Now come on Mr. rager_w, I have removed my deck 25 times and it take about TWO MINUTES. Does take longer to install. The trick with the J hooks is that there can't be any load on them or they are a PITA and you must have the deck height set at the lowest setting and the scalping wheels turned. Use one of those super bar pry bars to lever the rear corner of the deck and the J hook will come right out or go in. Crawling under ANY jack is more dangerous than standing next to the vertical deck on wheels. With the axle kit on the deck it stands up with little effort and is FAR easier to work on than upside down on the ground. I've also wondered how the transaxle and engine likes the oil running to the rear while the tractor stands at that angle. Rhino ramps are as steep an incline as I want and they are far cheaper than a Mowjack. JMO

Dang, I love your wheels. If it were me(in my dreams)I'd be cranking up my ipod and singing "International Harvester" pretending I was one of the big boys. Enjoy!

YEA! I just bought Chamomile tea - so that item is checked off the list for now, I pretty much have everything but the Thermometer and a marking pen. I'll be putting the set up together myself, so figure it will at least be an all day project. Dawn, yeah, I usually put my seed trays on top of the fridge until they germinate. Right after I see a few pop up, I move it to the lights and let the rest follow suit. I have grown African Violets before, and they are also easy to propagate from leaf cuttings. Regular AVs are small plants (can get pretty wide), but there are also some very small, tiny even, AVs that are super cute. As a former avid Begonia grower, I also used to grow a lot of them under lights, growing from seed (very tiny, dust-like seeds), and some will root via leaf cuttings like the AVs, pieces of rhizome for the Rhizomatous varieties, and stem cuttings from the canes, shrubs, semps, Rex (which I don't grow because they are just more finicky than I care to deal with), thick-stemmed, a few tuberous (not the large-flowering ones that like to grow in the cooler Northern climes). I used to show my begonias at the local, regional, and national show levels. But that is a very long time ago. I recall one of the entries was a fish tank in which I put plants I had grown from seed - about 10 different ones, that were meant for a high humidity environment, and it was gorgeous. I may get back into some begonias in a very small way. Begonias of this category really do like light gardens because they are shade loving plants and lights don't emit anything close to the intensity of outdoor sunlight. There is a local begonia show around March or April here in the city, of the Barkley Branch of the American Begonia Society, and they always have a plant sale along with it. If I can remember, I may go and p/u some there. The small Rhizomatous are better suited to light gardening. The fluorescent tubes that come with the garden are T-5s. Apparently this is a good blend of the red and blue spectrums for good growth. Mmmmmmmm, a Mesclun or microgreens mix sounds very, very good. Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I am thrilled - I always put everyone else in the family first - I don't buy clothes or shoes, except when I have to, or anything special, other than my coffee beans, so it's kind of a guilty pleasure I'm indulging in. But, life is short, and it only took be approx. 30 years to make the decision to go for it. I'm sure I have tons of seed in my "seed box" that will be suited for growing this time of year. I'm attaching a link to an image of several different rhizomatous begonia leaves just to show that there are so many more types of them than what we see used as bedding plats. Susan Here is a link that might be useful:

We got so burnt by Detroit products in the early 80s that we vowed we'd never buy another American product again, and we haven't. I feel bad because I am originally from Michigan, but we honestly got such awful cars (some of which I insisted we buy) that we've never looked back, I presently drive a really cute Miata, red convertible, and my husband has a new BMW which gets very good gas mileage. We drove a rental Ford this summer which was OK but not with enough features to make us go back.