Around here the corn burning stoves went into houses like crazy. Corn seems to burn well, much less work than wood, little mess left for cleaning out. Takes small amount of corn to keep the WHOLE house warm. I was rather surpised at how enthusiastic the new owners are over corn stoves. Transportation may not be the whole cost, but tractors are fueled with gas and oil, to work the soil and bring in the crops. Tractors are not especially efficient in fuel usage, cost a bunch to produce those crops. Costs that farmer has to pass to buyers so farmer can at least pay his bills. Hay is supposed to be costing more, I know the truck to go get it runs on fuel that has more than doubled in cost since last year. Much equipment is diesel powered, even costlier than gas. Diesel has always been cheaper to produce, now they just WON'T produce it, keeping cost high. Bush and his Oil friends are making plenty of money. Keeping cost of doing business for truckers very high. Consumers pay that extra. I don't know if Ethanol is going to be cost effective as a fuel. We have a local plant being built 5 miles away, 60 new jobs in a very hard hit job market area. Everyone is excited, but for corn fuel to be useful, it can't cost more to produce than it costs to sell. At least the farmers can sell their product, so many were just losing money planting corn. Prices just never got where you could turn a profit. I buy our grain, mixed at a local mill. No commercial bagged food for the animals so I am not seeing those costs. We use quite a bit of corn in the horse feed, prices seem to be staying higher than other years. I think the oats come from Canada. Not sure why they are not local, we do have oat production. Dry dog food prices are higher, even on the junky stuff. Again, I would point at mostly fuel prices to raise a crop, then transportation to get products to market.

I have an online subscription to Consumer Reports. I pulled this information from that site. Even if a mower comes with a bag, you can usually elect to use it or not. Hope this helps! CU Best Buy Cub Cadet SC100 11A-A92J Gas push mowers $250 CU Best Buy Craftsman 37432 Gas push mowers $220 CU Best Buy Yard Machines 11A-B96N Gas push mowers $240 CU Best Buy Lawn-Boy 10730 Gas push mowers $240 CU Recommended Ariens Razor 911173 Gas push mowers $350 CU Recommended Troy-Bilt TB-110 11A-A23N Gas push mowers $200 CU Recommended Murray 11A-A23K Gas push mowers $195

Maybe it's because of the Gas Buddy monitoring but I can't recall a holiday weekend where prices dropped (or increased) every day. During the week, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday all had drops in areas and I notice it's down more today too. Normally, Saturday is the last day of a change until Tuesday when I was involved in stations. Quite different.

HD and I (with 2 children) have been to Savannah several times since we live in GA, it makes for a nice getaway. Be prepared however to fight the crowds, gnats and other flying varmints too! Also, don't forget the meat tenderizer if going to Ty Bee especially....our last vacation there ended after HD was stung by a stingray. We didn't see it and he thought maybe he had just scrapped his leg on something under the water..but after 2 days of pain, swelling in redness...we began a long trip home to North Georgia. He was in terrible pain, nauseated etc. It wasn't until several days later that I finally convinced him he needed medical attention. The MD was quite sure after hearing our account of the days leading up to our visit that it was a "vicious" stingray attack and without medical attention could have proven extremely dangerous. He strongly recommended when visiting there again (or another beach for that matter) meat tenderizer applied in a paste like form would give relief from insect bites and other creatures of the deep...look out for the jellyfish too! sorry to bring you down,,,,it's a lovely place...and we have enjoyed many days strolling across the beach early in the morning, but found the night life to be a little overwhelming...just be safe and careful...that River Walk can become quite overwhelming and crowded at night! Just don't venture too too far and expect parking to be an issue.