wish I hope and prayed to have something I could hear that may help save my back. The only thing that has helped is organic matter tilling it in and adding the soil living organisms. I live in the NE and have a mix of clays. There is the creamy yellow that is on top of BIG ROCK DEPOSITS (size of a small car) with some cracks between chunks. Everything too close to the clay dies until larger chunks of rocks are removed with some clay and water drains. THEN the tilling, organic matter and amendments work. I think the charcoal and neutralizers work their magic and help. At 2018, I have a 1/2 steel pipe cut to a point to do the aeration deeply poking at least a foot down and I do add all the good stuff I can get down and add the gypsum to help keep it down. I does help break the clay into smaller bites with compost I buy by the 10 wheel truck load. I have beautiful soil in my garden and flower beds. I did wish science had made some progress since your notes started 11 years ago. If anyone wants to have a trial with their product on my lawn I will be glad to offer my free space. Sorry I haven't found a magic bullet but I do use Ivory and sudsy ammonia to fertilize and kill the bugs. Love to all the young who are ready to take on the challenge and God bless the soil scientists who are still trying to solve it. My 50+ acres are available and with a little love we can grow a 10 foot beautiful corn stalk or 4'+ hay field. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Lots of great comments from everyone ... to which I'll add my own two cents ! 'Tradition' - indeed I learned about canning and preserving ( and many many other things ) as a young girl, spending lots of time with my own grandma. Now I am 'passing on' those canning and preserving skills ( and hopefully many many other things ) to my grand-daughter ! 'Food Quality' - Living in upstate NY, up until a few years ago there were commercial vegetable farmers offering all sorts of top quality locally grown vegetables at reasonable prices ... to the point where it was hard to justify 'growing your own'. However, in the last few years, between low priced Chinese / Vietnamese / Mexican produce sold by WalMart and FDA food safety traceability compliance issues for the commercial vegetable farmers, the farmers have switched to growing cow corn for ethanol refineries and soybeans for biofuel. What remains of 'locally grown' produce now carries an Organic label and sells at ridiculous prices. Thus today if you want to obtain 'quality' produce at affordable prices the only remaining option is to 'grow your own'. And canning / preserving what you have grown is an essential part of that 'value' equation. 'Rising Food Prices' - this summer's drought conditions are just a small part of the overall food price situation ... which is driven by global commodity prices for corn / soybeans / wheat / sugar etc. Speculator money has increasingly been flowing into commodities as a 'hedge' against EuroLand economic problems, US money printing etc., and prices for basic foods have already risen a LOT. However, food processors and food retailers have been reluctant to 'pass on' these cost increases to retail consumers for fear of 'sticker shock' ... meaning that the food processors and food retailers have been taking a hit to their profit margins. The point is being approached where the food processors and food retailers MUST pass on higher basic food / ingredient costs if they want to stay in business ... meaning that significant additional retail food price increases are already in the 'pipeline'. And obviously the higher that retail food prices rise, the easier it is to justify growing and canning / preserving your own high quality foods.

I think you sometimes have to go in circles and test other ideas to come back to what you love. I know I love a lot more things than my house will hold, and sometimes whimsy will have me leaning a new direction that I love but just doesn't fit and I realize that when I go back and look twice. But sometimes that new direction takes. My dining room chandelier is one of those. I went out looking for a simple, traditional fixture, liked the idea of glass arms that would sparkle, and wound up with antiqued metal arms and lots of dangling crystal. And I love it and the way it looks in the room. I still got traditional but different -- but in a different direction than I started. Sometimes what you think you wanted doesn't work, so you have to look, and if you come back to something you've always liked, then it ought to fit the other things you love. Even if you have to make some adjustments to the transitions. The iron fixtures -- well, I've always liked those too. ;) I'm sure I saw and liked the one you picked in my searches but I ruled out bare bulbs out of concern for being too harsh when looking between the family room and kitchen with the breakfast fixture in the middle. I do think you can make that fixture work and there are lots of ways to pull some black touches in. Part of it for me is seeing your fan as a fan that happens to have an unobtrusive light on it. In the lighter finish, it goes with your appliances where a darker fan would be harsh, even with touches of black. Think of it as a keep-you-cool appliance in your work area and the iron fixture as lighting helping to define a different mood and setting in your eating area, then work on the transitions and little elements that bring the two together. I'm not sure where you are planning on using the fabric you have pictured or if you already have it. A black background floral with plenty of white in it too for chair set cushions and/or window treatments (also wood Roman shades with a bit of black in the mix) could be a possibility that doesn't mean painting the table and chairs. You can put some black accents, pencil liner or border on a subway splash. I really like that paper towel holder, and you will have no problem finding a counter top version if you want to go that route. In the spring, you might even tuck some of the light blue and green flowers like you have pictured to adorn the fixture or try some mini-shades in the soft colors. You have a ton of options. Take your time finding the right ones. I saw your bathroom post -- your home has a lot of charm. I think you are headed in a good direction. Sometimes the things that make a house a home are not the obvious choices. Keep in mind you are talking to someone with three kitchen cabinet finishes, 2 counters, 2 different hardware finishes and 2 different faucet finishes -- and a lot more crystal than she ever imagined liking on one fixture. LOL

Oh yuck yuck yuck YUCK! Some of these are so awful! I found a rusty metal and plastic part in a Diet Coke from McDonald's once. It had fallen off of the fountain drink machine. I just brought it up and showed them, and they said "Oh, thanks". I should have swallowed it and sued. ;) I once found a rag baked into an english muffin. Found a stick in a bag of chips. Claude found staples in a hamburger from Harveys. A couple of years ago (I shouldn't admit this), the kids and I were staying in a hotel because Claude was out of town for a few days on a business trip and our house had recently been broken into and I didn't want to stay home alone..... Anyhow, we went out to A&W for supper. It was an A&W and Country Style Donuts all in one. I was eating my burger and I felt something hard on my tongue. I picked it out and it was a piece of bone or tooth or something. I was SO grossed out. I brought it up to the cash and showed the woman working. She was incredibly apologetic, and said she'd send it off to their head office to have it analyzed. She went way over the top sucking up. She refunded our meal and gave us coupons for future meals, brought Sophie for a tour of the back of the restaurant, gave the kids suckers and A&W mugs and stickers, and let Sophie fill up a box of a dozen donuts. I kept saying that all that wasn't nescessary - I just wanted to let her know. But she was very insistant, so I thought "Well hey, why not?" On our way back to the hotel, arms laden with free goodies, I noticed that a big piece of one of my teeth was missing. It had been cracked before (Ben sapped my calcium when I was pregnant, I think), and I had chipped a small piece out already. It's not even like I had chipped it on something I ate - it must have just sort of plopped off while I was eating the burger. I was SO embarrassed when I realized. I should have gone back to tell her, but I just couldn't.