I guess the fan motor is as good as any to discuss the problem. The one on my car is the original one from Dodge and has lasted 19 years and 220,000 miles. I buy my cars new and keep them until they die. This one is a 1990 Dodge caravan where all the seats except the front 2 have been removed making it ideal for transporting orchids to shows and meetings. To get a replacement from the Dodge dealer is $160, just for the stupid little motor. The car parts dealers have fan motors for about $25 to $35 but not my particular one which is a 'Dealer only' item what ever the H--- that means. It means officially sanctioned rip-off. By fixing mine they saved me way over $100. If I could get a Chinese one for $20 like you Arthurm, I would, for my car that just did not work out. My main complaint is about the radiator which was declared 'non-repairable' because it has a plastic top part. New radiators (probably made in China) were pushed on me for $100 to $150 plus $70 plus for labor. The fix it guys solved everything for $90 out the door by FIXING the existing parts. That's what I would like to see more of. A much more egrarious example was a repair I had on a Mercedes 500 SEL, about 10 years old. That car has since died and is in Mercedes heaven (Junk yard). About 10 years ago it failed smog and was declared to need a new catalytic converter. The big V8 has 2 exhaust pipes, connected in 2 places which each have 3 chambers for the exhaust treatment. From the engine backwards it starts with a pre-muffler, then the muffler and last the catalytic converter. That's a total of 6 units, one of which needed to be replaced. I went to the Mercedes dealer and asked for the needed part. They told me that the entire exhaust system is sold as one unit, both pipes with their 6 chambers for $1,800 plus about $500 for labor! Again off to Alameda street where with a hack saw they cut off the catalytic converter and welded an after market unit in place for a total cost of $120. Now it was no longer a Mercedes parts only car but who cares, it passed smog and my wallet did not take a major hit. I just simply won't stand for the kind of rip off the car dealers consider 'normal business practice'. Nick

Ah, now you've hit the nail on the head so to speak. The reason I go to Tinkers db first before AHS is because there are more photos and it is easy for me to donate photos of those they don't have. In fact I do that often as I see it as a way to contribute to the "daylily community" at large. I do recognize that Tinkers is limited, especially on being updated with current releases, so go to AHS for those details. I've also noted issues with the parentage listings coming back wrong. For example if the plant you are researching has name "wordx" and another plant is "wordx + anotherword" children from both plants will show up if you use the "children" button to see offspring. I regularly used advanced search options on both db's for doing historical research on regional hybridizers & also for specific plant research. While I go to Dave's for iris research, I find the advanced search options way more convenient on Tinkers and AHS db.

"But actually it isn't all that difficult to know the approved ones as there are so few of them for spaghetti sauce since it is a low acid product. NCHFP/USDA publications, which includes the ones in So Easy to Preserve, and those in the Ball/Bernardin books. That's it. There aren't any in Small Batch Preserving." Well, it may not call itself spaghetti sauce, but there is "Chunky Basil Pasta Sauce" with fresh herbs and veges in Small Batch Preserving, and also "Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce" with both veges and fresh herbs in Small Batch Preserving, and also "Seasoned Tomato Sauce" with veges and fresh herbs that Small Batch Preserving suggests using in "pasta sauces, soups, stews, pizza, or casseroles." So, although the OP did leave the door open to reasonable questions about recipe safety, it is also good to take care in making broad statements about recipes which include such phrases as "there are no recipes which. . .", or "all approved recipes for (pasta sauce, salsa, whatever) MUST be. . ." since there may well be a safe recipe which allows such processing. For example: you CAN use fresh herbs in the approved NCHFP spaghetti sauce recipe, as this email from Elizabeth Andress states: Thank you for visiting the National Center for Home Food Preservation. > question -> Spaghetti Sauce without Meat: > 1. Can I eliminate the celery/peppers completely? > 2. Can I use fresh herbs or only dried? > 3. Can I add basil (fresh or dried)? > 4. Can I eliminate the sugar? For our particular procedures: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_03/spaghetti_sauce.html You can leave out the celery and peppers completely, leaving everything else the same. (The mushrooms are already optional, also.) If you use fresh herbs, make sure they are very clean. I can only recommend using the equivalent volume measures, though, and that may not give you the flavor you desire. Eg., instead of 2 TBSP dried oregano, use 2 TBSP minced fresh oregano. I do not have enough information to know the upper limit on how much fresh to add, so that's all I can suggest without testing. (which we cannot do). You can use basil as a substitute for one of the other herbs (eg, you may not want the parsley with basil). Or, if you are leaving out the celery and peppers completely, you could add 2 to 4 TBSP of basil. Yes, you can eliminate the sugar in this recipe. The chopped celery and/or peppers and the sugar add a little moisture/liquid in many recipes. In this particular sauce, however, it is cooked down to thickened consistency anyway, so the amount of liquid that would be added by these ingredients would not be important as it might be in other types of food products/mixtures. Best wishes, Elizabeth Andress -------------------------------------- Elizabeth L. Andress, Ph.D. Project Director, National Center for HFP Professor and Extension Food Safety Specialist Department of Foods and Nutrition The University of Georgia 208 Hoke Smith Annex Athens, GA 30602-4356 Phone: (706) 542-3773 FAX: (706) 542-1979 -----------------------------------------------

I think along with having great tasting water the quabbin is absolutely huge. I don't remember the MWRA ever having restrictions when all the towns around us had big signs about water bans. It's kind of a waste dumping good water on the lawn but the quabbin is nearly limitless when compared to the current population and use. My town now is all private wells so they can't institute bans but they ask folks to be reasonable in their use.