I know a lot of people say you can't start seeds without a grow light setup and heat mat, but I've been successfully starting all kinds of seeds every year with just a south-facing window. Sometimes there are leggy seedlings, especially if we've had a lot of overcast days when they sprout, but I've planted them deeper if possible and they've worked out just fine. To be honest, I see the minimal requirements for a beginner gardener to be a few tools like spade and trowel, seeds, and seed starting soil. Not much expense at all. Like the rest of us, gardeners just catching the bug this year will collect up the rest over the next couple of years, fencing next year IF they have a problem with deer or rabbits, maybe a canner or dehydrator the year after when they get more confident and enlarge their tomato patch. If they REALLY catch the gardening bug, a rain barrel or composter. If they want to get into a competition with their neighbours for the earliest tomato, they can get a heat mat and grow light setup to get a jump start on the year. They can try all sort of different tomato cages to see which ones suit their needs best. Keep in mind these things are optional and free alternatives are possible. I use hockey sticks with broken blades from the arena for my tomato stakes. (Nice and sturdy!) Composters can easily be made with free materials or just a compost heap used. A drum to use as a rain barrel can be found for free from some places, but plastic food grade drums can be bought for less than $20.00 if you're willing to cut the top off yourself. Seeds can be started in a south window using free materials. Someone suggested yogurt containers, which is a great idea. Check recycling bins if you don't buy yogurt for yourself. Most soil is at least marginally OK for growing plants so replacing your own soil with topsoil is optional. For those who have really bad soil, some form of lasagna gardening might suffice. We all want the best soil but sometime we have to work with what we got, yet we still manage to get food out of the ground. My point is...for those of you who are just starting out, don't be discouraged by what is being said in this thread. Sometimes, gardening is just as easy as sticking a plant in the dirt and letting it grow. It doesn't have to be expensive and it doesn't have to be backbreaking. As you learn and get experience, then think about expanding the garden and canning food for the winter.

Here is some info derived from the Sellers genetic pages.The Sellers have done extensive shell color stidies as chemists and hobbyist poultry breeders. Their work haS BEEN REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY POULTRY GENETICISTS INCLUDING dR. rON OKIMOTO. I have participated in several poultry henetic forums. Shell color is the result of 2 genes, blue & brown. ( actually there are many more genes & modifiers involved)A white shell is due to the ABSENCE of blue or brown color. probably some modifiers here to as there are different sghades of white)the symbol for white shell is (o). brown pigment is ooporphryn which is deposited primarily on the outside of the eggshell, it is a chemical compound resulting from hemoglobin metabolism. Much of the brown pigment can be removed by rubbing or washing. The shell is white inside and out. Blue eggshell pigment is ocyanin and a byproduct of bile formation and is thru out the shell, blue on the outside and inside of the shell. The effect of the gene(s) for blue are dominant over white. The effect of the brown gene(s) are also dominant over white.When genes for blue and brown are combined the shell will appear some shade of green.In which the inside of the shell will be a shade of blue, as is tyhe total shell when the brown is rubbed from the outside. There is more, if anyone is seriously interested I will try to help with more data. Both animals will pass their genes, you cannot get white ggs from crossing a blue egger to a brown egger. Most people who think the have Araucanas actually have easter eggers which are a mongrel chicken carrying genes for the blue shell coolor.

Merchandising has always been the art of making you *want* to buy something, whether it's bright green peas or sugar-free whatever. The big difference between the 1880's and now is the comparative lack of knowledge to use the "quiet" foods. My grandmother wasn't the world's greatest cook--actually, it's a family joke that grandfather's first goal was marrying her and then his next goal was hiring a good cook. She would have been a young woman in the 1880s, and I suspect the pantry shelves held very few manufactured foods. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, coffee, and tea. The food itself was in the garden, on the tree, or in the field. Cooking was not just a matter of combining flavors and textures, but quite often a matter of raising it to eating size. 'City people' didn't do as much hands-on growing themselves, but they bought from those who did; and what they bought was the 'quiet' food. Preserving food by pressure canning may have been "invented" in the mid-1500's, but it wasn't a common method until the smaller pressure canners were manufactured in the early 1900s. C's condensed soups were not sold until almost 1900. Cookbooks were rare, and rarely usable for those "not in the know". Measurements were, umm, inventive. One of my favorite old-time recipes: 2 teacups of cream (doesn't say whether that's a 6, 8, or 12-oz teacup) A chunk of butter the size of a walnut (is that with or without the shell?), a half-scoop of flour. Stir over heat until thick. Add salt, pepper and oysters, simmer until done. Notice it doesn't say how much salt or how many oysters, or how big that scoop is... no wonder grandmother didn't use recipes. Forget about vaariety and nutrition - if you weren't raised and taught by a family of good cooks, it was a considerable challenge just to make an edible meal. Nowadays we have good, usable cookbooks, but we also have such an overabundance of already-prepared foods that there often seems little reason to prepare food from scratch. And I think the same basic still applies: if you weren't raised and taught by a family of good cooks, it is still a considerable challenge just to make an edible meal.

I'm not following how your words relate to your sketch, unless your sketch is a "before"? If you are planning to lay out your bathroom with your toilet perpendicular to the 3 1/2' wall, that won't meet code. Code requires either 21 or 24 inches from front of toilet to wall - just about the minimum you can get away with is about 4', 4'3" would be better. Is there any way you can squeeze another 9" into the plan? if you can, it's definitely doable. My downstairs bath is pretty minimal, it's about 7'6" (I think, maybe 8'?) x 4'3" and it accommodates a stall shower (30x48 insert), a regular elongated toilet with plenty of knee room and a 27" pedestal sink with a pocket door. It's not huge but we've been using it as our primary bathroom since november :/. There's enough room to stand in front of the sink and pass the toilet to get to the shower.