From a business standpoint, there is no such thing as better or best. Just as all businesses, nurseries and garden centers fall into three categories, as far as their focus goes. There is the "best value" nursery -- where good buys are the norm but don't expect anything special in the way of service or innovative plants/products. The "big box" stores fall into this. There is the "customer intimate" nursery, where highly trained salespeople help you select plants, solve garden problems and sometimes draw a little garden plan for you. You can expect to pay higher here. Then there is the "innovative" nursery where intense plantspeople take your hand through a stuffed maze of exotic, new and otherwise different plants. You can expect to pay higher here. And you don't necessarily expect total service here. The successful nurseries emphasize one focus. When they try to do more than one, they lose money (you business people know why). Sure, there's a little crossover but it's rare. If you want to save money, go to a "best value" kind of nursery. Be prepared -- know what you're going to buy beforehand, know when the nursery gets delivery of the type of plant you want and know quality. Big box stores don't always buy from the better wholesalers. If it's price you're after, that makes these nurseries "better". If you need technical or design advice, go to the "customer intimate" kind of nursery. Some independents know their stuff (some don't!) and the better garden center chains (e.g., Armstrong) know their stuff. Few are perfect, though. Nurseries are notoriously poor employers when it comes to paychecks. The problem is, they keep trying to offer the low prices found at the "best value" places. If you want some hot new plants, find the innovators. And pay "what the market will bear" for the stuff that you absolutely won't find anywhere else. I'm a champion of "mom and pop" businesses -- but in our area, the "mom and pop" nursery owners actually live 25-50 miles from their stores and local market. And the plants found at these nurseries come from even farther away. It's rare nopwadays that nurseries (which was the name for those who actually were "nurseries" -- places that grew plants) have their own stock. The industry is specialized and there are retailers and wholesale growers and be growers who retail are mostly gone. I've found that it's also rare that independent retailers sell only "what will grow in your area". Almost all have succumbed to selling what the customers want (albeit wrong so many times). Which is not to say that there aren't any. One of the best nurseries here on the Central Coast is a part of a "Farm Supply" store. I rarely recommend the independents around here. And I would like to!!!!!! Bottom line, it goes back to what you want: best value, customer service or innovation. Joe

We bought this built-n Bosch mixer instead of the counter model. There is no danger of it walking away anywhere no matter how unbalanced a load you end up with. It was risky because the concept models are discontinued but not having to give up any counter or cabinet space for a bulky drive unit made it worthwhile. So far we are happy with it. It serves as a food processor (not a great one, it's on the small side and it doesn't autopulse like my old Braun multisystem, but it's okay) a slicer/grater/Julienner, a mixer, including a very heavy duty all-steel dough hook, a blender (superb performance out of that), and a stone grain mill. The pulser on the thing is kind of awkward, requiring you to twist the spring loaded knob to the left, and it only pulses to high speed, which can get messy when you are dealing with liquids, but overall, it works out great and saves me a lot of room in the cabinets. Again, this is discontinued and probably more for the appliance geek, but since you are posting on here all the time, asolo, I am thinking you ought to at least know about it.

Be careful though, sewer is normally higher than the water costs. I just opened my current water bill a few minutes ago and I'm paying $0.00155 per gallon of water. So let's see, if I save 25 gallons per load it would be less than 3.9¢ per load which would mean I'd need to do 11,045 loads to pay for the pedestals... which would happen in about 92 years by my calculations. :) So, I guess it's back to my other point, that the "savings" is a perk, not a rationale for most people. Good grief if I were paying $500/mo for water, I'd spend a few thousand and put in a well! Like I said, bringing up FL v. TL is Pandora's box. You'll get agreement on abortion, politics, religion and the Middle East before gaining a consensus on a washing machine. I figure it this way, if you are in love with a front loader, get one. If you prefer a topper, get one. Use a washboard if you like. Just be fair and straightforward about it when people ask for advice. Nuff said. No lecture or offense intended. My best advice for people in the market: Do some planning and make a list of your needs, use, wants and budget. Consider space needs, physical limitations if any or other unique things to your situation. For some people with vision impairment the dials or readouts could make a difference. Then do some reasearch, and you should be able to find something to fit your needs. Then hopefully you'll have good reliable service out of it too. There's clearly no one machine that is perfect for everyone. It'd be nice if people could at least agree on that. I'm still open to either type. There's pros and cons to each and right now I can't say for sure which I'll buy when the time comes. I just like to think I'm educating myself to look at the big picture instead of just a name or color of the machine. Hopefully it'll be another 30 years before I have to decide!

Bobby in 2005 I posted a series of photos of how my daughter's MIL made butter one day after her DH came home with a load of soon-to-expire cream. Sorry these are all clicky pics. When I get time one day I'll update them into a slideshow. Here are the photos and comments: ************************************** MAKING BUTTER You don't need a cow or a butter churn, but you can make butter very easily within a few minutes if you have some good quality fresh whipping cream. So we saw demonstrated yesterday at the summer home of my son-in-law's parents. His mother Joy grew up on an Alberta farm where, as well as caring for horses, she milked cows in the mornings and churned butter. Yesterday was a modernized version of what she used to do, as they had recently come into a bonanza of fresh cream greatly reduced in price from a warehouse sale as the cream was nearing its expiry date. Here's what Joy did with two pints (about a liter) of whipping cream, a wooden spoon and an old electric mixer: ...Put the cream in the bowl and turn the mixer on high speed. ...after 5 minutes ...after 8 minutes....looking like clotted cream. Wooden spoon pushes mass towards beaters. ...after 10 minutes, now separating into solid and buttermilk Pressing liquid out with spoon. Stopped beating and now kneading and pressing butter to one side of bowl in order to separate it from buttermilk. At this point buttermilk is drained off into empty cream carton and saved. Now to kitchen sink where butter is kneaded with spoon and washed repeatedly to clean it of residual buttermilk. After three rinsings (rinse water is tossed out). Butter is now a lovely golden colour. Rinsing well will ensure a sweet, fresh flavour. At this point it can be pressed into a butter mold. The finished product wrapped in waxed paper, ready to eat or freeze. Joy added a bit of salt and kneaded it in at the end but this is optional for those who prefer a bit of salt in their butter (we do.) We ate this for dinner spread lavishly on our potatoes ! Yum. The buttermilk will go into pancakes this weekend. I will try this when we get home to Tenerife as we don't get fresh buttermilk there and Wolf loves it. And the butter certainly tasted better than what we buy. That was interesting. Something fun to do with small children too ! ************************* SharonCb