It is my understanding that they are used a lot for stable bedding, so you might try looking for them at tack and feed stores - organic amendments are often much less expensive when sold for livestock purposes than specifically for garden purposes. There are plenty of race tracks in the Chicago area and the owner of a feed store (apparently there are only two) in the area never heard of "rice hulls." More specifically: The Feed Store 5400 S. Harlem Ave. Summit, IL But, I have bought alfalfa meal from them.

It will be one solid clump of moldy goo; don't do it. You would be better off using rocks out of your driveway.

I bought the Shark Steam Blaster Jr. - Red (S3210R) Spent half the day Saturday steaming! LOL (This model is very similar to the Rainbow Steamer) It worked well. A few minor complaints. The squeegee attachment was useless, water everywhere when I used it on bathroom mirror. I may try using it again on the inside of my shower doors. Many of the complaints I read was the amount of time wasted in refilling/waiting for reheat. I found that you can work out a routine to work around the waiting. I didn't mind the wait. Overall cleaning the bathroom was a success. I was pleasantly surprised that it was strong enough to remove baked on grease on my stove that I've been trying to remove for months! It took a little elbow grease. A little trick I used was to drop very small drops of dish detergent directly on the stain then blast it with the steam! BINGO! Unfortunately I could not get baked on grease off the bottom of my pans. I need to try that again. Here is a link that might be useful: Shark Steam Blaster Jr. - Red (S3210R)

Over the course of a year I will cook literally hundreds of pounds of rice. Most of that is cooked in 20 pound batches in large cast iron kettles. I also own and regularly use several electric rice cookers in various sizes. The largest will cook 3 lbs of rice. I like to cook Cajun style potatoes in my electric rice cookers because of the "special flavor" that develops in them. It comes from the "browning" that occurs during the cooking cycle. The taste is very unique and absolutely delicious. With that said........... THE MOST HANDIEST rice cooker of them all are my "microwave" rice cookers. I am single and use a 6-cup rice cooker the most. I can cook 1 to 6 cooked cups of rice in it......which meets most of my needs. It is made out of inert high temperature plastic and has a lid & insert that by design, allows steam to "circulate", creating the perfect steam cooking environment. It has locking handles to keep the lid secure. It comes with a graduated cup for measuring the rice and water.....and it comes with a rice spoon for fluffing it up. And best of all; since it is made out of inert high temperature plastic, you can store any left over rice in the cooker right in the refrigerator. AND since it is made out of that high temperature plastic, cooked rice CANNOT STICK. So cleanup is super simple. And when you want to use that leftover rice, just put a couple of TBS of water in the container and heat it backup in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Rice will taste as good as if freshly cooked. These microwave rice cookers are very VERY cheap.......only 6 dollars at Walmart. They are made by Miracle Ware.....with Main-Stays Home the brand name. These do not take of much space on the shelf. Don't let the cheap price fool you.....this is a well made, high quality product and it will cook rice perfectly every time with absolutely no attention. Again, this is "THE BEST DEVICE" for cooking perfect rice every time...since sliced bread. IMO, everybody should have one of these microwave rice cookers. Now the electric rice cookers are great too. However, they take up much more room and you should not store any leftover rice in its aluminum cooking pot in the refrigerator. And they are not as easy to clean up since rice will stick to the aluminum cooking insert. My microwave is used only to boil water, warm up leftovers & TV dinners, make roux, and cook rice. It is used most often for cooking my small batches of rice........only takes 15 minutes to cook a batch......and takes less than 1 minute to clean it. Dan Semper Fi-cus