Thanks all - thought you'd enjoy the color. My bad though - the ones at the bike are purple dome asters, not sure what I was thinking calling them mums. Too many late nights getting ready for my 6 straight weeks of craft shows, I guess. I've never made anything with the crabapples, they are very hard - even the birds can't eat them. They usually hang on the tree all winter and then in the spring, the robins clean them up. I guess they soften up after being frozen. I noticed a blue jay trying to eat them the other day and he gave up. We have 2 trees of them and they are both really loaded this year. I don't fertilize at all. When we put the beds in back in 2003 we did haul in top soil and mixed mushroom compost with it. Other than that - all I do is plant stuff. It goes crazy on it's own. I think it's the mushroom compost but I would think by now it would all be leached out of the soil. Arlene

Bikes are a great way to exercise once you get the trick and have a safety attachment! I use a bike attachment to go out with my border collie. It is made by Springer. It is a U-shaped tube with a coil within to absorb a bit of tug-pulling as we go. It also has a safety release for a *major* snag. It aims the dog to the side of the bike so they can run beside you. Also he wears a harness while running to reduce any jerking risk as well. Stay away from models that aim the dog to run behind the bike as dogs will naturally try to run beside you and in the process create tug and friction on the back of the bike as they try to outrun the attachment. Not good! We tried and returned one. My pup runs faster than I pedal as it is and he certainly didn't want to run behind me! :P So far it has worked very well for us. No accidents and he picked up the concept of running with the bike very fast. He knows 'leave it', 'slow' and 'whooaa/stop' from running with me, which help considerably. There always is the temptation of a squirrel or duck as we go down trails, but he has yet to knock us over or even tried - usually when we get going he is focused on running and not looking around much.

The appraisal is FINALLY in...9,000 above our agreed upon price! Woo-Hoo! I was so relieved. My realtor said this should put a smile on the buyer's face and a zipper on his lip. We shall see. And, yes, we had set dates for inspection, appraisal, etc., and he ALWAYS goes past the dates by waiting until the day before the due date to schedule it and then it buys him another week or so and then he had his inspections split in two sessions. The news about the appraisal came in very late today so I hope this makes him (and my realtor) realize we are not going to do anything other than what is actually considered a contractual requirement to get this deal accomplished and if we need to start over we will. I hope he straightens up and doesn't do like I think many of us agree is possible and continue to be demanding even past the closing/final walk through. I guess I would just walk away from it and start over. I think I'm going to take the weekend off and just enjoy the appraisal news and not worry about anything else. Thanks again for all you guys and your advice/stories. They help more than you know!! I share each one with my husband. It's been just great!

It IS a vicious cycle FeedingFrenzy. Every time the banks turn down one of my buyers, all different banks, all different reasons, I lower the price of my house to get it to happen and then I have to get the seller of the house I'm trying to buy to lower his price because I don't have as much money as I did. All this playing around the banks are doing, leading people on, pretending they will lend mortgage money, is costing a lot of money. Wasted money. Me, my buyers, and agents who have been trying to sell the houses I've been trying to buy, have spent money on advertising, lawyers, title work, inspections, even gas... cutting into our "profit", and in some cases, like the seller of the first house I was in contract on, putting people further into a hole. That lady was under financial difficulties and the bank rejecting my buyer two days before closing really hurt her. Which hurts the economy. And it's all a waste because they're rejecting people who are good buyers. Brickeyee, I'm not going to argue with you about the quality of the buyers. We've been through it. They're good. By the way, the well/septic inspector wanted me to pay when he did the inspection and not at closing. He said too many of them don't close and he doesn't get paid. The buyer I'm on now is missing the second closing date tomorrow because, for one thing, the bank wants to know how many hours per week he's working at his new job that THEY made him get. How many HOURS HE'S WORKING PER WEEK?! Do they want to know what time he takes his coffee break?!And so I'm probably going to lose the house I'm in contract on because this is the third time I can't close and so that guy will probably lower the price of that house when he puts it back on the market. And so on and so on and so on. But the bank CEOs are still giving themselves big bonuses.