I can't promote selling anything on this forum -- couldn't sell chickens by mail order anyway. People come to the farm to pick up the freshly processed poultry. We take them to a state-inspected facility to be butchered. I am not ready for that yet and probably will never be!!!! You can check out my website for more information. Here is a link that might be useful: Tasty Chickens

I am still amazed! First they said an inch or two for today, then it went up to 4 inches, then 6 inches which wouldn't have been bad. Then this morning I heard 12 inches and we got every bit of that 12 inches!! Probably more. Pris I envy you! We get lots of snow of course, but good gosh since Christmas it has been non stop! Like every stinking week-end. It gets old really fast even though we are used to it. Of course I had plans today and by 11 am couldn't even get my car out of the garage, I know I'd have gotten stuck. DH is gone with the 4 wheel drive. The experts are now talking flooding again this spring like last year. My county is still trying to fix all the damages done almost a year ago. I am desperately hoping we skip spring this year and go directly to JULY!!!!!!! Now that is my kinda weather.

Lydia, It's pretty cold in Omaha compared to SL in those months. Compared to the early 80's , I personally think the snow fall has been much less. Still, there are weeks where the snow and ice never melt. Luckly Omaha is fairly well equipt for bad winter weather, plenty of snow plows, sand, etc.. Years ago after moving here as a teen, I lived about 1 1/2 hours away from Omaha. Didn't know much about snow and didn't have a garage for my car. It was brutal scraping my car off some days. If the weather permits, I would recommend at least coving the front of the car with a tarp. Sometimes life comes to a halt if the snow is really bad, everyone trys to stay home. It depends but I'm guessing maybe 3 times a winter it gets bad enough for school to be out. Our superintendent is always the last one to call school off tho. I recall last year the buses going into ditches because of the ice and finally he calls school off. The electricity failed in our building, which made it impossible for the lunch ladies to make lunch, they were so bent out of shape. The kids that made it were loving it. What will your DD be doing in Omaha, Lydia?

Blue: Looking very good. Your banana should be fine. Laurie: Yours is a perfectly sane idea. Garbage cans will definitely work. Heavier duty ones will be better in the long run. In our parts various kinds of plastic 55 gallon barrels are available at around $15-20. This is is the one I use to collect rainwater. Olives are shipped from Greece in these and I can get them at local flea market. Search barrels or rain barrels on craigslist, and inquire at local bakeries, breweries, food processing centers, et. The other available sizes I have seen/used are 15 and 35 gallons. In old days, before rainwater collecting became popular, they used to give it away for free. These are tough barrels. But there are other types too and you can make any of them work. I would look for food grade barrels as the other ones you never know what kind of chemicals were transported in them. Food grade barrels are the ones that exclusively used to transport food/juice etc. Once it has any other substance it loses its food grade status. Otherwise there is no difference in the plastic material, generally speaking. There are a few ways of diverting downspout water, managing overflow and stringing more than barrels together. Youtube has some good videos. If you need more details let me know and I will describe my setup. If you are worried about pollution/bird poop runoff from roof look into "first flow diverter". It is a clever way to reject the first few gallons of rainwater that contains most of the unwanted stuff. I do not have it in my system. The water should remain very clear for months easily as long they are not exposed to direct sunlight. Light encourages algae growth. I am always astonished how crystal clear it remains through the winter and smells fresh.