I happened to see this post on "Most Recent Posts" listed on the right. In San Antonio, TX cilantro comes up in the fall, grows very well all winter getting big and bushy, even with a few nights in the teens, and it bolts in late spring. I let it go to seed, and when I can no longer find lower leaves to use the plants are pulled and the seeds sprinkled around. None germinate until fall. Years ago when I first started gardening I bought a pkg of cilantro seeds and sowed them in the spring. Nothing. Bought another pkg and sowed them. Nothing. Hmmm, must be bad seed. Bought another brand of seed and still none came up -- that is until fall and then I had cilantro EVERYWHERE ... LOL. How seeds know the time of year they are supposed to germinate is beyond me! There is probably a term for plants that do this.

Rusty is right. JD dumped many small dealers and now you have to drive for parts. They don't follow the successful Walmart program of many little profits making a huge profit. Bad move in my mind. As a part time job, I service, on average, one machine every day of the year. 90% are Sears, or MTD. I really have to do almost no repair on the bodies, mostly routine stuff on the engines. I always loved my Wheelhorse 312A, non-Toro, but when I bought a used JD316, I have to honestly say that JD has it all over my Wheelhorse. Neither one has nickeled and dimed me, but my Eaton hydro pump did fail on the Horse after about 1000 hours. That set me back $800 for the part.

LOVED this thread, if it wasn'tfor the fact my parents are dead, I wold have thought it was them writing it, my mum used to put all types of "waste" into stock and I do the same, I hate reading receipy that call on you to use the "good stuff", then discard it such as a lot of stock/soup receipy have! I am in family of 4 and we rarely buy the cooked chilcken in store, but we do buy raw, Sunday roasted, I remove the legs as none of us like them, giblets on to boil with carrot and onion peel (sometimes I save the livers by freezing until I have enough for pate) after it is cooked me take the fleshy part and give to our cats. I use the gilbet juice and chicken juice to make gravy. whilst the chicken is cooking I put on my slow cooker and toss in the chicken legs, with storks of brocoli, carrot & onion peel outer leaves from cauli or cabbage. after the meal chicken striped and bones added to slow cooker. Sunday tea is chicken sandwiches, toms and chips. monday is Monday pie! this is not really a pie it just the chicken in white sauce and left over veg. also sandwiches for hubby tuesday is another roast this time just sliced meat reheated in gravey in the oven (stove) VEG GALORE! MORE SANDWICHES FOR HUBBY! Wednesday, maybe enough for sandwiches, but the soup phase arrives! from the freezer! IT IS SO EASY! I am not as you can tell vegaterian, and never will be, but I can not tell you how much it annoys me to waste meat! so I am frugal with it and I let my children know! I cried the day they opened the fridge just as we where going out last summer as meat was ruined, it wasn't the cost, it was the fact, that I try to get them to understand, an animal died so you can eat don't waste it, don't increas the numbers! I worked on farms and have seen slaughter, I have killed a chicken and a rabbit, not put me off eating them but made me look very hard at my useage of them. My boys are 4 ane my hubby get upset when they ask whats this and I say "its a pig/chicken/cow/lamb" ect but honesty is the best policy I think and if they want to be vegaterian I will support them whole heartedly, but I personal like meat, but will never waste it if I can help it.

I really sense a couple of different questions. First, if the question is whether it's "tacky" or something to return bad produce, I say return it and don't feel bad about it. Most stores have a legitimate policy of customer satisfaction (within reason) and if you're unhappy with it, sure, return it. There's nothing wrong with doing a return. Especially at $2/#. Same for deli items or other items. I have a limit of $1.29/# for grapes. Just one of those things with me! :) They'd have to be exceptional to go above that. It's just one of those quirks. But now comes the flip side of the coin, being the point of practicality. I've bought grapes without trying them and same thing, got a bad batch a couple of times. First, it was seeded instead of seedless. I didn't pay attention so I didn't think about returning them. Second time they were just plain awful. Now the catch. It's not convenient to run back to the store to return a couple dollars worth of items and the principle just wasn't that big a deal with me. For me to return to a store would cost just in gas nearly the amount paid. So in my case the birds benefited (who were very happy) and I learned to test them before buying them. I am running about 50/50 on whether I'll buy them or not after a sample. If it were convenient and close and I had the time and received bad product, I'd return it. FWIW, my cousin brought up an issue. He bought some generic French Fried Onions and they were rancid. Obviously they were old. Since his hobby is grocery shopping I said I'd take it back if I were him. He did, and they had no problem with it. Most stores will bend over backward (again, within reason) to satisfy a customer, especially when it's a bad product issue. Now comes another issue: I do not approve of grazing but I feel justified in testing them. Course, they're not washed so I take a certain chance with that and even with other items you don't really know whether it's good or not, for instance, melon, radishes, onions and the like. I would have a problem seeing someone cut open a melon to test or grazing away at the other produce! For me, it's come down to the store itself. If they generally have good stuff, occasionally they can get a bad one or batch. And I avoid buying at places with consistently substandard product.