Hahaha... The year was 1992, national weather service radar tracked an object flying from Benton Harbor to Muskegon , Mi. in 2.something seconds. The same year an officer in conservative Holland, Mi., stated he saw a UFO in a newspaper article in the local paper. Shoot, my buddy's dad owned a Holiday Inn and it was BOOKED for a Month! But nothing about the story was convincing and we laughed and poked fun at the believers. My buddy who was stationed in Nevada for a year and spent time in the 1st Iraq war, was visiting me with his girlfriend. Chad's a really friendly hulk of a guy who is gullible, happy go lucky and can bench 400+Lbs. Before sundown we hiked the 1.5 miles through the dunes and arrived at Saugatuck State park shoreline where we saw the sunset and hung out. Looking up we saw a bright light with two lesser ones at its sides. It wasn't in space, maybe 1 mile up. It was silent and absolutely still. Then, the center light became orangish, and in unison, maintaining their arrangement, flew up and stopped, waited a minute, and then flew straight up with their lights dissipating as they went into space. My buddy was absolutely petrified and was in a state of crisis. His girlfriend, on the other hand was fascinated and blown away and excited about it. I didn't know what to think. I wasn't scared. I was trying to see WTF this was. Needless to say, my friend had a hard time with the walk through the dark woods to get to the parking lot! So, Maybe Konrad isn't Crazy. Just make sure you get enough sunlight up north Konrad! Open up your hearts and receive E.T. from the other world...from the other worlds. Have fun! Noogy

Geraldo,,,When you say it takes more fuel and chemicals to produce corn than what the corn is worth, obvously you are following the same investigative reporting procedures as your infamous TV counterpart. I grew up on a 160 acre dairy farm in Greenford,Ohio that was totally self sustaining. Currently I am hobby farming on a small 60 acres farm in Youngstown, Ohio. Lacking the initial startup capital to buy modern farm equipment, we opted to get some basics on the used machinery market, a 1960 Mineapolis Moline 36 drawbar horsepower tractor ($2000), a 1966 ford 20 drawbar horsepower tractor (2.7gal/hr), 3 bottom 16" moldboard plow ($300 new), a tandem 9 ft disc ($50) and a two row John Deere corn planter ($300). The large tractor burns 5gal/hr and plows 6 acres per hour( $.83/acre), discs 12 acres per hour ( $.41/acre). The small tractor plants the corn at 5 acres/hr ($.55/acre) We practice crop rotation by planting corn one year, then timothy and clover hay for two years. The legumes provide a very lucrative cash crop of hay, which we bale in small bales targeted to the individual horse owner market. Five acres of hay will provide enough cash income to provide all the fuel used by our equipment for the entire season. In addition, the legumes replace the nitrogen that is taken out of the soil by the corn thus we have no need of buying fertilizer. (Though the concept of crop rotation is almost abandoned in commercial large scale farming in exchange for no till planting, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, in truth George Washington Carver originated the idea of crop rotation for self sustaining farming before the civil war. While tinkering with my antiquated equipment and outdated farming techniques will in no wise rival the fuel efficiencies of our commermercial counterparts on the mega farms with 200 horsepower diesel tractors, I can still produce an average of 100 bushels to the acre. (100 bu x 56lbs/bu = 5600 pounds of corn.) I currently have contracts to supply corn for home heating fuel through a small co-op of 20 homeowner neighbors. Based upon this little experiment I am discussing with 4 or 5 local farmers who are interested in joining our co-op to have a market for what they do best, produce corn. As a sideline, we are now applying for a Federal Gasohol" permit, which will allow us to own and operate a "Still" to manufacture corn whiskey, which will be used as the primary fuel for all our current gas burning engines. Federal law requires that all the distilled alcohol must be labeled as automotive fuel only, but no doubt someone may get a bit fueled up on a saturday nite tooo.

I really lilke My Cat from Hell. I've always had a cat or two but I've still learned a few things from Jackson. The one I have now might be feral. I thought it was one of my neighbors cat's kittens but she said her sons found some kittens in the brush above our houses. He doesn't like to be cuddly. He's 11 now and is just finally sitting on my DD's lap for a few minutes. He loves to be be petted but it has to be on his terms. When he's sleepy he really likes it or he'll walk by your chair and have to reach down to pet him as he walks by. We bought him a smaller sized metal dog cage and he really enjoys going outside and will stay there for 2 or 3 hours just watching the birds or whatever or just curling up and sleeping in the sun. He lets you know when he wants to come in by meowing and when he sees you he will reach up and stretch. We tried to put a harness on him when he was small but he would just fall on his side and refuse to move.

LOL Plllog :) I'd love to meet your knob and puller heh heh Do you only knock when the red light is on? :oP I actually am greeted by name at Vintage Hardware heh heh The owner came out to meet me (they want to reproduce my ceiling medallions) last time I was in. He purchased another home we were looking at last year. They're not green :) But they're local and it's important to me to support the communities we live in whenever we can. I'm going to have him over as soon as I finish unpacking so he can go through the house. He has never been here and is dying to get a peek at the brass and the medallions and he's a wealth of period information which I really need. Are you local? And who's your tile person? I'm not sure what we're doing about tile...we have several original fireplaces that need replacement pieces or have had some made but they're badly done. Someday we'll get around to fixing them as well (mind you the kitchen comes first because I'm tired of cooking on the back porch LOL). Carbon footprints...those are always buzz words Dh gets a giggle out of. We were up on the slope in ANWAR and this dude was bragging about his carbon footprint being so much smaller than ours because he does not own a car. DH did some calculations for the dork overnight and came back to show him his real carbon footprint in comparison to someone who commutes 30 miles a day. His was way larger...see he wasn't counting the carbon footprint his FLIGHT TO WORK weekly cost :) DOH again...sometimes it's all about perception and being cool, not being green at all. Avoiding exotic woods and not driving a Hummer to work are two easy and real green steps :) Ride sharing in your Hummer...not so much :P