Alison, Opportunity meets heavily germinated flats. The last twenty or so flats I had were all "killers", there was little brown earth showing. I had green carpets of seedlings. So, it had to be a massive redo in order to accomodate what I had. The moscheutos seedlings were all self-sown, I had sowed several a few years back and they reseed abundantly. I had several, several yearling hibiscus that were waiting for a bed to happen for them. This was the opportunity I had to get them into a row. So that's how it started--with a row of the moschuetos. I looked behind me to see all those flats and then I grabbed the red hibiscus and put them in down the whole line, and they are planted in doubles--I had enough to put two seedlings into each back line planting hole. Then I started to fill in with seedlings from the moss-like flats. I was tearing out huge chunks and made them into smaller hunks (not quite an inch diameter) to fill in around the plants, with hunks going in every four or five inches. All my flats were made from foil lasagna pans, some had two varieties in them but the last were all singles. Across the lawn from the hibiscus border is a bed I made with a fig tree in the middle and surrounded by eight volunteer PL toms along the bed edges. The underplantings are a central ring of malope (I think) to surround the fig, and the rest is hunk-o-parsley. I did a flat with curly parsley and it was as thick as moss. I like flat-leaf parsley better but all of this may change my mind because I have never had so much before. We will be eating a LOT of parsley here, lol. Maybe with tomatoes too should they all crop well this year. T

Hi overlyanxious - yes, I ordered the tile last weekend! I posted in a separate thread "OMG! I ordered the tile!" :-) Ordered the late-breaking Ilva Pietre Travertine in Bianco. Color's a little lighter than I really wanted, but the next shade down was too dark - I really wanted something in the middle! But it's going to look great with the random brick mixed travertine border I ordered. *And* with my cool Asian-influenced light fixture. See the other thread for details! For the completeness of this thread, I'll just mention that my store also had the other Ilva tiles blondelle mentioned: the Crema Marfil, and the Andes Traful. Both are beautiful, but the Andes had too much gray in it for me - I already knew from some of the Daltile samples that I didn't like gray. And the Crema Marfil - I actually don't remember what I thought of it, just that I didn't like it as much as the Pietre Travertine. Don't know much about the upkeep of real travertine, just that it needs to be sealed from time to time, and I had no confidence in my ability to not procrastinate doing it. There are a lot of threads here on that subject - maybe just search for travertine. Sigh about the Daltile. They told me in the Daltile showroom that it was discontinued, not just out of stock; I actually emailed Daltile customer service asking about it and they never got back to me. Maybe it's just as well. My reno is starting on 9/29, so depending when in October the Dal would have been available, it might have been (probably would have been) too late. Here is a link that might be useful: OMG! I ordered the tile!

Boy do I remember the sugar camp. When I was a kid on the farm we had a wooden shed about 18' x 30' with a 5' sliding door on both ends. Inside the shed there was a huge stone fireplace with the chimney on one end of the building and the firebox extending nearly the full length of the room. The top of the firebox was covered with a steel pan 16' long, 5' wide and about 8" deep. The pan was set so the end near the chimney was about 3" higher than the opposite end where the opening to the firebox was. Along the right wall there was 600 tin & 450 wooden buckets stacked upside down from floor to ceiling. During the month of February there was still too much snow & mud to use wagons so we hitched a team of draft horses to a home made wooden sled called a "Stone Boat" and we would cut & haul firewood until we had at least 4 to 5 cords stacked just outside the sugar house door. About the last week of February we would fill 15 or 20 ten gallon milk cans with water and haul them down to the sugar house on the stone boat, then we would put the water in the sugar pan and start the fire. When the water was warmed a bit we began washing the buckets and loading them on the stone boat, then off to the woods to hang the buckets. Using a hand brace & bit we would drill a 3/8" diameter hole in the bark of the maple tree stopping just at the cambria layer (the internal layer between the bark & the wood of the tree). We then used a hammer to drive in a "Spile" which is a little tubular tap and we then hung a bucket on the spile and snapped a sheet metal lid on the bucket. (1 spile for each 12" of circumferance around the tree.) In an average year we would put out about 800 buckets scattered throughout about 45 acres of woods. We then laid two 50gal wooden cider barrels sideways on the stone boat so the bung hole on the side of the barrels was on top and chained the barrels in place and we set a huge copper funnel in one of the bung holes and stacked about a dozen 5gal buckets on the stone boat, hitched up the team and headed for the wood. As we wound our way along the roadway through the woods we stopped every 100ft or so and we each grabbed two 5 gallon buckets and went to the trees were we poured the sugar water from the buckets on the trees into our 5gal buckets and carried it back and poured it into the barrels on the stone boat. When both barrels were full we went back to the sugar house and parked the stone boat on a hill outside the side window of the sugar house and used a rubber hose to siphon the sugar water from the stone boat into the evaporator pan on the fireplace. We then stoked up the fire and stood around the sugar house a few minutes to warm up, while the men had a few drinks from the hard cider jug, then we boarded the stone boat and headed out to the woods again, generally hauling at least two and sometimes three loads of sugar water a day from the woods to the sugar house. Once the process was begun it was a daily routine for the next 3 to 4 weeks.(it takes 35 gallons of sugar water to make one gallon of maple syrup). As the sugar water evaporated down into maple syrup the heavier syrup would collect on the low end of the evaporator pan and we used a big dipper to take the syrup out of the evaporator pan and put it in 10gal milk cans so we could haul it to the house where Grandma would fill one gallon cans for retail. In 1965 a one gallon can of pure maple syrup sold for $72. (The maple syrup we buy in the grocery stores today is at best a watery substitute that is about 10% maple syrup and 90% corn syrup). I remember there was a thick yellowish gray clay in the creek that ran close to the sugar house, Us kids used to take potatoes and eggs and pack them in that clay and set them in the firebox. With about an hour the clay was dried hard as ceramic but when you cracked it open the potatoes or eggs were thoroughly cooked and that was our snack while working. If we were lucky we would get a nice clean snowfall, then we would take a dipper of the maple syrup out of the evaporator and pour it on the snow. Instantly the maple syrup cooled and formed a thick maple sugar candy. After the sugar run was over it would take about a week to collect all the buckets and stack them back in the sugar house and that signalled the end of winter activity. It was now time to begin spring plowing & planting.

Pickle, take a deep breath now - you'll need it. I had begun this journey estimating about $60,000 for repairs to the house, and I really thought I had a good grip on what it needed. Then, after taking possession and taking a better look around (it's hard when you just have short periods of time with your Realtor now and then), I upped that to $80,000. I was still comfortable with that figure, tho not thrilled. Once contractors got involved, it kept escalating due to the age of the house, the surprises we're finding, need to bring things to current Code and I realized I had forgotten a few things (cost of materials for instance, duh! Like $8000 right there - but on the other hand, my main contractor is only charging me a cap of $20,000 for ALL the work needed in repairs for the house complete - but still I had anticipated him around $10,000 so I messed up by $10,000 there alone *gulp*) Those hidden things behind the walls and floors are what get you I'm learning. Right now, aside from the structural findings there are electrical issues to resolve as well (knob and tube wiring in the kitchen which will be ripped out, but we need to make sure it wasn't feeding into any other places for instance). And, that situation with the tub, wound up knocking out some floor tiles in the bathroom above (not too many, I think they can be easily repaired). And...we discovered the waste stack has no venting, is way too large, so I gave the ok to replace the whole thing (we were going to replace part of it already anyway) which is a good thing for the kitchen as the pipe was in the way of my counter and I was seriously worried about how it would impact counter/cabinets spacing, however, it runs up to the bathroom on 2nd floor and they MAY have to open up the wall - which has gorgeous art deco tiling on it to do the repair. Said tile, is lilac and black, and the border trim tile I'm sure can not be replaced at this point in time (let alone, the lilac tile in general probably can't be found either). *sighs* For all I know, it may lead into me having to re-tile that bathroom eventually too now. Oh well, the shower already had to be re-tiled as it isn't working, and my plumber has to install all new fixtures and install a new shower pan (leaking into kitchen). There were cracked tiles around the room already and we were going to have my contractor remove the wallboard so we can take down all the tiles, and use some to repair the wall tiles, buy new tiles and use those and whatever was left of the old tiles to re-tile the shower in a new pattern. That was on the list from the get go lol. I'm just hoping I won't be house poor at the end of all of this. I have enough money to do the repairs, but I had this certain amount that I had hoped to keep in cash at the end of it, that is dwindling as each day goes by. Not like poor house dwindling, but enough to make me frown. Good thing my job is safe or I'd be freaking out for sure!