Hi all!!! Hope everyone staying cool as cucumbers. Just think... we got 3 more months of this to look forward to... think I shoulda been born a yankee as I can take the cold weather better than this heat. Course, I never really seen any snow to amount to anything. Saw in the weather forcast that it will be hotter in D.C. than Atlanta over the weekend. Ed, for those kind words, sir, if any of our kids in Atlanta come down during harvest then I will make sure they bring some back up there for you. They live in the Buckhead area, if you know where that is located. Will advise more when time draws nearer. Satellitehead, I can relate to what you are saying. My story is the typical country boy that couldn't wait to get grown to move to the big city... then spent most of my adult life trying to make enough money to move back to the country... does make sense??? The days of the small farms are gone. You have to own or rent enough land so that you will have a large volume as you only make a little on each acre. I have been to several equipment auctions and the biggest selling items were things for 2 row tractors that people would use for their gardens, like me. Four row stuff you couldn't give away as the large farmers have went to 6 - 8 row equipment or larger and the home gardener only needs 2 row equipment. You mentioned sitting around doing the veggies... some of my fondest memories involves pulling up peanuts and sitting around picking them off to boil. Us teens would have a party and boil peanuts in a large wash pot (if any of you know what that is). The cast iron would turn the hulls almost black, but boy were they good... especially if there was a cute little girl sitting next to you... (blush) Mk87, wish everyone thought like you. Same with fish... "are the cleaned?". We have two large pecan trees in the back yard and one fairly young in the front. This past season was a record breaker I think for pecans. My trees were so heavy with nuts that it was dangerous to be underneath them as limbs (huge ones) kept breaking off. I took one of my chain saws and cut up and saved the bigger pieces for fireward or bbqing. (love to bbq) Several hundred pounds of Stewarts (only kind you can sell here) from one tree. They brought .60 a pound. Quite a diffence from $7.99 huh? The other tree is paper shells and we shelled them and put most in the freezer. Course, me and the dogs eat quite a few right out of the shell. Both my dogs loves pecans, but one will only eat them if you shell them for him. The other will crack his own. Think the one has me pretty well trained... lol One of my wife's brothers still lives in the Jacksonville area and when he comes up for a visit, he goes by Mayport (fishing village at the entrance to the St. Johns River) and brings us a mess of shrimp. My wife can fry them just the way I like... correction... love'em. JMZ, think it is great that you are a country girl at heart. Wish you were my neighbor. My wife was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida and she is also a country girl at heart. When we moved up here she bought a bunch of chickens from one of my cousins. We also got two dogs and some cows. Things she had always wanted. Told her when I'm dead and gone she could sell the farm and move back to the city... you would have thought I spit in her face... lol. About the potatoes... you would have to bring them up... we broke down and opened up one of the two bins... lots of ants and few potatoes. My brother-in-law on the other hand had almost 2 - 5 gal. buckets full out of his bins and he planted a week after me... I gave him the left over potatoes from my planting. We discussed this in another message or forum and think my problem was too much dirt and not enough mulch or straw. The plants grew well, but it appears that the dirt packed down and there was really no place for the potatoes. Think about it... when you plant them in a row and throw dirt to them as they grow, the potatoes expand and push the dirt up and away. Hard to do that with 2 - 3 feet of dirt on top of you and boards on the side. My wife has gone to Jacksonville for the weekend for one of the grandkids birthday. So, I'm baching it. Got to end this novel and go gather some cucumbers. Hope all have a great weekend and lets keep watching the tropics for a tropical storm to move up the gulf and dump some rain on us. (Not a hurricane please, Lord) Shot

I'm in central Florida. I now have two big worm bins and they seem to survive both summer and winter. Make sure absolutely no sun hits your bin directly!!!!!! That would heat it up far more than you might think and in turn dry it out much faster. My bins are built from plywood and 2 x 4s. The tops are simply screen or hardware cloth to allow air. I think having legs on the bin is important so you can place the feet in containers of mineral oil to keep ants from climbing up into the bin. My bins are in an old dog kennel that we have wrapped in shade cloth and tarps to keep the sun out and the bins shaded. During the Hottest part of summer you need to check the moisture content of the bin more often but you still don't want to make it so wet that the bottom of the bin gets anaerobic and smelly. I find that the top couple inches of bedding in my bins is usually quite dry but most of the bin is still moist enough. Last summer we went away for a few weeks and when we got back the bins were a bit too dry but our worm population has bounced back even so and I've already harvested about 5 bucket fulls of castings and probably have another 5 to go. Our first summer with the worm bin I would take frozen jugs of water and place them in the worm bin to help cool things but now I don't think that is really needed unless the bin were getting some direct sun light or if we were having another summer like 1998 when it was 104 in the shade during May and the state burned. Where ever you place the bin, keep in mind that harvesting worm castings can be a messy procedure (I would avoid placing the bin where there is carpet.) And what type of bin you use, if there are ants around, you want the bin on a stand or to have legs you can place in containers of liquid to keep the ants from climbing in. Also make sure there are no other paths into the bin (don't let it touch the wall or leave anything leaning against it or let plants touch it.) It really sucks to stick your hand into the worm castings only to be bitten up by fire ants!!!! And materials, I like wood bins cause they breath a bit better than plastic so moisture and temperature are a bit easier to control. Only major change I'm planning for my bins is the replace the screen covers with some cage wire or hardware cloth as some critter has chewed through the screen. In summer my bins get lots of Black Soldier fly larva in them which I actually like since my fish and chickens love eating those far more than eating the worms. Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

You have to decide what you will be storing in the garage... Over flow "stuff" from the house? Do you have a hobby that needs space - woodworking, mechanics, gardening? Do you live in a place where the "mudroom" is in the garage or is it part of the house? Do you store "toys" - for instance keeping a boat in the garage mean you need a taller garage door, so it could fit inside with the tower up, as well being a longer bay to accommodate the trailer length. Or if you live in snow country and have a sled deck on a pick up and want to be able to pull into the garage with sleds on top - again taller door and wider bay. As has been said - the garage can never be too big. :) Also - the width you want may be impacted by the size of the vehicle doors. Generally two door car have longer doors and so swing open wider, while a van with sliding doors doesn't have the same "footprint". Measure what you currently use, and consider what you would like to have to make sure your space is not just a couple feet too tight for your dreams.

Thank you so much for your replies. The plumber already came by and looked at it. The estimate is 1K. We are doing it. I guess a wife in a panic mode makes things move..... The refrigerator is spec'ed for Thermador Freedom 36 inch bottom freezer with fully integrated panel. I am already spending a fortune. It has 90 degree hinge per installation manual I read on line. By the time all is said and done, my guess is this will be a ten thousand $ refrigerator. Egad! Rococogirl, on the side, I think I am leaning toward a KWC Suprimo. I saw a mod Eucalyptus kitchen with the faucet in your blog and it looked great. Thanks for your blog. This is a very functional faucet, IMHO that is also nice looking. http://www.atticmag.com/2009/09/modern-eucalyptus-kitchen/ I wish I could have a window like that in my kitchen, but I can't. Maybe the next house. Alas.