amysrq, thanks for your reply! I'm glad your tomatoes outgrew this. I just de-mulched mine and threw the straw on some poison ivy! Also removed half the plants, including soil (that was hard -- they had already made beautiful strong root balls), and replanted with some extra tomatoes that I still had in the cold frame. Did you get normal fruit from yours, once they started growing again? I notice that mine have pretty much stopped growing altogether. The flowers that were there a week ago are still there and are not developing at all. sigh... usually I start getting tomatoes by the end of June. I guess this year I will be lucky to get enough to freeze any. Did you figure out the source of the herbicide contamination on yours? Was it the Mainely Mulch? From now on I am using only the products of my own yard for mulch. What a shame that the most powerful country in the world doesnt choose to protect its citizens from the reckless acts of greedy corporations.

Ya, I look at his little face and I think he seems sad. He's so thin and his eyes are so big in his little head. He can still get around though I think it's difficult for him. He does go up and down stairs (not sure why now that the litterboxes are upstairs) but it's really hard for him. I have to pick him up very carefully or his back legs shudder - I think because it's painful for him. It's somewhat difficult for him to lie down or get up - he kind of plops down and kind of struggles to get up. I think the saddest thing is that he no longer sucks his tail. The whole time we've had him (over 12 years) he has always sucked his tail like a baby before he goes to sleep. It seemed like this was a huge comfort to him - and no he no longer has that. It's so sad when it gets to this stage. When my last cat died I thought no more. I had two left and I figured that would get me through most of the rest of my life. That lasted about two years and then I adopted one from a shelter. So I now have three - soon to be two I guess.

Okay, I suppose I am being difficult here, but what if you were to put the cool couch against the wall where the piano is now? I think the arched wall would be a wonderful way to make the couch the star of the room. Then the rug would run parallel to the couch, long side where the couch is. Then put a pair of chairs at right angles to that, facing on another, with the coffeetable in the middle. Could be the one chair you plan on re-covering in black, plus another chair. Or, if you are set on the conversation chairs, they could be used on either side of the couch instead. Move the piano to the wall where the couch started out, but not all the way into the corner. Put the chaise down by the front window, angled toward the piano. A table and lamp by the chaise, palm tree in the front corner to the left of the piano, art over the piano, more art over the couch. Christmas tree on the wall to the right of the piano for now - perhaps a bookcase or wine bar there when the holiday is over.

Well we have very nice neighbours, too. But on one side, they have no interest in plants and hence do not *notice* when their running bamboo takes off each year (after they have each year declared they will get rid of it) and it invades my yard. I just cut it back, poison it, and go over their side when they are out, and do the same. Nor do they notice when other ferals that they inherited when they moved here ("we love the green") start overhanging my yard by metres or their crappy palms drop tons of smelly fruit all over my path and roof. I could say a lot, but I lead by example and when I get out there and rake and tidy, sometimes I get a bit of positive reaction and a few things are cut down and taken away. The nicest thing, and the reason I bite my tongue, is that when their rubbish is taken away, they offer to take all mine, too, including things like a rusted out hot-water tank that I would have had NO WAY of getting rid of. Nice neighbours. Now the neighbours 2 away are another matter. They have 3 little boys and they like to keep them "interested" to be at home. First it was a drum set now it is a skate-board ramp in the backyard. It goes on for hours, I'm almost thankful the bl**dy traffic noise is so bad this time of day that it drowns them out. Sheesh where do you go, we were thinking of the sunshine coast LOL. Maybe I'd better just buy some more blackberry killer and some better ear-plugs, and stay put.