Mike I love tall guys roflmao. I wonder what they see way up there?? Glad you are still bored. Well...wish you weren't but it is to our advantage :-) First year growing MG trees and I just love them! Funny thou on how different they also grow depending on where they are located at. In the ground or pots...all day sun or more shade. Lucy

You are so lucky having that lake view and that mountain view and improved on that even with your beautiful plantings, congratulations! But living on a city lot, we can also improve, I only have a little pond and a lot of hostas, improving on that. Bernd

Mine nook will be U shaped because I wanted bay windows. Here is a quick sketch of that section of my floor-plan. . I don't recall exact dimensions except for the ones I've shown and I only remember these because I insisted that all aisle-ways to be plenty wide enough for a wheelchair to pass through. I too wanted a 'country kitchen' and figured there was nothing more country than a built-in corner bench-seating under the windows in the nook. Besides DH and I always choose booth seating whenever we go out to eat so I figured we might as well have a 'booth' in the house. The linked picture is sort of what the bench will look like. Regular chairs on the other two sides will give people who don't like booth seating other options. Note that I decided on a peninsula for my kitchen instead of an island because, much as I enjoy chatting with guests while I cook, I would really rather NOT have them underfoot. Always afraid I'll burn someone moving a hot pot or something! I'm hoping the peninsula with the raised bar will tend to be a natural barrier so guests will gather in the fairly expansive nook area and stay OUT of the business end of the kitchen which I made fairly compact to minimize steps while working and also to discourage other people from standing around in that space. The two long sections of the raised bar are almost 5 ft each and the short section is about 30" long so that's plenty of space for 5 bar-stools for kibitzers to sit at. BTW, our Great Room will be large enough for a formal dining area but the jury is still out on whether we will actually buy a dining set to go there or just use the space in other ways. Between the nook and the bar seating we should have plenty of dining spaces and we're not exactly big on formal dinners either. Here is a link that might be useful:

Nothing. After a couple of hours' sleep, I was in the garden a bit before 8 (it rained some last night, but not muddy) picking regular peas and edible-pod ones, green beans and lettuce to take to the two churches that I attend, one at ten and the other at 10:30. After clean-up ... it was just 11 when I got out of here, dropped the tray of veggies at the 10:30 one just before service was over, got to the second just before 11:30, when not only service but much of coffee hour was over, with some heading home. So ... I had coffee and a few cookies just before noon. Canadians will know what "Tim-bits" are ... (Tim Hortons, nation-wide popular coffee house, carries donut holes, calls them "Tim-bits" which one can purchase as singles, by the few or by the box) ... well ... I've found that they have donut-holes at one No Frills store in town (and a couple don't seem to) so I bought a box and had several with milk when I returned home in the early afternoon. Did someone say, "Not very balanced and nutritious a diet, that"? Guilty as charged, I guess. A few days ago I put three heaping tablespoons of Cream of Wheat into a bowl with water and salt, microwaved it for 2? 3? min. Not enough water, I guess - usually it cooks around the edge, still gruelly in the middle, needs a stir and another shot. This time, it was thick and dry. It took me several minutes, after adding water, of gentle, stroking stirring to get the lumps cleared out. We've had a rainy, cool spring and start of summer, with crops delayed. I was pleased the other day to see that my turnips were growing well, but when friend and I looked at them today, some tops were drooping - they were rotting at the top. Little black bugs had got into them and several were soft and mushy inside, largely eaten away. We have a gardening guru on phone-in over province-wide section of national radio every Monday, but tomorrow's a holiday so he may be in on Tuesday, so I'll try to get through to find out what I need do to combat the little devils. Also, almost didn't plant cucumbers, as for three years their leaves have turned golden, then go brown and crispy - from blight, they say - just after flowering, when fruit is getting started ... but put some in ... and I see that the leaves of one hill are getting that golden cast, again. Drat! Good wishes for a beautiful summer week. ole joyful