Was just at St. Lawrence Market for lunch. They still have plenty of wild leeks if anyone is still looking. If history is any guide, they will only be in stock for a week or two. The big grocery store downstairs has them too, plus fresh Morels (for $50/lb!) Also made another great find - fresh tumeric root at the organic store in the basement! Won't survive our winter, but I have been interested in seeing how it grows, and shouldn't be too hard to overwinter indoors if it does well.

A usable ramp will take at least 6 times as much space as steps. We ran into this when mum became wheelchair bound. Between garage and kitchen there were four steps (extending about 4 feet from the door which was about 40" above garage floor) which required a ramp 28 feet long... and that felt steep when pushing a wheelchair up! oruborus, take a strip of paper and zigzag-fold it so that it represents risers and steps. Put one end at the upper doorway, and then gently un-fold, so that the risers and steps straighten out into a flattish ramp. You will find yourself adding more and more paper to make the ramp's incline gradual enough to be usable. Think about it: most steps are about 11" deep, with a rise of 8 to 9 inches. Four steps of 11" each will take floor space of about 44". But that rise has to be ramped to be navigable and will have to extend [across floor space] until there is a 1 in 6 (2/12) slope. Believe me, you do not want anything steeper whether for a wheelchair or a mower. If one wants a ramp -and that does sound handy for moving equipment- then check with the experts as to what is usable. I suspect the space required would be best provided with an exterior access to the basement, with a gentle slope and one or two landings for switchbacks. If one is going be pushing deadweight such as a non-self-propelled mower, a 3/12 incline is going to be more useable even though it will require more floorspace.

Here's an off the wall solution. A friend of mine lived in an area where there were almost no power outages, even in bad storms. They've experienced maybe 4 outages in 25 years. However, if there was an outage, it might last only 30 minutes at most. In that 30 minutes, their sump would fill up and water would start flowing into the basement. The expense of a full fledged back up system wasn't that justifiable. He kept a oil drum crank handy just in case but wanted something less labor intensive. He was more concerned about the few times a hurricane might come through and, just something as an alternate course of action. We picked up a Xantex 2000 watt inverter with a 4000 watt surge capability, a marine battery and a small solar panel to keep the battery float charged. During one heavy torrential down pour, we put it to the test. We unplugged it from the power and plugged it into the inverter. It worked great for over an hour (when the rain stopped.) Just knowing he had an alternative was good enough for him. With a little more work with a relay, we could have made the system automatically switch over. The good part is, when the battery starts to run down due to long use, you just hook up jumper cables to a car or tractor and you're back in business. We also tested it on his pellet stove and it worked great. Of course this is an "un-packaged" UPS. The cost was around 175 bucks total. He has an area where he uses a hedge trimmer and needs 150 foot extension cord to get to it. He took the setup out to the location and used his hedge trimmer with it and needless to say, it worked great. I personally think running the extension cord would have been easier but I mention all the other uses as another example of the setups' capabilities where it can be applied to other emergency or short term uses as well.

one of them goes into the laundry room. Another one (3.5") leads into a powder room. Are these ramps commercially available, or will I have to custom design one? Thanks again!