We used Mohawk Smartstrand berber in our basement rec room and a nylon Mohawk in the bedrooms. Ours were more expensive than you are looking at. As for berber, we had an off white wool berber in our old house for 20 years that was indestructible and unstainable (grape juice, red Kool-Aid etc. did not stain it and nothing snagged it, not even our dog and cat). We were so impressed by that berber that we got it again for this house, but we got smartstrand instead of wool because wool is extremely expensive. The smartstrand has not stained, but it does snag. Luckily, it has a backing that keeps snags from running and the snags can be repaird, but they may not use that backing at the price point you are looking at. If the berber you are looking does not have the backing that stop snags from running, I would not get it if you have small children and pets. In fact, although I really like the berber that we have in our new house, I would not get it again as long as we have pets even if it had the backing that stops snags. We've only had three snags in the basement carpet the year and half that we have lived in our new house. The first snag happened when the dog was rolling on his back on the floor--one of his dog tags caught in the carpet and of course, being a dog and feeling trapped, he kept tugging and tugging at it and pulled out yarns that left a 3/4" x 3/4" bare spot--if the backing didn't stop runs I'm sure we would have had a run that went from wall to wall to wall to wall. We were able to glue the yarns back and the repair would have been invisible, except that cat really liked the latex glue that you use to fix carpet and the cat kept pulling it back up. The other snags were not from the dog and were small and easily repaired, but I do worry about snags every time the dog is down the basement. Good luck!

I always thought that "mtnester" was Mtn Ester or Ester who lived on a mountain. Abbreviations are never a "no-brainer", especially when my brain is involved! My name is the company name I had when I was doing web design with my brother, and I took "Publick" from Publick Rage (one of my clothing design names) and "Man" from "Manley Child", referring to Gerard Manley Hopkin's poem, "The Child is Father to the Man", a poem my brother liked.

I'll be getting the regular flu shot soon and I'm not sure about H1N1. I've gotten the regular shot every year for several years since I have lots of allergy/sinus/asthma trouble and even normal colds hit me hard and last a long time, usually with a sinus infection to follow, etc. (Sorry if TMI!) We spend a lot of time with my 80-year-old mom and my concern is that we'd pass the flu on to her. Since I inherited my upper-respiratory and allergy tendencies from her, she'd be in big trouble if she had the flu. I'm sure she'll get the regular flu shot this year, too, but as always, it's uncertain as to whether the formulation is accurate for this year's strains. One school about an hour away from us is closed as 1/3 of the students are out with the flu, and they haven't determined if it's H1N1. It did seem like they hyped H1N1 a few months ago, but now the news seems to be full of stories on it.

Kim, I wasn't worried so much about the shed warping as I was worried about it blowing away, but we built a deck-type wooden floor/frame set in posts anchored in the soil in concrete today, so it may warp in morning sun/afternoon shade, but it won't blow away. It did hurt my gardener's heart to cover up beautiful garden soil that was humusy and rich with a shed floor. Regardless, there now will be a shed to hold the tools. We plan to assemble the shed tomorrow and bolt it down. Tomorrow should be less windy than today and that will help will assembling the shed. Hooray for being caught up on your To Do List and for feeling so relaxed, and happy to have traveling money. This is just your week! Jennifer, The netting does break the wind some, and how much just depends on the size of the holes and all. I do think it helps and sometimes all a plant needs is just a little bit of help to get through these crazy Spring winds. The water heater news is not good. I don't do anything for chicken wounds---they heal just fine on their own. You can clean them with Betadine or hydrogen peroxide, but if they're minor they tend to heal quickly with no human intervention. Our chickens are independent and don't especially want us messing with them. Wounds aren't real common here. If it is a puncture wound, keep an eye on that for infection. Nancy, I'm glad they're keeping GDW in the hospital on those IV antibiotics. It will be better to have him more healed than less healed when he is released. Sometimes it seems like hospitals are too quick to shove patients out the door. I'm glad this one is not doing that to him. About the SF, I cannot rearrange our schedule (ha ha) because it is a family wedding (extended family, not immediate family) and I wouldn't dare ask our niece to change her wedding date now. Don't you hate it when real life gets in the way of gardening? (grin) We just had either our second or third day in a row with highs in the 80s, and with only minor fire calls, so it is another good day here. It helps that our relative humidity and dewpoint are really being driven upward by the relentless south winds. I really think the big outbreak of fires here on Wed scared everyone so badly that they've been really, really careful the last couple of days. With all the rain that's supposed to be coming, I'm feeling like our county may already have peaked in terms of the winter fire season and maybe things will start improving now. The green-up needs to speed up though, or that will not be true. Rebecca, I have no idea if I am right or wrong about the weather, but I trust my instincts and they rarely let me down. If they do, I have enough frost blankets to cover my entire front garden and about a third of the back. so I could, theoretically and if the ground were warm enough, just lose my mind and plant everything now. So far this year I haven't covered up anything a single time, except I put a little mulch and autumn leaves over the volunteer pineapple sage plants on a couple of nights when we were going to drop below freezing, and they survived. I suppose the fact that pineapple sage reseeded and the volunteers are growing here already is another sign that our soil is plenty warm. Y'all have to remember, though, that I am really, really far south compared to the rest of you. My weather is more like the weather in Dallas than in OKC, and I plant accordingly. I won't plant everything now, but it is tempting. Not only have four o'clocks sprouted this week (they're usually one of the last volunteers to pop up as they really like and need heat) but so have squash. It is hard to guess if they are winter squash or summer squash, and it won't matter because they are in a compost pile and I'm not going to transplant them and hope they're something worth having, but I find it interesting that the seeds are sprouting. Squash seed will eventually germinate at soil temps of 60, though they prefer 70 or 75 and even will germinate when soil temps are 90-95. Our soil temperatures in the raised beds are staying in the mid-60s and even going up warmer than that during the day, but I didn't think the finished compost that is earmarked for a flower bed I'm reworking was getting that warm. Apparently it must be. There's a family of 7 deer lurking near the front garden. They are making me nervous. They are there every night. They are there every morning. The other day, they came to check out the garden at mid-morning while I was out working, and they were probably less happy to see me than I was to see them. I know in my heart they're trying to find a way over, under or through the fence. I rarely pay attention to the fence on the north side of the garden but I think I need to check it carefully tomorrow because that seems like the weakest section of fence and I don't need for a herd of 7 deer to find a way to breach it. That is a really old fence on the north side and we need to redo it, but that's not going to happen this weekend because it is shed weekend. I've had a flat of purchased tomato plants---7 in all---four Early GIrls, 2 SunGolds and 1 Cherokee Purple that I've been carrying outdoors every morning and indoors every night for at least a month. I meant to pot them up to larger containers (they're in 5" pots) but never got around to it, so now they are big, blooming, have baby fruit on some of them and are getting rootbound. So, today I did the obvious thing and put them in the ground. Oh no you didn't, y'all say. Oh yes, I did. I did it and I'm not sorry. They are in the second highest raised bed and it is staying really warm. Zinnias have been popping up in it for about a month now, and there's a pineapple sage volunteer in that bed too. I lined them all up in a row, three feet apart and I didn't cage them because it is easier to put a frost blanket over them if they aren't caged. I did stake them to help them endure the wind. I know my microclimate, I know my ability to cover and protect these things and I'm confident I made a good decision, but I'm not mentioning it on FB because I do not want to lead astray any less experienced gardeners who might decide to follow my lead. Most people in OKC, for example, have little understanding of the fact that our weather down here is more like the weather in Dallas than the weather in central OK. These days in the 80s are making me worry that we're about to go straight to hot weather with very little mild Spring weather. It isn't that I don't think some cold weather lies ahead---it probably does. I just think I can keep the plants warm enough to mitigate any return to the cold that happens. The great thing is that these are purchased plants, not my sweet baby plants that I've raised from seeds, so if something horrible happens to them, it doesn't hurt as much because I'm not emotionally attached to them. Regardless, I haven't lost tomato plants to late freezing weather in many years, so I don't consider this much of a risk. Well, unless those 7 deer jump the fence, get into the garden and eat the tomato plants. Now, if that happens, I'll consider it a sign from God that I shouldn't have planted so early. My precious raised-from-seed tomato plant babies probably won't go into the ground for another couple of weeks yet as they are younger and smaller than these purchased plants. Oh, the final thing that made me decide it was time to just go ahead and put them in the ground? When Tim was doing the dirt work to combine the two narrower raised beds into one wider raised bed this past weekend, he dug up a sweet potato I had missed when digging sweet potatoes last year....and it was sprouting underground. I say that if you have a sweet potato sprouting in one of your raised beds, the soil probably is warm enough to plant tomatoes. The real miracle is that I restrained myself all week long and didn't rush the plants into the ground the minute Tim dug up that sweet potato. I waited almost a full week, watched the soil temps, watched the weather, etc. and made a fairly rational decision. So the beans are planted and the first round of tomato plants are in the ground. If I can get the east end of the garden prepped in time, I'll sow corn seed before the rain falls. Or, if I don't get it prepped, that will be the first thing I do after the ground is workable again. This might sound early, and it it a little early, but that little voice in my head is telling me it is okay to risk it. That little voice in my head never lets me down, so I trust it. Now, don't y'all go rushing out planting things like I did unless you're willing to risk the consequences. (grin) Dawn