wayne: sounds like a perfect place to start a commercial (and organic) growing venture, and to have the distinction of being the first organic grower in your area--for SOMEONE. And I say, "for someone", because it's a tough row to hoe, as the old folks say, and requires a ton of fortitude and (financial) self-sacrifice when you're dealing with people who are totally unaware what really constitutes healthy food. I wouldn't encourage a person to invest all their resources in such a venture in a rural area as you mention, since it's usually a slow, learning process. And another serious consideration in growing fruits and vegetables for sale is that you're ALWAYS dealing with a perishable product. When something's ripe and ready to eat, it either has to be sold or--very shortly thereafter--discarded, at a total loss of time and effort and money. But as the price of organic produce becomes more in line with conventionally grown produce, it's an easy-enough choice for any enlightened person whether they prefer to eat vegetables and fruit contaminated with herbicides and pesticides, or those grown natually and organically, and free from chemical input, free from Genetic Modification, free from being fertilized with composted, human manure, free from irradiation, etc., etc., etc. If it sounds like I'm trying to sell a concept--I'm not. It matters not to me how much poison a person wishes to have sprayed on their food before they eat it; to each his own. I tired years ago of trying to educate the chemical generation (of which we're all a part) about healthy food. But all of us are here at this site because we're at least enlightened enough to want to learn about healthy food. As I said, it's a slow, learning process, and plenty of people are too busy struggling to survive to have the time to become enlightened about healthy food. Sadder yet, is to go to a chain and/or big-box grocey store in rural areas and watch people fill their carts with liter and two-liter bottles of carbonated sugar water to take home and feed their children. Then they wonder why Johnny and Susie can't learn or have an attention deficit. Eating health food is all about information--or the lack of it. One of the greatest achievements of the current Administration--in my mind--is Michelle Obama's dedication to the cause of proper diet for children in our schools, including the procurement of locally-grown food. A whole, new market for locally-grown food has been opened as schools and hospitals and other institutions that receive government funding are encouraged to procure locally-grown fruits and vegegtables and meat and dairy products--certainly a concept long overdue. And for the rural area I mentioned where I sell produce, people are coming around. There will always be people in rural areas who have enough money--which buys time--to learn about healthy food; and that's a beginning, and by extension, an example for others to follow. For others, I tell them it's food like their grandfathers used to grow, without chemicals and other weird inputs. And the taste of pure, unadulterated, healthily-grown, organic fruit and vegetables seals the deal. (We do grow fruit in the vegetable garden: watermelons and cantaloupes and strawberries and blackberries and raspberries, for example.) I used to write a garden column in our county newspaper for many years, and each Spring--about this time of year--I would write that, "It's time to put seeds to soil, to begin our organic vegetable gardens, and to grow the healthiest, tastiest, most nutritious, vine-ripened fruits and vegetables that nature can produce. Kings don't eat any better." And of course, it couldn't be more true. No amount of money, power, or prestiege can provide one with better food than can be grown by each of us who take the time and effort to do it in our own home gardens. Therein lies the end-result, joy of gardening: to eat the freshest, most tasty and healthy food that can be produced, and we know it to be so, because we grew it ourselves--organically.

To top it all off... When we blow the leaves, we blow them across the road because there is a big field right across the road. Well, yesterday I decided to go grab some more leaves before they got taken up by the park manager or waste management. I would suck the leaves back up with my blower, dump them back out when it was full, suck them back up again (which shreds them even finer) and then fill the leaf bags. My neighbors all must have thought I was crazy! A lot of people around here don't understand the value of their fall leaves. They just blow them all out on the road and forget about them. I must have looked like a crazy woman yesterday as I stood there sucking back up the leaves from across the street that were just blown across the street, dumping them back out again and sucking them back up! lol I don't really care what they think, because next year when my garden is flourishing with the help of some leaves, they'll all wonder how I did it! lol

that is great;gave me a big chuckle.especially the bed part.i have 2 large pups and 2 large cats,the pups and one cat love to sleep in the bed;stretched out to max extent with legs and tails out as far as possible.i have slept on the sofa more than once cuz there's no room for me in bed.LOL

thanks for the link. Another social network for dogs is at http://www.dogster.com/ - apparently millions are being spent on this idea. No surprise. Great idea!