Rather than one person/household getting one generator on their own, it seems to me to make sense for half a dozen near neighbours to get a somewhat larger one together ... which would mean that it would be probable that at least one of the six would have a place to store it. Usually when there's a prolonged power outage, at least some of the people concerned would not be going to work and could haul it around from house to house to plug in for some power - four hours or so of the 24 (or, if four owners, six hours per household). If someone moves away or does not wish to continue to participate, either the others of the crew have a waiting list, or go looking for a replacement at the time ... or kick in enough cash each to buy out the departing person's share. A number of local farmers bought a generator that they drive from the tractor, and have a switch-over at their service pole, so that they can disengage the power from the line and plug it in to the generator hook-up. That would make sense, for when I went from house to house generating in a power outage in this area (ice storm() over 30 years ago, many wanted me to hook into the furnace ... but I dared not do that, for most are hooked directly into the main service box, and if we disengaged the furnace switch, then put clamps on the line to the furnace ... and for some reason the switch back to the line got engaged ... there's no way that I want to send power back out into a line that hydro service guys understand to be dead! People get killed, that way! But if the householders could disconnect from the line, and hook easily into the generator, they could use furnace, etc. as well ... and the larger generator that several could buy when working together would allow this (not blow out a smaller generator when they tried to overload it). More rain last evening - to cause more trouble for my already blighted tomatoes! ole joyful

I will give it a try. I am using a desktop computer with Windows 7 and running Google Chrome for my browser. Here is what the forum looks like: To get this screen shot from my desktop I just clicked on the Photo icon above and selected the .jpg file that was the captured image of the screen. Now I will add a Hoya picture from my desktop by clicking on the Photo icon again There was a green circle indicating downloading then the above picture showed up...my first Hoya bloom appears to be on the way from a wild and thirsty plant called Hoya Cummingiana 'Little Leaf Bush Hoya' bought on eBay Apr-19-14 that loves sun in a south window.

There you are! I spotted your original post a few minutes ago. It was in a strange forum called "Other" but it's since disappeared.

Flowers, I hope that snow melts fast. It's finally springish here, but our winter, like yours, came in Feb/Mar while January was mild. I'm glad it's been late because it gave me more time to rest. I know you don't like chemistry, but here goes on soil acidity, boring as it is: The breakdown of organic matter in soil is acidic in nature, forming more acid compounds as a result. Leaching out of nitrogen in soil also causes some acidity. High nitrogen fertilizers which are ammonia based can also make soil more acid. Aluminum comes into play in determining the color of hydrangeas. Acidic soil forms acidic aluminum salts which express the color blue. Like litmus paper. Aluminum hydroxide forms in basic soils and produces a pink color in the flower. Please forgive the boring stuff. Giving fertilizer for acid loving plants to roses does help the soil to acidify in my garden, and really helps the chlorosis problem of roses that don't like alkaline soils. But it's an ongoing process because it doesn't permanently change the pH of the soil. So every year my roses get a does of this fertilizer in early spring. I'm not very concerned about soil pH if the roses are doing well. Diane