Chihauhan desert? Cold. Know your elevation. Short season. Greenhouses and row covers. I'd look up any "local" nurseries and garden clubs. Definitely be some farms and ranches out there. They can recommend varieties and share scions. Of course scions are only good if you have something to graft onto. Yes, pomegranates and figs are grown from cuttings and there are cold hardy versions of both. Know your Co. Coop Extension and Master Gardeners. They may or may not be very active. Online publications can be quite helpful. http://extension.arizona.edu/ http://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/html/mgs/mg-broch.htm As for the USDA scion program the application ended Nov.1st. Try this year. You have to hunt for what is available. And we mere taxpayers are at the end of the request list in priority. You cannot get what is already commercially available. http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/site_main.htm?modecode=53-06-20-00 AZ Rare Fruit Growers meets every second Thursday of the month in Phoenix. I know that is along way to drive. http://azrfg.org/ You can do a lot with 2 1/2 acres and water. This post was edited by Fascist_Nation on Sun, Feb 9, 14 at 17:14

Jersey if you will review our 112 reviews on Houzz.com many of which have photos of the furniture in consumer homes, additionally all of the reviews have been verified by Houzz. Houzz checks IP address of each review and takes other measures if needed to verify reviews you will find many customers who have posted reviews of their furniture having had the furniture in their homes for several years. I recall a few which had their leather sofas for 5 years. Just as an FYI I have Casco Bay Madison sectional in my own family room and it is 6 years old. My wife and I have a 3 and 5 year old grandchild who spend a lot of time at our house including many vacations in which the grand kids stay with us and and our sectional in Brompton Cocoa still looks like new. The Brompton Cooca leather has held up pefectly. There is no sag to the cushions or springs. If you want to email us I can send you a picture of the set. One reflection of the quality of product is our clearance area which is generally reserved from most companies for returns and you will find nothing in clearanxe as rarely do we ever get a set back. Generally all we have in clearance is photo samples. We have sold over 12000 customers in the past 12 years. We take no short cuts in the materials used in the construction of our sofas. Most of our upholsterers were sample makers from other high qulity companies with 30 years expereince. One of our factory owners owned Taylor King, one of the premier companies in the industry with his family selling the business to Hancock and Moore where he continued to run the factory after the sale. After a period of time he re-opened as Jonathan Weslley Furniture who makes a number of our sets under a private contract to our specs. All of his upholsterers were his former employees. We use the same suppliers used by other top quality companies selling sofas at twice our cost such as Moore and Giles of Forest Virginia as our our exclusive leather supplier, Associated Hardwoods of Granite Falls, North Carolina as our exclusive hardwood supplier and Ultra Mech also of North Carolina as our exclusive mechanism supplier in our recliner program. These are the same suppliers for example used by Hancock and Moore. Please give me a call if I can be of any further help. I personally have 41 years of expereince in the industry and would be happy to impart any knowledge I have to you whether or not you choose one of our sets. I enjoy talking to people. Robert

Kraftymom, thank you and you are so right about painting, it is about fun and expressing yourself. You know I never notice imperfections in other people's work just my own. It's true we are our own worst critics. Why is it we have the need to point out the mistakes (most people would never notice if we didn't)? Our teacher has a "rule" in our class...even though she has to keep reminding us of it a lot...."You are not allowed to criticize your own work". Now who in the heck would criticize someone else's??? But really if you don't quite like how something is working on your piece she will try to let you know what you can do to correct it and it usually works :). Using too little paint and too small of a brush is usually my BIG problem :) Luthien Thank you for your nice comments. I too would love to get lost in a nice peaceful place like that, every time I paint one I think I'd just love to jump right in. I'm a little silly right there with ya. Happy Painting, Diane

Greetings Else (and others) ... ... from another south-western Ontario denizen - in my situation, near London, about half way Detroit/Windsor to Toronto/Buffalo. Hope you enjoy your stay: there's a lot of good talk, friendliness, some useful advice and general good feeling (despite some snarkiness from time to time - which one can choose to ignore, if so inclined). And we value folks who have been lurkers adding their ideas and opinions, rather than just sitting and quietly absorbing. As I went into the bank just now, it was starting to "spit" a bit ... when I came out (another story - see my thread) it was raining. But, as I said to someone just going in ... some of us have been "all wet" (or said to be so) for years. ole joyful