bboy: The deficits of the USPS have several causes, among which are the funding requirements for present and future retirees imposed by Congress, an excess number of post offices, the steep decline in volume of first class mail, and 6 day per week delivery. Addressing any of these issues is very difficult. For example, the outcry when there's the slightest hint of a local post office being closed quickly makes its way to Washington where the closure is vetoed. My understanding is that the USPS sees the profitable package delivery business as an important part of its future. The recent deal with Amazon is an example. For many years UPS and Fedex have enjoyed a virtual monopoly in this area. Now the USPS feels it can successfully compete with them by offering cheaper and better service. One West Coast nursery owner told me that they have experienced far fewer problems with damaged and delayed shipments since they switched to the USPS. Many, many parts of the country have seen most of their local independent nurseries fail in the last several years. What's left is the big box stores with their narrow selections of indifferently cared for plants. At the same time mail order nurseries have seen ever escalating shipping costs from UPS and Fedex. A less expensive alternative for shipping could well be a savior for a lot of independent growers.

Just my observation rooting in watering - they never grow that much which can be good if you don't have time to take care of another plant. In other words it just stays a small plant and may produce a few tiny leaves here and there. As for a mix, any good potting mix should be fine. You can add perlite to the mix if you wish. The biggest thing to watch out for is a mix that does not dry out over a few days - this will lead to root rot in no time. You may want to keep the plant under some kind of humidity dome/cover when you do pot it up and slowly wean it to "normal" household air.

You can meet and perhaps she would be interested in a first refusal type offer for a later time that suits you. A friend of mine made good money in the 80's in the NC Triangle area making similar deals with farmers, paying for a purchase option later. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes not. I "stalked" a couple of houses, and let the owners know I would be interested if they ever sold. Right after moving into this one (that I'd had my eye on for years), the owners of another 'favorite' contacted me ready to sell. Bad timing. Sigh. I only need one house, but I do pine for that vintage Craftsman beauty. My SIL also had a favorite house. When it came up for sale, they were in no position to buy. The owners couldn't sell, and opted to rent for a year. It worked out and SIL/BIL have been the happy owners for 12 years now. Anything is possible in a contract. It is an agreement to do whatever. Enjoy your meeting and good luck with the medical and the housing developments!

Sorry, just took a look at this thread again and noticed your question...by the time I got to Miele, I had decided on induction, so I didn't give the Miele an actual test drive. I did give it a pretty thorough inspection at the Miele place, though, and thought it was a very sexy range -- and the performance seemed very similar to the Wolf dual fuel. I say that b/c the Miele also has the stacked burners, which I really liked, but the BTUs are higher than Wolf (which top out at around 16k, I believe -- Miele was closer to 20k or so -- I can't quite remember). The Miele ovens on the 48" range were very nice -- the smaller one is a speed oven, and the bigger one is a regular convection. The speed oven wasn't a big plus for me personally, since I really wanted a steam oven as a second oven, but there are people on this forum who love their speed ovens. One thing I really liked about the Miele oven, which Wolf doesn't have, is the burst of steam option, which is great for baking (you can program up to 3 bursts of steam for up to 6 min. each during cooking). I didn't care that much about the MasterChef options on Miele, but again, others love these. At any rate, the Miele seemed very similar to the Wolf, I liked the steam option on the oven better and liked the Miele burners better (also, if you're interested in a grill, theirs was excellent and seemed very similar to the Wolf, which I think is the best in the business). If I had stuck with a range, I would have been very tempted by the Miele.