Shucks, I didn't even think to check Amazon.com. I think mine was $27 with close to $10 shipping. Oh well, it got here pretty fast and works great. I'll just chalk it up to supporting a good company... Anyways looks like I got this pile going just in the nick of time. We were supposed to get some snow last night, instead we got quite a bit of near-freezing rain. I had the pile covered of course. I took the temp yesterday right before covering and it was pretty close to 100F (a little bit above) so I'm hoping the new food added will get this sucker really cooking. Read on for a clue as to how much I'm into this right now.... :) So I wanted to add a batch of food that has been sitting around in my fridge for a while (about a pound of raw ground beef and some shrimp pasta among other things), but didn't want to risk cooling off the pile if I dumped all of this cold food right on top. So I put all the to-be-composted food in my oven and warmed the food at 170F for 30min or so. The food never got to this temperature but was nice and warm when I took it out. I then put it in the pile knowing that it won't cool the pile off! Sounds crazy? Probably, but at this early stage and the cold weather coming back I didn't want to kill the pile's heat so soon. I then poured overtop of the covered pile the products of my beer for the day, which was right at body temperature :) and covered the pile with a tarp. I'll be interested to see if the added food and covered conditions during the rain positively or negatively affected the temp.

Same thing going on over here on the west coast. We have some hope though, supposedly after this nastiness moves off later today we should be seeing only 10 and 20% chances of rain, lots of sun and cooler temps for the next 8 days. Hopefully that forecast holds and we can dry out some. I have a light shade cloth attached to posts that runs the length of my plot. Works well in difusing the impact when the rain is a downpour, but yesterday was mostly sideways. Luckily I planned to pull my pole beans, because Mother Nature helped the process along Chrissy

That is the main reason I have high tunnel. It pretty much doesn't matter the weather outside, things can still be planted inside. I wish I would have put them up on Raised pads, I get some run in (during big rains) but for the most part I work no matter the weather. It really helps me manage my work time. If they call for rain later in the week, I try to work outside earlier in the week. Then work inside later in the week. There is always something to do! We could use some rain. The wheat is just starting to turn. Some people think they could be cutting wheat by the end of May. In all my years, I have never seen or heard of that happening. Jay

Three days is a long time, but it might survive. I've had plants in standing water for a day or so, and the leaves wilted, but they came back when the water level dropped.