My words are nebulous, yes -- I think so too. Thats one of the reasons I was trying to find out what sort of words *are* useful. Heres what I am starting with: (These panoramas are distorted; the sidewalk is essentially flat.) Zone 7, Shenandoah Valley Virginia town. 70' x 40with a gentle slope from sidewalk down to house. Mature maple. Somewhat overgrown boxwood foundation planting. Short white picket fence (neighbors) on SE property line with 4 deep "little-of-this, little-of-that" perennial border on our side (which doesnt appeal to us). Mature dogwood between maple and house (enjoyed from side screened porch.)Our basement is presently nice and dry, and we want to keep it that way. I agree that the backyard is traditionally the place for seclusion in these parts. In our case the backyard seems less suitable than the front yard. Its noisier (due to an alley) and more overlooked by neighbors (due to the slope) despite mature hedges, and is dominated by what I call the LOOMING deck. The deck is often heavily shaded by the house and we only enjoy it a few months a year. The back is a great open place for the kids (almost 5 and 7) to play; they dont seem put off by the alley or the spectre of the looming deck. By contrast, the front faces a quiet dead-end street and has good south-southeast exposure. Both my husband and I work at home. When an minor remodeling is complete, my office window will face the front yard. The land slopes up slightly from the house so the yard is very visible from inside. We leave the front door open on sunny days in all seasons and let the light (and summer air) pour into the stair hall. We carry lawn chairs out there to sit in the dappled summer shade and warm winter sun. We'd like it to belong to us and not to the street. Amazon, much of the above I didnt know 19 months ago when we moved here from the New Hampshire woods. I think there were some good reasons to wait to plant. If we had done what we were inclined to do our first summer here (find a place to park the car!) we would be regretting it now. And though of course only a mature garden will fully meet my needs as you said, gottagarden, theres a reward in waiting and watching it grow. Ink, I do have a taste for woodlands. I used to live in a woodland, and now I spend an hour a day walking in woods not far from town. Thats how I get my "fix;" but here in town I feel I want something different: some formal lines, an obvious geometry, a few clipped shapes. The house seems suited to that, too. I close my eyes with the sun on my face and imagine Im on a narrow, low-walled terrace in Italy with my back to a vine-covered wall, facing an intimate enclosed garden punctuated by cypresses and great mounds of evergreen, and with just a glimpse of a distant view. I dont have the right climate or environs for that dream, but it gives you another idea of my taste. Though I like flowers, I really want the green and some hardscape and texture, scent, a beautiful artifact of some sort, and the red flittings of cardinals (the birds, I mean, not the red-hatted kind). Ive already put a lot of consideration into some things: the circulation, sitting terrace, etc. But perhaps I should put that aside for the moment and free up my mind to consider alternate possibilities. Please feel free to comment on anything.

I was watching a news program the other day, when the talking head clearly said, "he has a tough road to hoe." I think hoeing any road would be pretty darned tough. The expression is clearly supposed to be "a tough row to hoe," yet I constantly hear people say it as road.

Having nothing else to do at a wakeful 2am, I took a magnifying glass to the mark on the back of this spoon and found Sipelia which clue gave me similar spoons for sale online but still no explanation for it's use. It also featured on a What is This? website. Some suggestions did not fit, like a peeler and draining combo. The edge isn't that sharp and the spoon would be too awkward to hold. As it is listed as Vintage, I am guessing it was for serving an old fashioned dessert of some kind.

That's interesting @yoyoybon_gw. The Oxford Dictionary defines palaver as palaver/pəˈlɑːvə/ informalnoun: palaver unnecessarily elaborate or complex procedure."there's a lot of palaver involved" :fuss fuss and bother bother commotion trouble rigmarole folderol ado song and dance performance to-do carry-on carrying-on kerfuffle hoo-ha hullabaloo ballyhoo business pantomime hoopla historical: an improvised conference between two groups, typically those without a shared language or culture. verb: palaver; 3rd person present: palavers; past tense: palavered; past participle: palavered; gerund or present participle: palavering talk unproductively and at length."it's too hot for palavering" My mother in law frequently uses it in the first sense.