Pn: you assume I am willing to take a very large financial risk ffrom wich I could never recover if it went south :) Your idea has crossed my mind though; maybe, if my banker and I could agree on a piece of land he wouldn't mind owning if I couldn't sell it we'd be able to deal. I already live in the middle of commercial ag but in a very small town, there is an elevator 2 blocks away and a spray service 2 blocks away also. Right now there are combines, grain carts and semi trailers hauling grain parked in town and going to and through it. My neighbor is a custom harvester. The mad dash is on to get all the corn, soybeans and milo harvested as well as the winter wheat planted. Yep, anhydrous is used here on corn, it is knifed in under ground. Being a gas at atmospheric pressure, it wouldn't do any good to try and pour it anywhere, knives work very well if the soil has the right amount of moisture in it. Nacyjane: there isn't really any empty land around here unless you count the creek bottoms, everything is in crop production in this county and every county around it and more. Happyday: good point, I suspect there are no zoning restrictions on subdividing within the county. On a less serious note, I don't think there are any laws in the county at all, 1 sheriff and 3 deputies to cover 24/7/365. what do you think? You can not pay your property taxes for in excess of 5 years and not have to worry about the county auctioning off your property.

Ann, try saving it to your Clippings. Look to the right of your last post (just above this). You will see the word Clippings in green letters. Under that it will say Clip This Post. For each recipe or comment you want to save, click on Clip This Post. Another way to do it is to highlight the entire thread, or the parts you want, right click with your mouse and then click on Copy. Start a new document in Word and paste the thread into that document, then save it to your computer. If you want me to do that for you and then email it to you, let me know.

Both of you have written such entertaining things! Had me laughing out loud at your descriptions--which I know were much exaggerated! LOL I grew up in small towns too, in fact I graduated from a class of 13 in a rural Missouri school! The whole high school hung out together and there was no competition to be on any of the teams--in fact they begged you to play! Like where Anj grew up, we couldn't get away with anything because everyone knew everyone else. We lived on a farm outside of town and rode a yellow school bus. Had chores to do before and after school no matter what the weather was like. Could hardly wait to graduate and get a job in the big city--now sometimes I think I'd like to be back there to enjoy the long walks across the pastures, the baby animals, and fishing in the pond. I met my DH during the summer of my junior year while working in the city to earn extra money. He joined the navy and we got married shortly after graduation. We have one grown son who is married and lives close by with his wife and our 3 yr. old GD. We lived in Rhode Island, Texas, Kansas and Missouri. Finally DH got stationed in So. Calif. and we have lived here ever since. I worked in banks, so it was easy to find work each time we moved. I finally got tired of buyouts and mergers and retired a few years ago. DH is a railroad engineer, he gets to retire next year. We hope to do some traveling in our motor home, want to see more of this interesting country--each area is so different, and we've only seen a fraction of it. But we can't be gone too long at a time, since we have that little GD that we love to spend time with. I have always wanted to see England and Ireland. My ancestor's and my DH's ancestors came here from Ireland waaay back when, and I have always loved reading stories about England's Kings, Queens, and the Knights. So romantic in the books, and who wouldn't want to see a castle? LOL So hard for us to imagine that those countries are as small as some of our states! My DS and DIL went to both places on their honeymoon and loved it. Said people were very friendly to them, and the scenery away from the cities was so pretty. Such a sense of history too. DH says that we can go after he retires, but now I don't feel too secure about traveling overseas. We'll see. I think every country has great places to visit and nice people to meet--unfortunately, of course, we all have places and people that we are not so proud of too! I started on Gardenweb on the Garden junk forum too, then starting looking to see what other forums there were and came here. I was so thrilled when Anj responded to one of my posts! Then she gave me directions on how to post pics on here and we've had a great time sharing all our projects with each other and any one else who stopped in. We always enjoy chatting with new people, and love seeing pics of their painting. Each person seems to have their own special style, so that makes it really interesting. Glad you found us, Steve. We have enjoyed seeing all your creations and hearing about where you live. You have a nice sense of humor too. Best of luck with selling your painted items, and with "picking up the pieces" again. ;o) Luvs

I hadn't seen the DWR kitchens. Remodelista and Apartment therapy have the same press release. The cabinets shown look heavy to me, probably because of the edges that stick out. The Viola Park and Henrybuilt above are much cleaner looking. Both of those photos look really dated to me, in a way that other Modern cabinets, especially the Euro ones, don't. Perhaps it's just a matter of what I've seen. The above look like kitchens that I've seen in houses they were original and new styles in. ... Come to think of it, though, for all that Modern is enduring, Poggenpohl and Pedini are showing different looks within that now than the ones I was seeing fifteen years ago. Maybe Henrybuilt just needs to update their advert photos? I absolutely agree that their forms could work in just about any house if detailed right. Modern endures unless it's '80's red or blue lacquer. :) In a neutral material/color, inc. the Henrybuilt woods and the Viola white, it is very little black dress. I think the most "insistent" thing about the Henrybuilt, however, is the hardware. That absolutely plugs it as Modern, whereas the flat slabs of the Viola could be any flat slab Euro, across many decades. It's all pull doors, but otherwise doesn't look much different from my own bamboo, which is much quainter looking. Of course, the other thing that makes the Viola Park is the lack of clutter with the flush cooktop, hidden hood, and, presumably, integrated everything else. I've always agreed, in general, about the age of house/period of kitchen thing, though sometimes the locale and/or style of the house have more to say about it. Even when I was thinking white kitchen, it was never going to be Peacock Scullery-ish, and certainly not inset with cup pulls. That would look really off in my 25 year old house. So would a lot of Art Nouveau. The house is rectilinear, and too new. OTOH, the little A.N. details, work, and help make my kitchen look grown in place rather than slapped on top. I think it's a case of what a colleague called "instant ancestors". That was about using clipart photos in a collage. The portraits give a sense, in the collage, of a community, with history. It doesn't matter that they're not the actual people from an actual community. They convey the message just by their presence. Using some details from days gone by in a kitchen (whether salvage or repro), like using old family pieces and/or antiques in another room, will give some temporal depth to the room and make the date much less obvious.