Glenda, I just wanted to know if I could grow my own, if I ever wanted to. Obviously I can't. LOL I planted a tiny block of Old Hickory and it was beautiful until about 8 feet tall although it had layed down after a heavy rain, came back up once then got hit by heavy wind which twisted it around and down again. I didn't really take care of it and it didn't get enough water in addition to all of the other hardships it endured. So once it got saturated and the rest of the time it has been dry. Although it got very tall, the stalks were still quite thin. I have a grain mill and I do grind my wheat and a lot of other things. Grinding corn makes you want to leave home because it is so loud. I haven't had a source for grinding corn for a long time, so I have just been buying cornbread mix and it isn't nearly as good as the cornbread that I make from corn when I have it. May DH would be offended if you put sugar in his cornbread and really likes it best when the corn is not ground quite as fine as what you buy. The bacon grease is another issue tho. I might leave a teaspoon in a pan to flavor something, but otherwise it gets tossed. I love bacon but I remove as much of the artery clogging fat as possible before I eat it. I got fat when they put me on diabetic drugs, and found it impossible to lose while taking the meds. I don't take those now and have started to lose, but it is slow going. I just can't afford to add another health risk to my worn-out body. LOL I hope you have a good corn crop and enjoy the cornbread. If I had as much land as you have, I might have a big corn crop.

In all cases the plumber will first establish the minimum elevation for the slab. Long before groundbreaking ever occurs we have to apply for the house sewer permits. If we are building on a lot with a septic tank we generally have a lot of lattitude, but if we are connecting to a municipal sewer, when we get the permit the municipal sewer provider will indicate the exact location where they will put the sewer tap. We then have to go to the property and shoot the grade from the sewer tap to the furthest watercloset in the structure and determine the length of run, required pitch and the resultant drop plus 1 foot for the closet bend under the WC. The resultant height of the top of the closet bend is then the minimum height of the slab. I saw lots of situations in the sunbelt where the structure was on the upstream end of the municipal sewer, where the sewer line was relatively shallow and they proposed a long setback from the street to the house when we computed the house sewer pitch it worked out higher than the proposed slab elevation. In that situation we simply went to the GC and told him we either needed the slab x number of inches higher or move the whole house x number of feet closer to the road. A trained GC just takes that in stride and goes to the foundation contractor and says we are gonna need another layer or two of block on the footer wall. On the other hand, I have worked jobs where the homeowner was acting in the capacity of GC, and when we told them they need to raise the slab it turned into an hour or two discussion while we tried to explain why, followed by three or four days delay while the homeowner went home and posted on a forum to find out if we were right. Believe me, the biggest reason why homeowners who want to act as GC have difficulty finding subs is because most reputable subs simply don't have the time to stand around the job and try to educate you before they can get a simple answer that a competant GC could provide instantly. Before I retired I had a firm policy. If a homeowner wanted to discuss having me do the plumbing for them I would simply say, yes, have your GC get in touch with me. NO GC- no deal.

Well, at $1600 they are worth considering. Like I said, ART. DH hasn't gotten me a birthday gift yet so I thought I'd show him these pics tonight and see what he thought of getting these for me. Definetly more than we'd normally spend on a b-day gift. Budget is...well...um....difficult to muddle through. Our former GC's pricing came in at thousands and thousands over what we had to spend. His sub bids are much higher than anything I've been getting myself now that I'm the GC. We've also been doing a lot of grunt work to save money. DH and I both are willing to spend a bit more than we have saved to get the final outcome we want without going too much overboard. If you cut GC's profit and overhead out ($25K) and factor in the labor and sub savings, I think we're close. How's that for an answer? If we decide not to spend the extra money now, I am considering leaving that wall blank at this point and working to fit them into the monthly budget next year. I would hate to put something up there just to be done with it and hate it every second I'm in the bathroom for the next 40 years. Yes to the whole wall. Thanks for the context nod! ;)

Email them. Here is a link that might be useful: AARP email