So what about gabby, the brown dog? Did he eat all your figs or chased away 0ther free lunchers like squirrels or raccoons

Haahahahaa! Karen this is SO funny. I'm bursting into laughter reading these posts again, and remembering writing and reading them at the time. Well done! And my favourite part about Martha Stewart dropping in with her dish towel parachute!!! WAY too funny!

If one has a five-gal. gas can (or two) they'll run a generator for a long time. Some years ago when an ice storm knocked out power over an area over a hundred miles long, I borrowed a generator and took it down into that area (calling the owner on my arrival leaving a contact number in case he needed the generator), going house to house to hook up to freezers for a half hour or an hour each, then going to another house. Could run the freezers and a fridge ... but in most cases the furnace is hooked directly into a service box, so was afraid to hook it up, even with the breaker thrown. I've said for some time that building codes should allow for a push and twist connector to be built into the furnace connection, so that it could be unhooked to hook into a line from a generator. It makes sense for half a dozen families to buy a generator together, for they can haul it from house to house, operating for a couple of hours (or less) at a time, through 24 hours per day, if necessary. In such emergency situations, at least some of the members of those families will not be at work, so could move the generator from house to house at indicated. As for the gas stations, if they arrange their electrical service entrance in a certain way, like farmers do, they could arrange a main breaker to swing one way to hook into the grid, and another way to unhook from the grid and hook into a generator. In many areas, a number of farmers have generators on a trailer that they can tow behind their tractor, powered by the tractor engine, that they could take to a gas station with the right breaker system, to provide power to run the pumps. In many cases, the generator is strong enough to operate a substantial portion of the gas station's needs - that would need to be arranged beforehand, so that the connections were compatible and the station be ready to shut down the portions of the station's needs to stay within the capacity that the generator could handle. If there are local farmers with such generators, as is frequently the case, all that would be needed is for the electrical service entrance at the service station to be revised in order to accomodate hooking up the generator. ole joyful

Kamren just loves to see Gabby's kidlets! I told her she was due with more. He asked about them this weekend.