Hello Guys, Cebury, Your information is much appreciated. I think some of you guys here should get together and right a handbook on citrus trees. I could never name all the people here that have helped me but my citrus appreciate it greatly! Hi Mike, Well the snow has returned(Hopefully just a quick cold zap and thats it!) and I moved all the citrus in plus my Nebel's Gold plumeria. Moving that Meyer in is such a back breaker! The weather changed so fast on us last night. My buddy went to bed before I realized that the Meyer was needing to come to in. I had to lift that huge pot and move it in by myself. I am very fortunate that I didn't repot it yet but I know that the mix in the pot right now has broken down somewhat and will be heavier than the mix I am going to replace it with. I am not worried about the roots rotting yet but it will need to be done within a month. Anyhow, I put the Oro in my living room. This is cooler than having it in my bedroom under lights but I am thinking I really need to put it under the lights. I have seen a bunch of new growth and I worry that it will abort and I don't want to loose it. If I put it under lights, it can get 12 hours of light and the soil temps should not go above 65 degrees. Will that be acceptable for the Oro Blanco? I really want it to start growing. I worry about loding all that growth and most of it came out a few days after I fed it the FP. You have a pop up green house to Mike right? If the outdoor temps are in the low to mid 30's, and in full sun, it should be easy to enough to keep it at 40 right? I am really considering getting one of these after I get my HID light setups. I would think I could extend the growing period outside to at least the beginning of December depending how the weather goes. I should also be able to put them outdoors around March. Most of the time, March is pretty warm. We have had sporadic freezing nights here and there since the first week of March. I know it would be a lot easier for me to control the temperatures in a pop up. None of my base board heaters have a control on them to adjust the heat and my room is always 10 degrees warmer. Well I just hope that this cold ends by next week. I have one plumeria that is going to be blooming, and they much prefer to be outdoors! Andrew

ncamy the gas fired tankless units I have looked at (and the ones I have - Rinnai's) will not work unless they have electricity to operate the digital controllers and the electric igniter. But the amount of electricity required is very small - probably less than a few amps. I put the outlets that my Rinnai's plug into, as well as my well pump, on my backup generator so that when power is out, i have both hot & cold water. If you do decide to go with tankless - only consider gas units. The electric whole house tankless units require a lot of current - far in excess of what your typical household backup generator can supply. On the flip side, tanked systems are much easier to implement a recirculating system. With a tank - all you need is a small pump and the return loop line. With a tankless system, you have to add a small holding tank on the output side of the tankless - and that holding tank will most likey be a small electric tank (mine is a 4 gallon tank). If you don't put that holding tank in, then your tankless units will fire whenever the loop pump is running (could be for hours) since they use water flow to detect when to turn on. And if that happens, you will hate your gas bill. You can also look at a hybrid system. As an example: if your second floor suite is mostly for occasional guests - use tankless for that suite so that you don't have to continuously cook water with a tank. You could then use a tank for the master suite. You could also look at point of use hot water tanks which could service a kitchen or bathroom sink. Point of use units require an electrical outlet (most require a dedicated circuit) to be installed below the sink. As long as you plan for it ahead of time - this isn't an issue. But adding these outlets after the house is done can be a challenge.. There are many possibilities for the hot water power plant - all of them have strengths and weaknesses. But none of them can overcome a poor plumbing design. You have to look at your house design and determine the best way to plumb it for the hot water - always keeping in mind that the longer the length of the main feeder lines to the source, the longer the delay for the hot water. It is also very hard to get a perfect system because of the way houses are typically layed out and constraints for running the pipes. Unfortunately, the hot water plumbing design is generally an afterthought. During our build, we did think about placement of the tankless under the master suite but never realized that this selection would cause such long delays in the kitchen which is over 100 feet away. Thankfully we were able to fix this issue witha recirculating system but it isn't an optimal solution. Hopefully you can avoid these pitfalls.

"dcarch, would you please share more info re the J. Pippin method. Do you put the whole frozen bird into an oven set at 145? For how long do you cook the bird? I am very interested, because I cook most meat/poultry pieces in a frozen state. Have never cooked a whole chicken or turkey in the frozen state, but am most interested in doing so. Just need more information. Thanks." Jacques Pépin’s (Spellcheck keeps on changing to Pippin ) method is to cut up the turkey, similar to what’s known as spatchcock method. Basically cutting up the turkey in sections to cook, making it easier not to overcook the bird. Safety in cooking is very important. Every year around Thanksgiving and Christmas many people get sick from eating improperly prepared turkey, from thawing to cooking. Many refrigerators are not cold enough to thaw a frozen turkey for a few days, and not using a thermometer is highly questionable. My method requires the use of sous vide cooking equipment, which can heat up food much faster using moving hot water at a precisely digitally controlled temperature. Temperature for cooking using sous vide electronics can be accurate to less than one degrees. This allows the turkey to be thawed and cooked much faster and cooked to known safe temperature inside and out. You cannot try to cook at a low temperature because oven hot air cannot conduct heat as fast as hot circulating water, and oven temperature can be off by as much as 40 degrees. dcarch Guaranteed perfect results for every part of the turkey

On June 29, 2012 we had a Derecho blow through. My power was off for 4 days because of the destruction in & around my area. Everyday was in the 90's outside and my house was SO darn hot. Luckilly the basement was cool so the dogs & I lived down there for those 4 days. Although when I left the house, the dogs would still come up to the main level & sleep on the couch, which was their normal routine. Even though it was 92 degrees on that level. They could have went back down to the basement to cool off, but I doubt they did. Moral of the story, they had plenty of water & knew the basement was cooler & a bed was down there if they became too uncomfortable. But I think they toughed it out. Now, under normal circumstances, I don't change my thermostat for the dogs when I leave the house. Since I'm on disability, I'm never gone long enough to gain any financial reward for increasing or decreasing the temperatures by a couple degrees, although I'm sure the dogs could care less either way.