This year my pond has algae, I didn't notice the problem last year but I had started the pond later in the year, we've had a very warm spring so far and I think that accounts for the algae bloom. I am also going to get some algae eaters--I guess like minds think alike ;-) For the thistle you can dig out mature plants, as best you can because they do have a long tap root, and then in the open hole dump a kettle of boiling water to scald the ground and likely kill the plant. Seedlings of thistle that are less than a month old can be killed outright with a spritzing of plain white kitchen vinegar, you may have to repeat the treatment a few more times with young plants. Creeping Charlie can be hand pulled, shovel pruned, or doused with boiling water. Kitchen vinegar will have some impact on the leaves to weaken the plant but its best applied in the morning of sunny and hot days because the sun will concentrate the acetic acid in the vinegar while it evaporates. Frequent low mowing will knock off many of the blooms, and thus its seeds, and decrease the amount it does reseed. In my backyard lawn I have a large patch of violets, I can dig them out and put down new soil and grass seeds which is a lot of work, or I can mow the patch, knock off the flowers and prevent it from expanding by reseeding. I still have violets pop up in the beds, but I just shovel prune them, they're not deeply rooted and do come up fast. I've learned to live with a few weeds. I know what there seedlings look like so I can hoe them out early on if I get to them soon enough. But I'm not going to go on a purity purge and remove virtually every weed from the garden--so many of them have airborne seeds that I would be forever in battle to prevent any windblown seeds from sprouting in my garden. It's all a balance, you need to work assertively against the worst of the invasives year to year, and eventually it all becomes paced and routine. I wish I could give you a better answer, but truthfully, if you're going to maintain a natural environment then you have to accept that weeds will be in that environment. Ideologically, Mother Nature doesn't know what a weed is; a weed is a human concept, and we can control the plants in our environments be we cannot control Mother Nature who has provided that larger environment. We tweak what she provides, but she remains the true owner of the garden. T

I don't know what color the bulbs are but I love just seeing things pop up so I don't mind not knowing at all. I had some lillies as a child that popped up every year and I was always so excited to see them appear, lol. John is better today and I am a little better. Got the plants all in pots for now since its supposed to get to freezing tomorrow night. I think I just did too much and the stress all caught up with me and left me open to getting sick. I just have a headache and mild nausea now. The sore throat and losing my voice is better. I bet I feel like eating my candy bar by tomorrow, lol. I can't wait to post a pic of my candles. I really love them. Its the sort of thing I would have bought myself if I had seen it, lol. Thanks again. John and I are fine now. I am letting him do whatever he wants to the greenhouse and am just not going to look at it again until its finished, lol. I don't care if its not until next year now. I like being able to look at the plants in the garage anyway. I might just let him have the greenhouse for his stuff and keep the garage, lol. Going to bed. Nite all.

Our pool is 3 1/2 x 5(+)x 4, with a sunshelf, and we love this setup. The entire pool gets used. I, personally like to swim laps, lay on the sunshelf and float. I like swimming from one end to the other and being able to put my feet down on either end when I get there, especially when playing with my kids in the pool. I have had all kinds of kids, younger and older, playing in my pool and they jump, do cannonballs, even my daughter does a front somersault off the edge (she isn't diving, pushes off from the edge, and lands similar to a cannonball all curled up), but we just don't allow diving and the kids don't really care. We also have a blow up slide that we set up in the middle of the pool and they have a blast. On Memorial Day, we had a volleyball game going and it was great. The adults stand more towards the net where it begins to slope down and get deeper and the shorter people are back in the shallower part. I mean we only go to a little over 5 feet in our deep area so adults can stand fine close to the net (and some kids too). We just decided to do this style pool because most of my neighbor's deep ends are 5-5 1/2' deep anyway and we just did the same thing but only we put ours in the center. It wasn't in our plans to pay extra for a deeper (7' +) deep end anyway, so we would've had around the same depth, traditional deep end or not. If you guys are just going to float and both of your kids are out of the house, you need to think about how much use you will get out of a diving board and a deep end. For grandkids, there are always fun pool toys to keep them busy, inflatable slides, bumper boats, etc. My point is, whatever you decide to go with, kids make their own fun in a pool no matter what the shape, depth or style.

Stranger things have happened. The computer was closed but turned on. I was in another room when I hear a guy talking, and thinking it's not my hubby, he's not home. Here, it's the computer talking telling me to call this number. I opened the computer and the whole page was on this stupid alert. I'm just glad a control alt-delete cleared it. Hope I can clear it for good later. LOL