Sorry about the double post, I realized I didn't answer Honu's question. Honu, Aloha! Honestly, I cannot say I have had the pleasure of trying a Hawaiian chile. Someday I certainly will if I can get my hands on the seeds. Regarding your question; I will split it into two parts. First, as far as heat, heat is a somewhat subjective thing. Now, it's true that no one on earth would day that a bell pepper is hotter than a chocolate hab, but different species of capsicum have different types and ratios of capsaicin. Therefore, if someone has only eaten habaneros (capsicum chinense) their whole life and then bites into a manzano chile (capsicum pubescens) they would certainly find it hotter than someone who has been eating manzanos their whole life. For instance, I can bear habaneros but choke like crazy on jalapenos, which have lower levels of capsaicin but a type of capsaicin I am not used to. Capsaicin is a vanilla-like compound (no kidding) that binds to the pain receptors in your mouth. I'm not quite sure what happens to build tolerance (perhaps an increased level of some certain enzyme?) but something makes eating a certain type of chile more bearable after a while. That being said, I have read HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography, which involves the extraction of capsaicin from the sample pepper and the direct measurement of the level) reports on some of these chiles, and nothing compares to the amount of capsaicin in the capsicum chinense species. They have a very high level of capsaicin compared to other peppers and HPLC is a much more accurate and less subjective method of measuring heat than the scoville units test (a dilution test). The hottest capsicum chinenses that I have tried? Trinidad scorpion, chocolate scotch bonnet, chocolate habanero. I have a friend who claims the USDA datil is the hottest thing he has ever tried (out of I would guess hundreds of different chinenses) and another friend who swears by something called a trinidad 7-pod (also known as a 7-pot, the name being a derivation of the fact that one pepper will season 7 pots of soup, go figure). With that, we will see what comes for me in the future but I can say this: the red savina is not the world's hottest pepper. Regarding taste: that's a tough one. I like the more fruity, citrusy chinenses over the smoky ones, and don't like the taste of annuums that much. For annuums, pequins and long slim cayennes are nicely flavored and pretty versatile. My favorites are obviously the chinenses though, and if I were to pick the best tasting they would be, in no order, limon, fatalii, datil, caribbean red hab, chocolate hab (quite smoky but still very nice), billy goat, true scotch bonnet, devil's tongue, red hab (wonderful!), yellow hab (like an incredibly hot datil), grenada scotch bonnet, scotch bonnet, red (from tomatogrowers). Of these if you are looking for something a bit milder and not so explosive stick with scotch bonnet, red, yellow scotch bonnet, and limon, I think they are bearable. If you are looking for something mild but still good tasting go with aji dulce #2. I hope I didn't overanswer your question. To trim it down to five chinenses would certainly involve limons, datils, caribbean reds, fataliis and chocolate habs, but that does not do justice to the wonderful flavor and versatility of some of the others I have tried, which are just as delicious but not as brutally hot. Good luck with chile growing and if you have any other questions let me know. Mark p.s. we did have a humid summer this year, very humid in fact, and the chiles did well. I don't know if humidity affects them as much as heat, and certainly fertilizer and water level affects them as well. Basically, the more stress the hotter the pepper, but I am in NJ so we are not usually incredibly hot or humid. Peace!

Hey, Great news, the last package is on the way....that means everyone is still in the game. That is really wonderful! Try not to be procrastinators next month...hint. Put that reminder on your calendar right NOW!!!!! As my dad always used to tell me "If you do it now you won't have to WORRY about doing it later" OK, so my January was really fantastic, I'm feeling energetic (which is not real common with me) and I have been super busy with work, which is great for this time of year....expecially since my husband started his own business Jan 1 and his weekly paycheck is no more. I have been freezing in my house, so yesterday I got a heater for right next to my desk, so my office can be warm, even if the rest of the house is cold (bad insulation in this house) and we splurged at Walmart and I got a great new electric skillet, big enough for cooking lots of bacon, without it hanging over the edge of the pan, he he. My garden plans are also keeping me busy. Last year I focused on getting the hardscape in, but this year.....finally, I can concentrate on PLANTS!!!!! I have mostly been looking at my vegetable garden plans, since I will start some indoors, but next on the agenda is to order some perennials for my hill garden, now if I can only narrow down what I want, ha. Keep well, be peaceful. See you on the February Post. YaYa

trying, You sure your sellers aren't related to the ones we're buying from? :) Our sellers wanted a fast close too and we were maybe the 4th offer on their place. We couldn't close in the timeframe they wanted, so they wouldn't agree to the sale - even though we spend a week and half haggling over the price and finally agreed to something which was above we wanted and below what they wanted with both realtors also giving up some of their commission. In the end, we walked, thinking they would come back. They didn't. And this was for a difference of one mortgage payment! (around $2K) Your seller doesn't sound like he will budge - as he has already had several offers, he thinks that he can get his price. That's what our sellers thought. A lot depends on your real estate market too... Where we are in Northern VA, it seems like the market rebounded big time in Feb... stuff on the market in our price range is going in only 3 - 7 days this month compared to 70+ DOMP only a month or so earlier! Our place had been on for 130+ days! In the end, we finally caved and went back to the sellers and agreed to close later, but give them a bit more money. Still, it was $1500, not $12K!! Best of luck to you and let us know how it turns out.

Usafamomsq8, I am really pissed too - this being the nicest word I can print. I have saved a number of pages of gorgeous ikea hacked kitchens. It had been my plan to spend time at the ikeafans site to see what other ideas I might be able to incorporate that I hadn't already considered. We are two months away from the remodel and I am finalizing my layout. Obviously there was a financial reason they did this. I suspect that because people were buying cabinet fronts elsewhere they felt it was costing them too much money in lost revenue. I am sure they weighed the cost of litigation to lost dollars in sales and it made sense for them to close it down. I feel sorry for the couple losing the site they must have worked very hard to put together. Sadly, they are a multinational corporation and we are but ants at their picnic, so unless someone comes up with another idea, we have just been stomped on.