I'm not worried about the weather being funky hurting the balance. Because funky weather is part of the balance. I'm just glad we had a freezing cold spell at the beginning of winter. Hopefully that kills off the mosquitoes for next summer. Dirtgirl, why don't you call the DNR and ask them why they took those trees down? I know they can't put them back up, but it would just be nice to know their reasoning. And then ask them if they're aware that now the big guys won't have anywhere to nest there. How cool to see an Osprey.......and then to see it take a fish! We're having a warm spell too. Hopefully this doesn't mean we'll get a bad storm in March. My 2 little carolina wrens are still sleeping at night in a little tuck in the tarp over the front of the chicken coop. One night, only one of the was there, and I was worried. But the next night the other one was back. Speaking of carolina wrens......let me try to post a pic I took last year of some carolina wren babies in a nest in my barn. In fact, these might be the ones sleeping near the coop now. I can't wait to hear those chorus frogs and peepers in the spring. Here's the babies:

I guess thats why it was called 20 mule team borax years ago. That is so neat.

Just think ... ... if you moved in, you could charge a fee to everyone in town for conducting surveillance! Keeping the place in order! ole joyful

Linda, I did put the top of my Cuisinart in my dishwasher before, and it did NOT get clean at all, and it in fact seemed to get worse. It has all kinds of crevices that collect food etc, and it is nearly impossible to get those out - and it will not come apart for cleaning. Perhaps you have a different model than mine. Mine has a rubber gasket that is not removable, and I hate it. The instruction manual says not to disassemble the top. When I puree something, I put plastic or wax paper over the top before putting the lid on, but that doesn't work for the grater. I thought I had a coarse Microplane grater, but I cannot find it, but several things have gone missing in my kitchen, including my favorite bread knife. There seems to be a black hole or some sort of vortex in my kitchen that swallows miscellaneous items. I have a grater similar to the IKEA one, except that mine is shaped like a bread box, and I believe I have stored in the garage, as it takes up too much space. I do like the Oxo fold grater, however, but I haven't used it yet. At least I was able to store it out of the way.