Around here the corn burning stoves went into houses like crazy. Corn seems to burn well, much less work than wood, little mess left for cleaning out. Takes small amount of corn to keep the WHOLE house warm. I was rather surpised at how enthusiastic the new owners are over corn stoves. Transportation may not be the whole cost, but tractors are fueled with gas and oil, to work the soil and bring in the crops. Tractors are not especially efficient in fuel usage, cost a bunch to produce those crops. Costs that farmer has to pass to buyers so farmer can at least pay his bills. Hay is supposed to be costing more, I know the truck to go get it runs on fuel that has more than doubled in cost since last year. Much equipment is diesel powered, even costlier than gas. Diesel has always been cheaper to produce, now they just WON'T produce it, keeping cost high. Bush and his Oil friends are making plenty of money. Keeping cost of doing business for truckers very high. Consumers pay that extra. I don't know if Ethanol is going to be cost effective as a fuel. We have a local plant being built 5 miles away, 60 new jobs in a very hard hit job market area. Everyone is excited, but for corn fuel to be useful, it can't cost more to produce than it costs to sell. At least the farmers can sell their product, so many were just losing money planting corn. Prices just never got where you could turn a profit. I buy our grain, mixed at a local mill. No commercial bagged food for the animals so I am not seeing those costs. We use quite a bit of corn in the horse feed, prices seem to be staying higher than other years. I think the oats come from Canada. Not sure why they are not local, we do have oat production. Dry dog food prices are higher, even on the junky stuff. Again, I would point at mostly fuel prices to raise a crop, then transportation to get products to market.

I don't know if it is true of this family of plants (Solanums) but in some plants the chemicals that make the fragrance trigger a response in our brains where after a minute or two of exposure our systems block the smell - where the scent seems to go away after a while. In truth the smell is still there we just can't detect it. I would think this would come in handy with a patio full of heavy scenters. All you need is some Moon Vine and you could knock people out.

Annie, thank you! I just got a great deal at Lowes yesterday on violas and pansies for our church beds. I should have picked up some for me too! On the winter view, my neighbors would never say anything and probably wouldn't care. I just know all those beds can look a little bit like an eyesore in the winter. As it is, my beds catch every piece of trash that blows through the neighborhood. I do put a bird feeder in the front in the winter. I figure that will make it a little more interesting. Lisa

When you get to the "lobby" you are there....you just have to scroll down a bit to see a light yellowish line. You type your words in there and hit enter. But if you didn't see anything on the screen under where it says "you are in the chat lobby" there probably isn't anyone else there. Just type in "Hi" and wait a bit. I usually type in hi and open another window , then keep checking back. Especially when I know others will be coming. patti