Betty, Thanks for the reply. The pottery beads look so cool! One way to test your soil is to pick up a handful of it in your hand. Use your hand to squeeze that handful of soil into a ball, and then release your hand. If the soil remains in a compressed fist-sized ball in your hand, it likely needs some organic matter added to it to loosen it up. If it falls apart in your hand, then I think it is loose enough. This test works most of the time, but if your soil is incredibly saturated from heavy rainfall in the last few days, you might want to let it dry out for a few days before you try the squeeze test. I hate CPBs. I cannot even describe how icky I think the larvae, in particular, are. I had hand-picked a few in mid-May and didn't think it was going to be a bad CPB year. Then, we had many rainy days in a row and I barely stepped foot into the front garden for about a week. I just stayed busy in the back garden which drains much better with its sandy soil. Then, when I went back to the front garden, there were what looked like dozens of CPBs, mostly in various larval stages. I put on a pair of disposable nitrile, medical-type gloves, got a bowl of soapy water and went to work. I thought it would be fun to count them as I went along so I could send Tim a text message at work saying something like "I murdered 48 CPBs today". So, how did that work out? Would you believe 229 of them? Granted, I have a huge number of potato plants, but that is a ridiculous number of them. Of that 229, maybe 5 were mature adults. I guess on all those rainy days when I stayed out of the garden, they were hatching and feeding. The next day I found maybe a dozen more, and then the next day about 4 or 5 more. Now I haven't seen any in that garden on any plant or any time in about a week, so I think I got them all. This week's challenge is a vole who has moved into the garden near the potato plants. It is always something. Susan, You're welcome. I hope the seeds sprout and that the plants grow well for you. You know, the first garden I planted here after we moved here was a butterfly garden outside my kitchen window. While I was able to enjoy it for many years, now that we have been here for 15 years, the nearby trees have mostly shaded it out, and I have contented myself with mixing plants for butterflies into the big fenced garden. I've always had planting a new dedicated butterfly garden on my to do list though. Lantana is one of my all-time favorite plants, but I couldn't keep it alive here even in well-amended clay. It might live for a couple of years, but then a rainy winter would kill it. So, having the new sandy soil garden gives me the chance to grow all those plants that demand well-drained soil. It is sort of like being new at gardening....because I get to grow so many things that just didn't grow well in the clay here. Some of the plants I am growing now have repeatedly failed here in clay, but I feel pretty confident that they will be fine in the sandy soil. I raised a lot of Echinacea 'Cheyenne Spirit' from seed this year and put most of the plants in the new garden, though I did put maybe 8 or 10 of them in the NW corner of the old garden, which is the sandy end where drainage is better. We'll see how they do. I also planted PowWow Wild Berry and PowWow White in the back garden and Veronica 'First Love' which is just so gorgeous. I love growing veggies, but I have got to have flowers too, and I didn't plant many flowers in the last two drought summers because that just would have been that much more stuff to water, so I feel starved for flowers. Don't get me wrong. We still had lots of flowers, but this year we have FLOWERS! lol With the expectation that his year would be a rainier year,I have gone totally berserk and am growing flowers everywhere. I have no intention of stopping either. Once I have succession sowed some southern peas and bush beans to fill in the area where broccoli and cabbage are now being harvested, then with the rest of the big garden this summer I am just going to succession sow flowers as crops finish up and I remove the plants after harvest, at least until it is time to plant for fall. I guess I'll have to save at least one big raised bed for fall greens, but probably will put all the fall tomatoes in big containers so I can move them into the greenhouse when freezing temperatures threaten. That will leave lots of space for flowers. I have about a gazillion flower seeds so the butterflies should be very happy here all summer. I've planted 6 or 8 types of zinnias already (maybe more, I haven't kept track) and have about a dozen more varieties to plant whenever space becomes available. We usually have plenty of native plants in our meadow and woodland for the cats to feed upon, so all I really have to focus on at this point is nectar plants....except I always grow the dill, fennel and parsley for the swallowtails. Some years I can smell wild dill in the air, but even when I look and look and look for it, I can't find it, so it must be growing in the pastures adjacent to our place. After we finished fencing the new garden area in latest April or earliest May, I quickly planted the veggies I wanted in there...sweet corn, cucumbers, sweet peppers, winter squash, and later on watermelons and a dozen or two leftover tomato plants. I put almost all of that in a certain part of the garden, but mixed in lots of butterfly plants and hummingbird plants. When volunteer okra plants popped up in the asparagus bed (last year's okra was one row over from the asparagus), I dug up the okra volunteers and moved them to the back garden. Once that big new area was mostly full of veggies, I looked at the area that was left and asked myself "green beans or purple hull pink eye peas?" and the answer from my brain was "Lantana! Fennel! Dill! Desert Willow! Sunflowers! ! Zinnias! Parsley! Echinacea! Catmint! Salvia!"....etc, etc., etc. So, clearly my brain was yelling at me and demanding a garden for the butterflies, bees and hummingbirds and that is what I have focused on for the last couple of weeks. It won't be just outside my kitchen window where the shade of the oak trees now rules, but the flying critters will enjoy it no matter where it is, and I will enjoy seeing them when I am out there working. Unfortunately, the area we plowed up for the new garden used to have lots of wildflowers and those are gone now, but when a 'weed' pops up that looks like a wildflower. I dig it up while it is still tiny and move it to the area just outside the garden fence, and I planted a wildflower seed mix in the adjacent meadow to help make up for taking out a large section that once was filled with wildflowers. I also stopped breaking up ground when I reached the area where we have goldenrod every fall. I didn't want to plow under that land because we don't have a lot of goldenrod and I didn't want to lose it. This is the best butterfly year here since at least 2010, so I am really enjoying having so many of the butterflies back again. I don't grow PV here, though I keep meaning to get around to planting one and didn't know there was a flea beetle that eats only those plants. When I grew it in Fort Worth for the butterflies, I guess we were lucky because we never had anything eat it except the gulf frits. When my brother planted a PV and then began to complain about the caterpillars eating it, I worked hard to convince him to leave them alone and let them eat and then the plant would recover after they were done. He was skeptical, but he soon saw that the plants could regrow and recover just fine even after the cats ate them down to the ground. . Kim, Gardening with kids is just oodles of fun. Nothing will make you slow down and enjoy every rock, every dandelion and every lady bug like a toddler who is fascinated with each and every one of them. I love it when children visit the garden. I don't think we've ever had a child of any age come here and not want to immediately go out to the garden. It is the same thing with the chickens and the chicken coops. Kids are drawn to them. Tim's best friend had a small grandson in the early 2000s who wouldn't eat eggs. After he started coming here and collecting the eggs himself when he was 3 or 4 years old, he started eating eggs but only "his" eggs from our chickens and guineas. I think gardening also gets kids to try veggies from "their" garden that they otherwise wouldn't eat. I think that gardening with kids is about ten times as much fun as gardening without kids. Dawn

sorry, posted in wrong forum and don't know how to delete.reposted in step-family forum. Isabelle

First of all, thank you all for your thoughtful comments. Not much to report, really. First an almost-funny but not really aspect of the visit... earlier in the afternoon DS said to me, "They're not going to stick that q-tip thing down my throat are they?" I said of course not, that's for strep. Again, he is the best kid, never a drama queen (older DS has that job), but he has this vomiting phobia which includes a huge fear of that strep test because of the gagging issue. He has had strep once, and has had the test maybe twice, but it was so traumatic! And PS the last time he had it done was at least 5 years ago and it was a huge ordeal. So, we went to the doctor -- who was not our usual doc, but one we haven't seen before -- and explained the situation. By then DS was beside himself, could not get comfortable in the exam room, kept going back and forth to the bathroom, etc., while we waited in the exam room for the doc to show up. Doc examined him, noted that he has gained something like 15-20 lbs. since Oct. (he has also grown about 4-5 inches since then), and sees that he has a low temp of 99-point-something. So he says, "It could possibly be strep -- sometimes the only symptom is stomach upset. We need to do a test." And DS loses his mind. It was almost comical but not really. It took a good 20 minutes to get him to cooperate. It was ridiculous, really. And again, this is my kid who gives us NO trouble, ever, so it's just weird to see him act like this (tears, refusing to open his mouth, acting like he's going to leave the room). Anyway... after all that, the quick test was negative. (I was actually hoping it was strep so we could show him that the test was worth doing! Not to mention an easy fix w/ antibiotics. So, basically the doc said there is a stomach bug going around (as well as strep), and that is likely what he has. He said to call if it gets worse, of course, but he thinks it will resolve itself. He didn't seem overly concerned about the on-and-off minor stomach issues that I mentioned, but I also didn't press the issue because frankly, after the Huge Drama over the strep test, I just wanted to get out of there. My plan now is to see what happens over the next few weeks, especially as school gets closer. He's going to high school in Sept., so I'm thinking a new school may mean some anxiety and we'll see if stomach issues come up again. If so, we will make an appt. to see his regular doc and talk about what to do. What I think, knowing DS and observing him all this time, is that he gets nervous about things sometimes. Older DS has major anxiety issues and is very vocal. Younger DS probably has some minor anxiety issues but he is not vocal about them at all, so he stuffs it inside and it affects his stomach. Then he has this vomiting phobia which compounds the original problem, because then he's afraid of vomiting, which makes him more nervous and thereby makes his stomach feel worse. I could totally see it yesterday. When he was home, he seemed OK -- not eating much, still going into the bathroom occasionally when he thought he might vomit, but basically OK. When we got to the doc's office, I think he became even more worried about vomiting in public, so he was antsy and going back and forth to the bathroom every 5 minutes. While I was watching him, I realized he was acting the same exact way in the airport in June when he was feeling sick. We were in the security line and he was convinced he was going to vomit and his whole demeanor was exactly the same as in the doc's office... and he never did throw up. And he was totally fine by the next day. DS is sooo much like DH in almost every way -- they look alike, they act alike, and I suspect DS has inherited the adolescent stress issues that DH had at the same age. DH confirmed last night that he was the same exact age when he started getting really bad migraines. They stopped after a year or two. Maybe it's growth/puberty related? He has been growing like crazy -- as I said, about 4-5" since last fall. Anyway, I will definitely keep an eye on him and by the way, he slept through the night last night without getting up, and is still sound asleep, so I suspect he might be feeling better today. I still can't be sure if this particular stomach issue is really just a little stomach bug, or if it's anxiety about camp, but either way, hopefully the 'bug' will pass within the next 1-2 days, or the anxiety will pass once he gets to camp and gets into the routine there. (Camp is only an hour from home, so worst case scenario, we can run up and get him at any time.) Then I'd like to visit his own doc at a time when DS is actually feeling okay, so he's not emotional or just feeling ill, so we can talk about the whole situation. He actually has a physical coming up in Sept/Oct so that may be the perfect opportunity, unless things get worse before then.

Oi, somehow I missed this reveal! I remember way back talking about the lights and backsplash and they BOTH are divine in your finished space. It's just an amazing remodel. Everything is so integrated and the flow/workspaces seem so thought out. I'm curious about the Task lighting and outlets, too. We'll be using some kind of plugmold in our remodel - and I need to start getting my head around undercounter lighting, too. I really do love your pendants... they seem like they have zero glare. Is that true?