I'm with Edymnion (I'm pretty sure he means proper scientific testing as well). I stumbled across a blog posting earlier this year where the writer cited comments from Jim Duffy of Refining Fire Chiles and the grower of the HP22B, Ed. Link below. Personally, agree with a lot of Jim Duffy's comments. I became very leery of this "new" hottest mystery pepper when the hype machine kicked in. It's interesting that the promoter of this new wonder pepper does not want to put out the coin to have Guinness officially certify the claims. Heck if it was me I'd want to get the certification so I could hype the crap out of it and easily double my investment. Here is a link that might be useful: The Pepper Seed blog

There are a number of invocative ideas out there to solve your problem. Not that I am an advocate for LG Electronics and personally wouldn't buy there products, but they do offer some interesting choices. PTAC, Art Cool, Mini Split system. Here is a link that might be useful: LG Consumer

I say find a tile that works for you and pay the upcharge to have it installed. If that isn't something you can afford (not everyone has $10-$12/sf to spend on flooring), then find a nice vinyl in a stone or tile look. Either sheet vinyl or vinyl tiles in a stone look would be very pretty - and much cheaper than actual tile. Please do not install "different" wood look product in here. And please do not put laminate in a kitchen. You've just discovered what happens when an inappropriate product is used in a kitchen.

Kim, I am sorry it has been such a hard summer and hope things will continue to get better. Making a living in agriculture is so hard---many of the market farmers here in OK have had a horrible year mostly due to uncooperative weather and have been importing organic produce, especially fruit, from other farms in other areas/states so they will have something to sell at their farms or to put into their weekly CSA baskets. Importing produce like that from other organic farms means their profit margin is small to non-existent---I see so many of them appear to be in a struggle to survive and I wonder if every year is this hard for the small farmers here. They have chosen farming because they love it, it is their mission and it is exactly what they want to do----but it seems almost impossible to make a living doing it. Nancy, I do think it is possible Tiny got himself all worked up. I'm glad he is feeling better and I do believe our animals have feelings. I also think there is a mind-body connection between health and illness---not that we can avoid every illness, but rather that we, and our animals, can make ourselves ill at times just by being stressed out. Jennifer, I'm glad Kane continues to heal. I wouldn't surprise me that your melons were carried off by coyotes. Here they will eat them in the field, but also will drag them off (and I have wondered if they drag them off because a car comes by or more coyotes show up or whatever). Back when Fred was younger, like in his early 80s, he'd raise an acre or more of melons, and some years the coyotes got most all of them. Of course, he was growing them on the old home place closer to the river and more remote than where his house is near us, and always had more wildlife issues out there because of it. I used to wonder why he'd plant an acre or two of corn or blackeyed peas or beans, but finally realized he had to plant that many to have enough for him/his family and for the wildlife. If he didn't plant a whole lot, the wildlife got it all. He hasn't had that much trouble with his garden in our neighborhood, but it is near a highly traveled road and likely that helps scare off the wild things. Jen, That will be a houseful of pups. You're on the verge of running a puppy resort? Who doesn't love dogs, though? We had 8 dogs for a long time---some slept in the house and some slept in the garage. We're down to 4 dogs now, all of whom sleep indoors, and 2 of them are very, very old. I don't regret the days when we had 8 dogs, but 4 is a much more manageable number. And, when they all are wound up and barking, it doesn't feel that manageable either, but I love them anyway. Farmgardener, It is the same here. All the beautiful green that the rain brought us is rapidly drying out, turning brown and curling up from stress. It is like the dry wind/heat are dehydrating the plants right in the ground. New brown plants appear daily as they continue to lose the battle to the heat and drought, and I blame this week's hot wind for a lot of that. New cracks are appearing in the ground. We desperately need for good rain to fall to keep the drought from worsening, which it already appears to be doing. We're about back to the point we were before the rain fell a couple of weeks ago. I think if we could get an inch or two of rain next week, that would help a lot, but our local TV mets keep emphasizing that the rain down here will be spotty and not everyone will see the moisture. Oh well, the rain has to return sooner or later. It always does. We have no control over the weather we get. I have no gardening news---it remains hot and dry, hot and dry, hot and dry and is the peak of our venomous snake season here, so I am mostly avoiding the garden for safety reasons. I have noticed the last couple of nights have cooled off a bit more than those that preceded them, but then the temperature and heat index zoom back up high very early in the day still. I'm looking forward to fall weather, whenever it finally arrives, and to cool mornings and cooler days. September can go either way here. I'm voting for cooler and wetter, but that doesn't always happen. I thought about mowing this morning, but there's not really any grass tall enough to mow, and the heat index here already was 95 at 10 a.m. so I'm sort of glad there's no grass tall enough to mow because I'd probably be the fool out there mowing it despite the heat. There's still tons of hummingbirds here so at least there's that, and lots of bees (and wasps, hornets, etc.) and butterflies. At least they are out there enjoying the remaining flowers in the garden. Last week we took the granddaughters to IKEA to look at all the kids' furniture so they could pick out their beds for the spare bedroom (formerly Chris' bedroom when he was a teenager, and in recent years a weight room with a weight machine and treadmill). They looked at everything and told us what they liked the best, so tomorrow Tim and I are going back in the pickup to buy what they chose, haul it home and assemble it. (This also requires moving the weight machine, which is attached to the wall, and the treadmill to the other spare bedroom, so it will be a busy weekend.) I'm excited about having a room set up just for them when they visit and sleep over, which is about every other weekend. They've been referring to our house as "home" for ages and ages, but I think it will feel even more like home to them once they have a space that is just for them. I want them to feel at home versus feeling like a guest. Today I'm going to work on cleaning out the closet in that room so they'll have some closet space too. By the time they come to visit next weekend, they'll have their own room decorated and furnished just for them. It isn't gardening work, and y'all know I'd rather be out in the garden, but at this time of year with the heat and the snakes, I have to sort of give up on gardening and just wait for conditions to improve. Dawn