I too have Bianco Antico. It's faaaabulous. It really goes with a lot of colors. You can put pear green with it (which is my accent color in my house), chocolate brown, creams, whites, silver, gray, taupe, etc. etc. It is one of those granites that although it is busy, it is really open to a variety of decorating ideas. I struggled with my backsplash for quite some time with this granite. Yes, I think I'm close to being blacklisted on GW for all of my questions. But as I was closing in on the final tile--a miracle happened--I won a backsplash after entering my kitchen in a contest. The tile I won is perfect for my space. Bianco Antico varies from slab to slab--no matter what the fabricator says. I did not want one that had a lot of black and taupe in it. Mine is primarily brown, with taupes and grays in it. Here's a picture of mine: oh and another:

Of course, if you don't like it, it has to be a right wing conspiracy. Lol From the link I left above ~ American Council on Science and Health: "Additionally, the evidence regarding the effect of DDT on eggshell thinning among wild birds is contradictory at best. The environmentalist literature claims that the birds threatened directly by the insecticide were laying eggs with thin shells. These shells, say the environmentalists, would eventually become so fragile that the eggs would break, causing a decline in bird populations, particularly among raptors (birds of prey). In 1968 two researchers, Drs. Joseph J. Hickey and Daniel W. Anderson, reported that high concentrations of DDT were found in the eggs of wild raptor populations. The two concluded that increased eggshell fragility in peregrine falcons, bald eagles, and ospreys was due to DDT exposure.9 Dr. Joel Bitman and associates at the U.S. Department of Agriculture likewise determined that Japanese quail fed DDT produced eggs with thinner shells and lower calcium content.10 In actuality, however, declines in bird populations either had occurred before DDT was present or had occurred years after DDT’s use. A comparison of the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Counts between 1941 (pre-DDT) and 1960 (after DDT’s use had waned) reveals that at least 26 different kinds of birds became more numerous during those decades, the period of greatest DDT usage. The Audubon counts document an overall increase in birds seen per observer from 1941 to 1960, and statistical analyses of the Audubon data confirm the perceived increases. For example, only 197 bald eagles were documented in 194111; the number had increased to 891 in 1960.12 At Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania, teams of ornithologists made daily counts of migrating raptors for over 40 years. The counts��"published annually by the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association��"reveal great increases in most kinds of hawks during the DDT years. The osprey counts increased as follows: in 1946, 191; in 1956, 288; in 1967, 457; and in 1972, 630.13 In 1942 Dr. Joseph Hickey��"who in 1968 would blame DDT for bird population decline��"reported that 70 per-cent of the eastern osprey population had been killed by pole traps around fish hatcheries.14 That same year, before DDT came into use, Hickey noted a decline in the population of peregrine falcons.15 Other observers also documented that the great peregrine decline in the eastern United States occurred long before any DDT was present in the environment.16,17 In Canada peregrines were observed to be “reproducing normally” in the 1960s even though their tissues contained 30 times more DDT than did the tissues of the midwestern peregrines allegedly being extirpated by the chemical.18 And in Great Britain, in 1969, a three-year government study noted that the decline of peregrine falcons in Britain had ended in 1966 even though DDT levels were as abundant as ever. The British study concluded that “There is no close correlation between the decline in population of predatory birds, particularly the peregrine falcon and the sparrow hawk, and the use of DDT.”19 In addition, later research refuted the original studies that had pointed to DDT as a cause for eggshell thinning. After reassessing their findings using more modern methodology, Drs. Hickey and Anderson admitted that the egg extracts they had studied contained little or no DDT and said they were now pursuing PCBs, chemicals used as capacitor insulators, as the culprit.20 When carefully reviewed, Dr. Bitman’s study revealed that the quail in the study were fed a diet with a calcium content of only 0.56 percent (a normal quail diet consists of 2.7 percent calcium). Calcium deficiency is a known cause of thin eggshells.21��"23 After much criticism, Bitman repeated the test, this time with sufficient calcium levels. The birds produced eggs without thinned shells.24 After many years of carefully controlled feeding experiments, Dr. M. L. Scott and associates of the Department of Poultry Science at Cornell University “found no tremors, no mortality, no thinning of eggshells and no interference with reproduction caused by levels of DDT which were as high as those reported to be present in most of the wild birds where ‘catastrophic’ decreases in shell quality and reproduction have been claimed.”23 In fact, thinning eggshells can have many causes, including season of the year, nutrition (in particular insufficient calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, and manganese), temperature rise, type of soil, and breeding conditions (e.g., sunlight and crowding)." Al

I very much like both Asian and native persimmons, but I think they are very different. I wouldn't expect them to be very similar except in appearance of the fruit. If I were looking particularly for late persimmons, Rosseyanka and Tecumseh come to mind. Check out the link below for a ripening order list of Edible Landscaping's persimmons. Edited to add: it seems to me there's more of a difference between the native persimmons and rosseyanka in terms of the fresh eating season than EL's list suggests. My impression is that the rosseyanka season extends well beyond any of the natives. I know I got to eat Rosseyanka's off EL's tree (i.e. at EL) in mid-December. Perhaps it's just that they ripen earlier than December but hold on the tree better than the natives. Here is a link that might be useful: scroll down about mid-way for ripening order chart This post was edited by cousinfloyd on Sat, Jan 3, 15 at 18:11

Sam: Agree with you that biochar is low-level oxygen and slow-burning. Here's an excerpt from below link: "Without sophisticated kilns and ovens to produce modern biochar, this ancient material was likely made by setting alight a pile of organic material before covering it with dirt to eliminate oxygen but hold in the heat from the fire which, in turn, baked the organic matter. http://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleId=183 The above link is worth clicking, it shows vigorous plants grown with biochar, versus without. The reason why biochar is better than wood-ash? It's like cooking food with a slow-cooker (crock-pot), versus burning food on a hot fire. Slow-cooking retains more nutrients, versus LESS nutrients with fast burning & lots of oxygen. When my neighbor burned wood in a open-fire-pit, the heat was so intense that it converted our heavy-black-clay into reddish clay. Nutrients in foods are destroyed at high temp, same with wood-ash: less nutrients than biochar.