"but most of the row crop farmers are not wealthy and depend on the subsides to be able to afford to survive" Insteg, I obviously can't speak to your family situation, but I stand by my comment, and have a response to yours. First let me say that I'm not a big ag hater. I completely support modern agriculture. I've been involved in agriculture in one way or another just about all my life. Raised in 4-H (rabbits, pigs, beef). Went to an Ag university. Partly put myself through the university with my own square bale hay hauling crew (We could haul 1000 bales day in day out.) I went to work straight out of college for an ag company. Left the company to go into business for myself, building a 600 sow confinement feeder pig operation (13,000 feeder pigs/year). Currently I own a small commercial peach orchard. That said, I've heard "pity poor row crow farmers gambling on the weather need subsidies to survive" so much, it almost makes me ill. When I was pig farming, I knew lots of row crop farmers. They work the least amount of any ag, and make the most money. They are very good at wailing about how poor they are (and paying their help very little) but most of them drive new 4X4 pickups, live in nice houses, take nice vacations, and have lots of very nice equipment. I can't remain unemotional in discussing this because I was so close to the situation. I lived it. I worked my butt off building a pig farm out of nothing. I worked 60 hrs./week with one day off every other week for years. At times I worked 80 hrs. week. I received no subsidies. Row crop farmers were busy during planting and harvest (in their air conditioned tractors and combines) but most of the time they had plenty of time to shoot the bull in the coffee shop. Most of the ones I knew got their businesses by inheriting large chunks of land or equipment. Wish I could be so lucky. Anytime there is a drought or wet spring (which delays planting) the local news show row crop farmers wining about how risky or tough it is to farm. They always talk about how tough the bad year is, completely forgetting the 100s of thousands of dollars they made the previous years. They already pay the least in taxes (all the while complaining about it) and use the most rural services. I know one who doesn't pay annual MO property tax on his grain in storage. I doubt very few do. Property tax was paid on our livestock BTW. A simple Google search will confirm row croppers make lots of money on average (not to mention the millions of dollars of assets they own) while most of them work less hours than the rest of the population . The link below illustrates corn and soybean farmers in IL made on average $177,000 for the 5 years 2006 thru 2010. In 2011, average income was more than $200,000. Keep in mind the average household income for the rest of Americans during that time period was b/t 40 and 50K. I don't want an single bloody dollar of my tax money going to subsidies for row crop farmers. They can take their sob stories to someone who gives a damn. Here is a link that might be useful: Corn/soybean farm incomes will top 200K for 2011

Mine is about 10 years old; very winter hardy without hardly any winter dieback. It is very tall; about 6-7' and sometimes requires the help of additional staking when it puts up new, tender basals. It is one of the first to break dormancy in the spring and bloom, and is covered with deep dark red blossoms, blooms sporadically thoroughout the summer, and then has a nice fall flush. My chief complaint is that the Japanese beetles are really drawn to this shrub, and immediately devour any summer and fall blossoms and chew up the foliage pretty bad. You will not need to prune this rose very much; just cut out the dead wood in the spring, but it does require lots of room to grow because it gets big. The only winter protection it gets is oak mulch at its feet. I purchased this rose from Jungs as a bareroot. -terry

when i was in college i too could not get help because i moved out at 18, to make it worse i had to make good $$ to support myself in chicago. my parents were CPA's, they could easily afford it but i would not study finance/accounting so i was left out. i ended up working full time, going to school part-time and by the time i turned 24 was making too much $$ to qualify and had become accustomed to finer things and couldn't cut back on the work $$. took me forever to finish but i paid it off w/in each semester, took out no loans and finished w/ a house full of designer clothes and furniture lol. i got no counseling in high school about financial aid or scholarships, even thou i graduated in the top 3% of my class and would have done things very differently if i had known better. growing up in a family of accountants i was improperly steered away from loans or credit cards of any kind. i would have taken out a loan and gone to school full-time and tried to find scholarships. oh well i learned ALOT and have done very well for myself and really i mean by myself lol. my dh started back to college a few yrs ago part-time to change degrees. luckily his county job paid for 2 classes a semester and he did that for 4 yrs while working full-time. he recently left his job and starts going full-time this mon. working on an accelerated masters (dual BS/MS) in engineering. we make too much $$ to qualify for anything but stafford loans. because he's white and 37 yrs old he doesn't qualify for most scholarships or any aid, even thou he has an A+ average. he only gets $500 in scholarships (buys 1 book) per semester. but he will make over $90K a yr when done so it's more than worth having to get $20-30K in federal low interest loans, he'll pay off in 2 yrs. we are very very lucky that we have no credit card debt, no car loans owed, we both make good $$ and i have $200K in home equity plus plenty of savings and retirement. i would like for him to get some sort of reward for his academic achievements in the form of scholarships but considering the starting pay at the end and the internships paying $20 per hr he's up for, i shouldn't complain i guess. when he is done w/ his MS i will go back and get my MS, you can not get ahead very far w/out advanced degrees in our fields of engineering, biology and chemistry. i would advise them to just get loans but be very smart about them. kids graduating today grossly underestimate how little they will earn at first and how extremely expensive it is to live in major cities. in these days (sure makes me sound old LOL) there are few jobs where a BS degree isn't requirred and once you have that job you have to continue education just to keep up w/ your competition in the market. i hope they figure out how to stay in school! ~ liz

AdellaBedella, My Grandma (who lived with us after Grandpa died, my Mom got sick, and who died in 1950) used to say, "Patience is a virtue, ... possess it if you can, seldom found in woman, ... never found in man". Some patience in this case might pay off for you. On a bit of a different topic, there are some people who set up the "foundmoney" system to alert people to money that may be owed to them that they aren't aware of. Quite a bit of that info is available free - if one knows where to look. But just how much more info they have to offer than we usually find at no cost (except surfing time) I don't know. Good wishes. joyful