gonefishin, I should have provided a litte more information. Haha... I don't want to hijack this thread...but maybe people making these cages will also be interested in spacing too! This is my first summer to have my garden up and running. So I can't speak from any experience, but I hope that my soil and setup will work out very well. It should be very fertile soil. Here is my setup: Raised garden bed: 20 feet long x 40 inches wide x 16 inches deep (made with split-face cinderblocks 2 high). Soil: I made my own with some inspiration from Mel's mix and SFG. Here is my mix... 1/12 part vermiculite. 1/6 part Soil Pep (Mostly decomposed bark/wood chips). 1/6 part compost from landfill (made from trees, bark, grass clippings, various greens composted for 1 year+). 1/4 part Nutri-Mulch (Turkey manure composted with wood chips). 1/3 part Peat Moss. I actually took the time to mix all of the above with a cement mixer before filling my raised bed with it. So it is well mixed and hopefully provide a lot of nutrients. Drainage should be great as well as water retention. I tilled the soil under my beds (silty-clay loam) before adding my soil. Climate, I live in UTAH near SLC. We are very dry here and pretty warm in the summer (90's usually). I wonder if I should consider one of korney19's triangle cages. If those are 10 feet total then I assume they are a little over 3 feet per side. That would fit about perfectly in my 40 inch space... Thanks again for any help. And sorry to hijack this thread with some of my questions slightly off-topic! (Although hopefully helpful to others as well)

i have travertine flooring in the kitchen, hallway, foyer, laundry room and all the bathrooms. I only used hot water and a mop or by hand for the first four years or so. i never felt like the floor was clean, so i started to use just a drop of floor cleaner, and just a drop, and this probably made no difference in cleaning the floor. We had the floor resealed a year ago; i'm on the fence about how often to have this done; I hear so many different stories. My friend bought the Shark Steam Mop and after four months of debating whether to buy it or not, i did and it really cleans the floors well. After mopping it four times, over 3 weeks, the pads are not as black anymore. The only problem is that I have streaks and I'm not sure if it's because of the stone; my friend has tile and never has streaks and we both use distilled water. As far as pitting, it's been almost six years that we had the floor installed and we are just now starting to see pitting. I was told this will happen over time. We have the stone that is very smooth (honed?) and the holes had been filled in and over time, they start to pit.

Yes, she's the same daughter from "way back when". Time certainly flies, doesn't it? She never had any issues from her peers in high school regarding being a smart or a hard working girl, or being geared towards STEM. She's well-rounded. Not musical, though she was in the ensemble for the school musicals. Very athletic. An "All Star" in Field hockey, An All Star, All-State and Academic All American in lacrosse. Team MVP for both sports. No issues in college either in terms of her being committed to her academics. A nice transition for her in her freshman year is that she was in the "honors dorm". So she was surrounded by serious students. But they also knew how to party. And they certainly did! She really is on her way, so to speak. In some ways it's easy, in that a STEM-type education easily leads into a STEM-type of profession down the road. My son is the complete opposite. Very musical, in a few bands, he was the lead in the high school musicals, etc. Also athletic. Also team captain, team MVP, etc. While he is intelligent and does well academically, he does well "when he wants to". He's totally a liberal arts kind of guy. Zero, and I mean ZERO interest in STEM. After his freshman year in college, he took a year off to go out-of-country to do volunteer work. He's back in school now. I wont say he's disillusioned...but he's trying to put together "liberal arts education" with "career after graduation" and he's seeing that they don't line up as well as a STEM-education does. There's always the argument that a liberal arts education is just that...a basis for a well-rounded education. He's a prolific reader. While he's on a path, and doing well on the path that he is on, he's trying to figure out where the path leads. So he's still searching. But yes, we are empty-nesters! Good and bad. Miss the kids, but it's fun being adult-ish again. We're not sure what we're going to do long-term with regards to the house. I love this house, the grounds, everything. It's all "us". But I could move. I just have no idea where to move to! My only requirement would be to remain on the water. Ocean, lake, whatever. Both kids have said if we ever sell this house that they want their bedrooms "pulled out of the house" for their children to eventually sleep in. lol. I told them I'll build them new ones. Good news is long-term the kids want to live near us, or want us to live near them. So we'll see how things shake out down the road. Back on your shower topic! If you want to do a mudded pan, you can make your own pitch strips. For example, let's say you're going to use the Laticrete flanged drain. It needs 1-1/4" of mud under the flange. If your drain is off-center, no worries: 1) Take the longest drain-to-wall (not drain-to-corner) measurement. Let's say it's 30". For a code-minimum 1/4" per foot pitch over that 2-1/2' run, you need 5/8ths inch of elevation change. 2) Add 5/8" to 1-1/4" and you'll have a perimeter elevation of 1-7/8", or 1-7/8" thick of mud at the base of each wall. Now the steepest pitch you can have by code is 1/2" per foot. So as long as none of your other wall-to-drain distances are less than half (3) Make your screed strips that will run from the drain flange to the walls or from the drain to the corners. Your screed strips will all go from 1-7/8" tall at the walls (including corners) to 1-1/4" tall at the drain. No matter what their length they will all be 1-7/8" tall at the wall and 1-1/4" tall at the drain. Since your drain is slightly off-center, the four different "triangular-shaped" parts of the floor that make up the inverted pyramid will have slightly different pitches from one another, but each pitched part will be in it's own plane. And you'll have a consistent mud depth around the perimeter of the shower. If you used those manufactured pitch strips, you'd have the same pitch (1/4" per foot throughout) on all four sloped parts of your floor, but the depth of the mud at the walls would vary throughout the shower. So your bottom course of wall tile would have to be scribed for it to fit. Easiest way to make your sloped screed strips is to rip the required slope on a table saw. It's very easy with a home-made scrap wood tapering jig. Some folk like to have a perimeter screed strip (in your case 1-7/8" tall) around the entire perimeter of the shower. They pack the mud against that, then pull the strip, and fill in the gap with mud and pack the gap full. If you do that I recommend tapering one side of the strip (wider at the top, narrower on the bottom), it's easier to pull a tapered strip out of packed mud than a rectangular shaped strip. So: Pack your perimeter mud. Pack your drain flange mud. Fill in the remainder, using the screed strips as your guide. Pull the strips, fill and pack the gaps. Clear as (deck) mud?

Lynn, all the feelings you're encountering, and more, are very, very normal and something that many others go through. As a former military wife, and present day military mother, I can relate to every thought and emotion that you're presently experiencing. My son is in the Air Force, as his dad used to be, and has been deployed to Iraq four times, twice for tours lasting over a year in duration. He's also done duty in Afghanistan and been deployed to other "hot" areas in the past that aren't mentionable. His military service was the key reason why my husband and I raised our grandson, my divorced son's child, for the first 12 years of his life - because dad was overseas and couldn't be there to raise him himself. My son was never a clinger, nor was I, and I'm also the one in our family who's always been positive in attitude with a a cup more than half full. Fortunately, I've always had a solid, close relationship with my first born and he's felt the freedom to make his own choices based on what he wants. Even so, your feeling of loss of control over your son's life is one that I can identify with, and understand, because I felt much the same way when he first signed up. Now it is more important than ever for you to take good care of yourself, and not let your concerns interfere with the quality of your health and sleep patterns. If they do, you need to seek the guidance of a physician for some sleep aids. I found that keeping regular contact with my son helped enormously, and thanks to present day communication methods, this was possible. We were able to email back and forth often and he was able to make a few pre-scheduled phone calls. When he first got in the service he was deployed to Korea for a year, and back then our only contact was by snail mail - nowadays communication is so much easier! For the long tours I spent a lot of time putting together packages to send, with notes, food, candy, personal items - whatever I thought he could use or enjoy. He loved getting packages from home. You didn't mention what branch of the military he is serving with, but I'm sure they all offer similar support groups for military families. I would urge you to find out what support groups are available for your son's unit, and get in contact with them. When my husband was in service, and deployed, we had a very active wives support group that kept all of us sane and much comforted. Being able to share your feelings with others in the same situation, who are also harboring similar concerns, is invaluable therapy and I urge you to take advantage of whatever groups are available. I will say that the situational depression I first felt eventually worked itself out, with reoccurrences every time he deployed again, but having someone to talk to, to share my feelings with, (other than him), was key to getting my head clear so I could continue to function on an even keel again. My heart goes out to you - and my thoughts will be with you. You'll feel more like yourself again, and you'll be okay, I promise.