Looking for recommendations.

Our family camera is dead, the victim of one too many family trips. 

It was a Panasonic Lumix pretty much like this, only 8 years older, and I was reasonably happy with it. However, I'm open to suggestions. I'm hoping to not blow a lot of money on it, so low-cost is a priority.

Thank you in advance.

Um, about that whole "going silent again" thing...

As noted somewhere below, Stately Price Manor 1.0 is in desperate need of an upgrade. We have, over the course of the past few weeks, started house shopping, a task I sorta like and largely hate.

The upshot is that we've managed to find a likely candidate over the past week and have outbid the impudent lout who dared to submit an offer. We are going to be having the place inspected over the next week or so, and if it passes muster will likely be moving in May. It's a 14oo sq ft brick bungalow with an addition, bath and a half, a partially finished basement, a two car garage, a deck, central air, a yard big enough to play and garden in, and a dishwasher (as opposed to the dishwasher I married, as my Much Better Half puts it). Oh, and a nice neighborly widow to the north with two statues of the Blessed Virgin in her yard and an unfeigned delight toward our brood.

Our heads are spinning, and prayers and good wishes are welcome. Thus, updates will follow accordingly. As will email responses--sorry I've been neglectful of that, too.

Any heads up on landscapers who can supply black dirt (the back yard was scarred by an above ground pool and some exercise in canyon-digging), and a Metro Detroit moving company would be greatly welcome. I'll even invite you to the housewarming and cover your first several rounds...

Attack of the krynoid.

And a request for advice.

We planted our first garden this year, taking a run at putting what the charts show was once farmland (into the early 20th Century, I believe) back into productive use.

We acquired books on the subject, interrogated wise mentors, borrowed a rototiller to break ground (just once--rototilling every year kills off essential worms, fungi and other creepy things living in your soil you're probably better off not knowing too much about) and planted the seeds.

Dale3 planted pumpkins, Maddie and Rachel greenbeans, and Heather tomatoes.

Me? I'm the organic weedkiller. Me and Mr. Fiskars, the weed world's equivalent of an axe-murderer.




Mine's different, and cheaper, but does just dandy. Especially after being frustrated by efforts to remove them by hand. There's something immensely satisfying about tearing them out with a tempered steel claw.

I am also the custodian of the flowerboxes. I planted our Joseph's Coat rosebush seedling, trimmed our healthy yellow rose bush, weed amongst the peonies, Black-eyed Susans and the new royalty of the flowerbox: the volunteer sunflower plants, of which we have seven in various levels of height from dinky to snowline.

It's all going pretty well for all of the above.

In one case, much too well. Specifically, Trip's pumpkins, which have spread like the British Empire, unintentionally but inexorably, to cover 25% of the garden's surface.



None of the other plants are threatened for the moment (perhaps a vegetative modus vivendi?), but I need to trim it back a bit to start forcing pumpkin growth and to prevent the krynoid from deciding it must eliminate all of the fauna to create a world that is silent, green and beautiful.



But I want to do it without mortally wounding the plant or something vital. I nearly snuffed three of the sunflowers when I replanted them, so I'd like to avoid a reprise of that.

Anyone have any experience with pruning pumpkin vines and raising the rapacious gourds? Your input would be much appreciated.

And we all know the Brigadier's laser is worthless, so let's check that one off the list.