This is a great forum and I've learned a lot from it. Thanks to all those offering their "expertise"! :O) I have been a septic user for many years, but up until 4 years ago, my husband always took care of all of that. Now, I live alone and I've been given lots of confusing information about keeping my septic system healthy. I believe I have a 1000 gal septic system here with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. I always try to use environmentally correct household supplies and I have a front-loading washer and dryer. I also do not use a dishwasher or garbage disposal. There were two of us here for the first 3 years I've lived in this house, and now there is just me. I believe my septic was pumped when I bought the house in Dec. 2010, so it's been 4 years. I have used Rid-X in the past, and not that often, maybe once every 4-6 months, can't remember. And the last couple of times I used active dry yeast, which the last time was about a month or two ago. After reading all of the information here, I'm thinking I don't really need to add anything to my septic tank, as I don't put much, if any harsh chemicals into it. I'm hoping I can wait another year or two before I have to have it pumped out. Money is pretty well fixed here. LOL! Anyway, I just wanted to say that I appreciate having forums like this one, and knowledgable people on it, to help those of us who don't really know s--- from shinola about it! LITERALLY! LOL! You all have an awesome day! :O)

I replied to your post, cjc45, a couple of hours ago, but somehow it isn't here. Usually that means the "Submit Response" button wasn't clicked, but I'm SURE I clicked it. Oh, well. Guess I'll try again. I'm glad you have been spurred into creating a pond, cjc. Every garden deserves one! I don't know why we went five years without one at this house...oh, wait. Money and time, that's right! We were going to put a larger, in-ground pond with a stream, and it was going to be VERY labor-intensive and costly. I'm glad we decided to go this route, or we might have been another five with no pond to enjoy! I've seen two ponds close to each other, with a "bridge between them, planted so that it looked like water might be connecting them. It was very effective. You could even just put some rocks between them, with broms on them, or a waterfall into one of the ponds, and it would give the same effect, I'll bet. I have been to Biosphere lots of times and have known Jim Thomas for over 30 years, but I haven't been out there in at least a year now. I need to get back over there. It's a longish ride from Sanford, but worth it. The last time I was out, the pond area was just getting going. I'll bet it looks great now. Anna, somehow I missed your post earlier. Thank you so much for your kind comments...coming from someone with a pond as beautiful as yours, it's especially nice. You have one of the prettiest big ponds I've seen, for sure. Yes, I expect I'll be getting tadpoles and will have to try to figure out if they are good guys or not. The doves walk around the rim of the pond and bend over to drink, but the smaller birds go to my birdbaths. Not quite as frightening looking to them. Potter stands on his tippy-toes and tries to drink, but I discourage him. He has his own water dish out there and doesn't need to be drinking pond water. He has also jumped up on the edge and walked around, looking in the water. *sigh* I will be very unhappy if he messes around and falls in! My yard is starting to have a bit of color in it again, after much very hard work. We had to tear out so much dead stuff, and I basically started over. I've put in a lot more things that are cold-hardy, and some natives, like Walter's viburnum and Simpson Stopper. I don't want to go through another devastation like this winter produced. A few things came back, but most had to be removed. I think I'll try to find time tomorrow to post some before and after shots, just to reassure myself that it is getting better out there. The pond helps!! Marcia

hello can anyone please help me, i am looking for thomas the tank engine charts and also some wedding charts. this is the list of my charts that i am willing to trade scooby doo jiminy cricket pinocchio dumbo pooh bear and friends bambi sleeping beauty lion king peter pan snow white mickey mouse and friends jungle book bugs life taz landy and the tramp cinderella little mermaid tatty ted nemo hallo kitty lion king please email me at leigh_aj_grant@yahoo.com many thanks leigh

Whoa. Those questions will require pretty much an entire education in wood and furniture construction. Don't be too hard on those salesmen. Their employers are just buying stuff from a factory and don't educate the employees about the products. There's a lot to learn in the woodworking field. 1. The short answer is that neither solid wood nor veneered furniture are better. Badly made furniture is bad and well crafted furniture is good. I wish I could locate the original source, but I've been informed that studies conducted by the Smithsonian revealed that veneered furniture tended to survive longer than solid wood pieces. I cannot find the source but I suspect this is because a lot of solid wood furniture is built for utilitarian purposes and is more likely to be tossed than many veneered pieces which can be highly decorative and are treasured by collectors. A lot of the period furniture found in museums use veneer and those who aren't woodworkers just assume it's all solid. Veneer got a bad reputation due to companies like Sauder that mass-produced a large quantity of cheap furnishings by covering flaky particle board with thin veneers. This is not the fault of veneer that it was used poorly. Other companies stuck veneer across pieces of solid wood then humidity-related expansion and contraction caused it to fall off. Solid wood is assumed to be superior by many because dents and scratches can be sanded out and refinished. A gouge in solid wood doesn't look as bad as a gouge in veneer that reveals mdf underneath. However, solid wood does have a major limitation in that it shrinks, grows, cups, twists and warps as the humidity of the surrounding environment changes. This movement cannot be prevented, it can only be directed. Sometimes uneducated designers attempt to force the solid wood to stay in place to get a particular aesthetic and this results in furniture that self-destructs. Those designers should have used veneer instead. Veneer is thin enough that the movement can be eliminated by gluing veneers to both sides of a stable substance like plywood, mdf or particle board to create a panel that remains pretty much the same shape and size at all times. The thin veneer cuts also make it possible to take one highly figured board and arrange the slices of it into matching patterns. If you ever see furniture with the grain arranged in patterns, it is likely veneer. So the answer is that solid wood is best used in places likely to be abused while veneer is best used for decorative reasons, or for surfaces that need to remain stable to prevent the furniture from breaking itself apart. When I do veneer work, I make sure that I put pieces of solid wood in the corners and other areas likely to get damaged. This utilizes both materials to their best advantage. Furniture that is destined for heavy abuse is best made from solid wood. No one would want fancy decorative patterns on utilitarian pieces anyway. 2. Just about any kind of material can be used underneath veneer. MDF, particle board, plywood and solid wood are all common. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. Your concern about mdf is somewhat on target, many of them do contain a lot of chemicals but that is true for most engineered woods including plywood. These days it is possible to get formaldehyde-free versions. Also, professional lumber suppliers sell mdf and particle board that are much tougher and more damage-resistant than the stuff used in cheap furnishings. MDF: This has the smoothest surface of the commonly used substrates for veneer. It is a stable material that won't change much in length or width as humidity changes. It has the advantage of being easier to work with than particle board. Downsides are that it is more likely to sag than most other substrates, is heavy and with the exception of water-proof versions, water will damage it quickly. In practice, a properly made veneer panel will prevent water from reaching the MDF core unless it's subjected to standing water for some time. Particle Board: This is much lighter than MDF, is almost as smooth on the surface and is less prone to sagging. It's more of a pain to work with however and the edges are easily damaged. If the edges are protected by solid wood, that becomes a non-issue. Like MDF, it is very stable. Plywood: Strong, durable, stable and usually much lighter than MDF or particle board. The downside is that the surface is not perfectly flat or uniform and this sometimes shows through to the surface of any veneer applied to it. Those large, dead-flat conference tables with mirror finishes likely have mdf or particle board under the veneer and not plywood. Solid wood: This is a viable option but veneered furniture made this way loses out on the stability advantage of engineered products. Veneered solid wood will more or less act just like solid wood. No one will get a modern conference table with this technique. If you see this, it's likely done to save money on materials by using cheap wood then applying a skin of expensive wood over that. Sometimes the veneer is a rare exotic species which is only sold as veneer. That poplar and cherry veneer bed frame? It could very well be poplar with a skin of cherry. I'd have to see it in person to know. 3. I don't know anything about that particular brand of furniture so I can't help with this question. If it doesn't specifically say that cherry wood is used, then it's probably a cheap, lightweight material that's been stained to a "cherry finish". This post was edited by JAAune on Sat, May 31, 14 at 21:36