WL, "Any special tips for catching them?" Just don't handle them. It is my understanding that armadillos can carry Leprosy. For that reason, and safety in general, any live catch traps should have protection for your hand at the carrying handle. I suspect that the NWS5300 Universal Trap with built-in nose cone trap would be suitable for armadillos. However, several other traps, like the Wickencamp Coon Trap (Model 302) or the Safeguard Pro Raccoon Trap, are suitable for armadillos. For traps with a rollover release, you should anchor the trap to prevent the captured animal from rolling the trap over and escaping. I lost several large gray squirrels before learning to attach an anti-rollover bar (a short piece of concrete re-bar) to my Havahart traps. If you are trying to catch an armadillo, you might want to use TreeBerry paste bait. If you prefer not to use a live trap, you could try a repellent like Whole Control. I have never used it, so I can't attest to its effectiveness. If all else fails, you could always try "the old reliable" Juicy Fruit gum. (grin) MM

I too prefer the chef's knife as I have found that the food processor either mangles them or just plain chops them unevenly. In fact, as much as I love my food processor, I never use it for chopping for that reason. Mincing, shredding and mixing, yes. Chopping, no. A chef's knife on a good wooden cutting board is the best for me - plus I just plain like doing it. OK call me weird. I keep the nuts in the freezer as well and after chopping, lightly toast them in a skillet to bring out the flavor. L

Ok, deep breath. Remember you're spending a lot of money and taking some time to research is part of the process. If I catch myself getting rattled, indecisive or feeling a lot of pressure, sometimes its good to remember that its not a life or death decision. If its not clear, do some more research or just take a week off from doing anything about the kitchen. First point, your carpenter can assemble and install any of them. Don't worry about that. I have Scherrs and they are rock solid. They are better much constructed than ikea. You can get any size of anything and not pay more for it. You order sample doors to see colors. There are a couple of things I wish ikea would improve in their cabinets, but they are likely better than jsi (more below). The cabinet size selection is poor. Their cam locks aren't the greatest, neither is the particle board. If put together and installed well, they should last a long time. Their drawers are fine. You can do something blended by getting scherrs to make the odd cabinets and your drawer fronts, trim pieces and doors for ikea cabinets. They know how. You can have ikea-cherry. From the published information on jsi's site, its impossible to tell how the cabinet is built. So I have just two bits of info to go on. I've seen the insides of a couple of brands of chinese cabinets and they were pretty crappy. The outsides looked nice, but the drawers and cabinet were constructed poorly. These remind me of those, but I could be wrong. You'd lose a lot of potential storage space in drawers because of the frames. Click the picture with the drawer extended and you'll see what I mean - the usable height of the drawer is a little more than half of the height of the drawer front. Also, the "dovetail" drawer only has three pretty chunky dovetails and visible sanding defects. The surrounding doors have stain blotches. This is what they photographed to show you how wonderful they are... Diamond is a problem - they are very pretty and have a large selection of sizes and types. The way the cabinets are made - the dimensions of the pieces and the way they are assembled - isn't very good. So, as an every day quality measure and completely unfair I might add, I've never seen a diamond display intact and I've not seen an ikea built-in cabinet display falling apart. YMMV. hth

Guess because of the farm and time being a premium as well as oven space we got use to a lot of things made ahead. We usually have 12-15 people. I make my desserts (cakes, pies but not the Pistachio Salad) ahead and freeze them. Definitely make the cranberry relish ahead and after letting it set a day freeze it. It gets better with time.(Usually make several gallons for the rest of the year.) Sometimes I'll make up my crescent rolls and freeze them before baking but they are better fresh Then the night before I make up all my casseroles, (squash, sweet potatoes, onion, etc._ and get them ready and in the dishes. Cover them with foil and mark the temp and cooking time on them and put them in the frig. On TD I start at about 4 am. I mix up my stuffing, and get the turkey going. I cook my ham in my roaster, the turkey in the gas oven and the last 2 hours I'll use the electric oven to cook the casseroles. Veggies like corn, peas, mashed potatoes are last minute. Mom makes her Waldorf salad :-/ last minute usually so it doesn't get watery. Some of the family and friends I don't get to see very often so I'd rather be visiting with them instead of trying not to miss something in a recipe listening into all the fun in the other room or measuring while trying to have a conversation. (Not one of my strong suits. I always leave something out when I'm talking to somebody and cooking) It's not all fresh but a lot of the folks that come fix dinner out of a TV dinner box so they're always happy and stuffed with the fare that's put on the table. And I get to spend time with everyone.