If you have a slope your better off to stick with a geared transmission. However if you have to have a hydro make SURE that it is a K66 or better. The light duty K46 units aren't durable enough for anything but flat ground. Designations tell you a lot. LT=Lawn Tractor GT=Garden Tractor. Garden tractors are rated to pull ground engaging implements and lawn mowing is child's play for them. When you get into decks over 42" inches in a Big Box LT your looking at an over powered unit on a light frame that IMHO is NOT the best way to go on anything but a flat "not to big" yard. I just sold an old Craftsman GT 6000 that I'm sure will still be running 10 years from now. Unless you get into commercial duty, zero turn units are the repair centers best friend. Children's college educations are being paid for by the fathers repairing these machines. Craftsman mowers have been recommended. I second that. I have not been skunked yet on parts availability from Sears. Ebay is also a great place for Craftsman parts as well as others. If your going to keep the machine for years and want a large deck figure on an up scale model that has the heavier components. It will cost you $3500+ If price is a big consideration buy an inexpensive 38 or 42 geared transmission model built By MTD. $999. These units mow just as good as the $1300/$1400 JD's and Cub Cadets and give less problems. You don't need 20 HP for a 42" deck. My 2 cents. What say you?

I haven't made the Caponata myself, but I do know there have been previous discussions about recipe yields lower than suggested. I haven't had that problem but some have. I remember one previous discussion about the Caponata being too thick and dry, though I'm assuming either that Topp didn't cook down as far as that home canner or that cooking the mixture in red wine vinegar sufficiently acidified the ingredients that testing showed it wasn't an issue. I am cutting-and-pasting a previous comment I made in an old thread. Perhaps someone will find it useful: A medium eggplant is 1 pound or about 4 cups diced, so I'm guessing a small one would be 3/4 pound or less. A large tomato is 9-12 oz. or roughly 1 1/4 cups chopped. I don't have a weight for a large bell pepper but the USDA says it's approximately 3" in diameter and 3 3/4" long (measuring tape anyone?). About 1 cup chopped. If your yield is much smaller you certainly don't have to worry. If it's frozen it doesn't matter what you do. Go by taste and tweak freely. I'm of the opinion there's a fair latitude built in to Topp and Howard's recipes but if your yield is way off (say 7 or 8 cups rather than 5) then I'd be concerned. At that point I'd probably dump the mixture back in the pan before capping and add say half again of the wine vinegar, bring up to heat and bottle. I like Ellie Topp a lot because she offers something "different" in the world of canning and has the credentials I look for in a reliable source. But not every recipe of hers has appealed. Different tastes . . . Her red onion relish has alot of fans, but I'm not one of them. On the other hand, her pear and sour cherry mincemeat is fabulous. You might try emailing her. Hopefully the email at the link is current. If not, I think she can be reached via the Ontario Home Economics Association. Carol Here is a link that might be useful: Health Canada Email Ellie Topp

My dad is planting out in East Hampton - he had the same thing last month. I gave them a dose of 3-10-3 liquid fertilizer - thought he needed phosphorus (it's a rooting fertilizer the only one I could find with low N and high P. He now has around 15 huge caspian pinks on the vine. Lots more coming and the other plants are fruiting as well. It's worth a shot. I also watered with the compost Great Big Tomatoes.

Well, heard from the bank. It's not a clerical error. They said sometimes people will borrow the appraised value instead of the sale price if they want extra money to buy furniture/appliances, etc. or pay off higher interest loans or credit cards. We don't need extra money for any of this, so they are re-doing the loan documents based on the sale price. I do think it was quite presumptuous of the bank to assume we need extra money! Not everyone carries heavy credit card debt...we have none...and besides our interest rate on the cc is lower than the mortgage rates we are being offered! The 20% is a higher interest loan, but not by much than the 80% loan, and keeps us from paying PMI, which is NOT tax-deductible in our state. Thanks for the quick responses!