Gardngrl: What a great post! Your very good at expressing yourself. My wife and I bought a country home 2years ago. It just kills me to leave the big city and step back into time. Yes the wave thing, kills me. We have great neighbors, but your right bad neighbors can make you move. I am in a very expensive area and when meeting the locals I don't like to tell them exactly where my house is, because then they say oh your in one of those mansions. It's not a mansion but many local people live in trailers. So when you go some where your better off being vague. But they like local residents better than tourists. Then they ask, where you live. You might as well tell them, because they want every detail and the color of the house. The also know the names of everyone and your house is named after the person you bought it from. I love them all but they follow the beat of a different drum. Had my farmer friend grade my driveway, I paid him. He did a nice job so I asked him if he wanted a 25" color TV I had. He looked me in the eye and said what would I do with it. My gravel driveway needed repair and put 70 yards of gravel in it. Can be very expensive to maintain. Especially if not done properly like mine was. To drill a well by me cost $42,000.00, so you better check out what a well cost and septic, electric run to the house etc. You could drop a fast $75,000 real fast. The locals will help you anytime you need it. Just mention you have a problem and you get offers, use of tools, wanna borrow the dozer etc. In my opinion big city people and city life you can keep it. We dress down and accept everyone for what they are and make no judgements. It really was a wake up call for me to see what is really important in life. My town is about 160 people, and yes they all know everything about everyone. They like to know, where your from, what you do. But they do it in a friendly way, like breaking the ice and some small talk. What I like if some one works on your house, they would rather take trade than cash. Great system if you have a skill or service to trade. Very handy people, can just about fix or build anything you need. I would also recommend that you get as much land as you can afford. The last thing you want is to have a neighbor close by whey you move to gods country to get some room. I just purchased the land west of my property and I am in negotiations with the owner of the land east of me. Just want to make sure I am secluded. Neighbor down the road has a beautiful log cabin home and someone bought the land next to him and put up a house that looks like a garage, with plastic siding and on the lot line. The guys nice and a builder from the same city Iam in but when his neighbor looks out the window he sees white plastic siding. I cannot see any homes around my house and I am going to insure I won't either. When I first bought the house I wasn't sure how much we would use it, or would we get tired of it. Was worried that maybe this was a very expensive mistake. But we love it and I am so glad I bought it.

Outsmarting the tree rats (squirrels) around my house is a full time job. This past spring I hit on a new idea. When I plant a container I invert an empty wire hanging basket over the container and the plant gets sun and can be watered but the squirrels can't dig in it. Another idea: I bring in a lot of plants to "over winter" under lights in my garage. I have so many that it is hard to reach my hand under the lights (4 shop lights) to the middle for watering. So I bought a pump sprayer with a long wand and it works great! In late winter I add a little liquid Dawn detergent, few drops, to each gallon of water and not only does the soil get wet easier but the worms that are waiting to hatch into distructive pets just don't hatch. Don't know what it costs me to run those four shop lights all winter but I don't care. It is a small price to pay to be able to "garden" every weekend in the garage. Many people have mentioned that they mark their outdoor plants with a "permanent Sharpie". In my experience there isn't a "permanent Sharpie", they all fade and quickly too. A grease pencil/china marker or expensive "no fade" garden center marker are the only markers I have found that won't disappoint you by fading. Eight years ago I decided to learn about gardening so I tapped into my local library. I checked out nearly every book they had on gardening and learned so much. The Gardenweb forums are also a wealth of information and entertainment. There is always something new to learn and I appreciate all of you who take the time to write in your ideas. One last idea from me...I keep a small notebook on my computer table and jot down any idea I find that's new and I will want to try. Little pieces of paper get lost but I always know where my notebook is and also use it when I order "on line" so I will remember the name of the company and the order date. Tina or Trowelgal

There is also a natural accruing phenomenon about this CFCs. A conversation from the new Prophet Billy Meier of Switzerland in the year 1989... Billy: Thanks, your explanation says more than I expected. Then I still have another question regarding CFCs. Concerning this, you once told me that certain gases, which are stored under the bottom of the sea and which rise up, cause even greater damage to the ozone layer than CFCs. Now, I no longer know what gas this was and out of what it arises. Quetzal: 54. It concerns methane gas, which is stored as methane hydrate under the sea. Billy: At that time, you said that often enormous clouds of gas bubbles of this methane gas detach from the seabed, like, for example, in large masses in the Bermuda Triangle. These gas bubbles then rise to the sea's surface, where they form huge whirlpools, through which ships sink into the sea when they run into them, as the ships, due to the numerous gas bubbles in the water, are no longer carried by the water. If the gas clouds then ascend over the sea and fly into airplanes, then the methane gas becomes ignited by the engines or nozzles, whereby tremendous explosions arise and tear the airplanes into the smallest pieces. Is this right as such? Quetzal: 55. That is correct.

"I ordered some of those $4.40 10W LED floodlights. Within 2 weeks, I should be able to post here whether the LED chips inside can easily be changed." fred o connor, I now have two models, HK-LD300 and Plighting CLEF120V10DL and neither will allow you to change the LED chip without also changing the drivers because the installed drivers are 25-38V and the grow light LED chips are 9-11V. But, for what it's worth, HK-LD300 has much better quality than CLEF120V10DL which, unlike HK-LD300, has unmarked drivers with plastic cases and actually uses 4.5 watts of power. Also, HK-LD300 has a larger aluminum body with larger cooling fins. It would be easier and cheaper for you to mount 10W LEDs on a 48" x 2.5" x 1/8" aluminum bar, with 60mm cooling fans, like I did with the blue LEDs shown here: http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/LED1.jpg http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/LED2.jpg http://www.general-cathexis.com/images/LED3.jpg If interested, I will give you more details.