peer in Lake Erie. He was under the influence of alcohol and drugs and another close friend of mine tried t osave him but he ended up smashing his face into the break wall and losing my friend. That morning theyfound him floating in the harbour. Okay, about your tree. I have a nice lush dwarf keylime tree. Of all places, I bought it from Roberta's on QVC. It was a small little whip of a tree but has since grown to be over 3 ft tall. It has loaded up plenty of times with flowers. My first complaint was that this tree was advertised as having a great scent. Logees greenhouse also sells it this way and there is NO detectable scent whatsoever! Anyhow, my buds would open and then right about the time the petals would start to drop, the whole flower would fall off! I did have the tiny ovary at the base of the flower but it never developed. I have had a few here and there that did hold on but always fell before they ever got any size to them. Mike also told me that even though citrus are supposed to be self fertile, it may need to be pollinated. I also know that there are some citrus that need cross pollinators to set fruit well. One of them is a citrus that I have been considering buying, the minneola tangelo. I read up on it and read some posts here on it and found that they don't have to have the cross pollinator but you may only get a couple fruits without one. Hi Toni, I wanted to tell youy that I will email you some pics of my two mango trees. Sadly, one of them is going to die but it was my fault. This is the mango I brought back from Florida and I didn't pay attention to the trunk of the tree like I should have. When I got it home, I realized that the bark was split in one spot but I was home and it was too late to do anything about it. I have learned a ton about these trees and though I have lost 3 in the past, I am confident enough to buy more and get some of my own fresh mangoes. mango and cherimoya are my favorite fruits. I did want your opinion on these HPS lights. Now, I have read that they are brighter than bright. Fine with me, as long as they are bright enough to support strong healthy growth. This HidHut website has some killer deals. I am going to order the 600 watt HPS. I am going to need to of them. I went a little crazy on buying fruit trees this year. I bought a 'Day' avoacdo, two different varieties of cherimoya, one actually is a double grafted tree with an atemoya also on it, 3 citrus trees, a mango tree, tons of cherimoya, sugar apple, passion fruit and guava seedlings. I have around 14 large trees so I am hoping that if I buy two of these 600 watt set ups, I can suspend the light above the trees with three trees on one side and 3 on the otherside, that way I can have six trees under each light. My seedlingsa are still small enough to fit on my table but I also ordered 3 cacti from K and L cactus. I have a jackfruit that is growing pretty quickly and my problem is like Christy. I have hardly any good quality natural light. Well, I hope all is well with you and I will email you soon. Mike, I also need to email you. I got some good news about some of the stresses I was talking about with you. I will be sending your package out to you next week. Wether the angel trumpet is ready to be cut or not. Did I mention that the same plant that bloomed once has about 8 buds on it? It should be blooming by the end of this week or maybe next week. I will email you pics when it is blooming so you can see what you will be getting. Andrew

Even though some of the places may seem like they charge more than some things that you find on the net, they are selling a predictable known product that the contractor has worked with before and that he can get in the needed time frame. Contractors prefer to work with known products and predictable suppliers. It's how they keep things on schedule and how they predict their margins. New products mean a learning curve for everyone, and that extra time costs you money. Suppliers that cause delays cause problems for everyone. Delays cost money. You end up paying that money. Box stores have pretty crappy quality lumber (and most everything else) than needs picking through. A lumber yard sells a known quality, and the builder gets a discount for the repeat business. He may or may not pass along those builder discounts to you because some forms of him pricing the job may include that to him as a portion of his fee as he still has to calculate, order, and arrange delivery of those materials. If you want to spec unknown to him products from unknown or un-trusted sources, then expect that to add time and expense to the project.

Toto Drake. Either the 1.6 gpf or the newer 1.28 gpf Eco Drake (Dual Cyclone works really well). If you want to, upgrade it to the Sanagloss finish version. We have one with the Sanagloss, and it seems to go a little longer without getting a dirty bowl than our other Toto. I wouldn't put in a wall-mounted flushometer toilet in a home. We just went through replacing similar toilets in my office. What we found was that our older plumbing didn't have the capacity to provide the flow needed by the 1.28 gpf toilets. It ended up being sort of a research project. The wall-hung Kohlers (K-4325) perform poorly, partly from not having 25 gpm available at any time, partly (I think) from bowl design. Seems odd for the flushometer to need that much capacity. My understanding is that how quickly the valve can dump that 1.28 gallons into the bowl matters. We also put in one Toto (CT-780, IIRC), and it seems to do fine in spite of the less-than-ideal water supply capacity. The Kohlers tend to take 2 flushes to clear the bowl, and when we open the control stop up to get better performance, you also get splashing during flushing. I'm not sure about the height. The kids will grow quickly, so I'd go with a standard-height one rather than trying to set up a lower one. Standard rim height for a Drake is 14-5/8" (ADA is higher at 16-1/2"). If you look more, use the CUWCC MaP Testing results as a guide for high-performing residential toilets.

I think this has been a fruitful discussion. I hope it continues. The more I think about this, the more I believe people should be encouraged by KDs, the kitchen sellers at the big box stores, cabinet makers, etc., to consider counter heights when planning a kitchen. And I think a big shout-out to many of the great contributors here at GW is called for because until I spent hours...well, really weeks of hours...reading through reveals, advice to folks planning their kitchens, and such, I never would have thought of all these types of details being important for a good, functional, pleasant space. GWE’s (GardenWeb Experts) are the bomb!! Last night I made a big salad and started a pot of “clean out the refrigerator” soup. I really liked chopping and that kind of prep on the higher counter. My DH helped a bit a really liked it as well. I also made scratch biscuits. I hand-mixed the dough at four different heights: on the higher counter with the triple breadboards on top (didn’t like), regular counter height (didn’t like), on the breadboard when it was slid into its slot, just below counter-height (liked it much better but still a bit high), and then put the breadboard across two counter-height stools (a bit too low). I think a small stretch of counter somewhere in-between the latter two would be nice for that type of work and other baking, machine-mixing, yada yada type tasks. I’ll continue the experiments. My chiropractor...who I seldom need anymore due to the excellent exercises he’s given me to strengthen my back and keep myself in alignment...does a weekly radio show on our local station. I called in this morning and mentioned this issue and asked him about it. He was very enthusiastic and gave some examples of people he has worked with who have had back issues directly related to long-term repetitive movements where things are not at the right height for them. So, really, for someone who cooks a lot, this isn’t a trivial issue. I really want to learn more about this. Oh, gosh...my friends already think I’m the anti-high-heel and heavy-purse nazi, now I'll be the counter-height nazi, too. But I had a back injury for which I was told I would never fully recover, only have limited mobility, and will always have pain. Well, I proved them wrong on all counts due to proper exercises (mostly from chiropractor) and body movements. I can go hiking with a 30+-pound pack and other activities, like 50-mile bike rides, that they said I'd never be able to do again. And I haven't taken a pain pill since 2008. It's because I've become the healthy-back nazi, LOL. This stuff is important for quality of life issues, imho. Off my soap box. @westsider 40 - Good points about not kneading long. I really don’t bake often where I need to knead. When I do, I move my large breadboard to my table and do it there. So it might be best to just continue doing it that way. @Oaktown - 14” difference! Wow. You would almost need two separate kitchens to work best for the two of you. Yeah, I think you should have a stool under each appliance and in each toekick. Just pull the whole thing out when you’re cooking. DH can push it all in when he’s cooking. @tracie.erin - Interesting on the stove height. I can see why that would be good to have it lower since your arm motion is different when stirring and such at a stove vs. chopping/slicing/dicing in a prep area. I do think my stove is the right height. If we do raise the counters on the wall, we’ll have to make adjustments for a lower stove top. Thanks for the tip. @laughable - Yes, I’m trying to put a lot of thought into this kitchen. And you are one of the people who have really inspired me to put in the extra time and effort to get it right. It will be my last so it better be good! I usually transfer from stock/crock pots in the sink because I’m unbelievably clumsy, lol. The pictures aren’t showing, darn it. I just am getting the Photobucket “This person has moved or deleted” message. It could be my computer. I had to take it back to factory settings last night and am still loading updated drivers and such. I’ll come back later and check it again. I can visualize your explanation of what he did in his own kitchen and why. Still need to get to my library to see if they have any of his books.