My faith in humankind has been restored on this beautiful Lord's Day! As I prepare to go to Church & worship my God above, the one who has been taken out of schools, courthouses, & many homes in this day & time, it is so good to see a great bunch of people that are 'back to the basics I was brought up with, in rural NC. I feel that my love for nature & the 'calling to raise b'flies' has been given to me from God, it is the greatest therapy for a person that lives in daily agonizing pain, & I have done that since '82. It has gotten me off of the sofa, looking at soaps. Never was one to pop pills, though there were pills given by the various drs, for Lupus pain, Fibromyalgia pain, which is unrelenting, pain from 3 failed lower back surgeries, & so on. But I can go outside, among my plants, (with a very moderate amount of pain medication), which have always been a hobby all my adult life, & find a peace, unlike any other. Seeing the seeds planted, growing each day, & the growth spurt after the evening t-shower, more than if I had given a good dose of fertilizer, knowing the purity of the water released from the heavens above has a growing power unlike anything man can make. I am not a fanatic, but I do find a special inner peace watching the creation emerging from the chrysalis, knowing it "went in as a caterpillar", came out as a beautiful creation, & that amazing change was done by One greater than I or anyone I know, on this earth in the flesh, today. We all are doing our part to make this world a better place to live in. We are, I believe trying to help get back to that time when the earth was a cleaner place; before the dirt & smut was so in control. I can remember when a young teen guy wouldn't go out without his jeans being starched & ironed, with that sharp crease, & that button down collar wasn't just right. Some of you probably don't remember those days. But in sharp contrast, the more ragged, & dirtier they can look, the better they like it. No more neat clean hair styles, but unkept unruly, & dirtier they look the more "in" they are. I am not being judgemental, to each to his own. But to get out among the plants, gives me a sense of being in contact with something good & clean, no matter how bad the pain, or what is on my mind, I can find a sense of peace unlike any other place, during the normal weekday. I enjoy my Church & what I find there, but I feel I bring part of that home with me, in scripture I hear, sometimes it is reflected in my activities outside during the week. None comes to mind at the moment, but God is so good, to give us these beautiful creatures, & place the love in our hearts to want to help them. To go beyond planting the flowers, but to go that step further that some don't understand. Let them take one egg, watch it go through the stages of growth, into the pupa, then the beautiful chrysalis of the Monarch, especially, like a piece of jade that a master artisian sculpted, & flecked with gold, I sat in total awe when I saw my 1st one, & then to watch when it gets transparent, & see the new creature inside. And, on to the final stage, when that beauty of the spread drying wings is present, they are magestic. Nobody can tell me that came as a result of the 'big bang theory'! Not even sure what they say made the ocean that this big bang or whatever it was supposed to have been. Some magical force? No, a Creator, that loved us enough, & I won't go any further, but we are all giving nature some help that the world has taken away. And we wonder why there are guns in schools, & knives.. I well remember the shock in our small town when the "No guns or knives allowed on school property" sign went up! The very thought of this was shocking, & then the rest is history. We are doing our part to help keep our world a better place to live. I don't know of too many men or ladies who raise b'flies who shot their c-store operator, or robbed the bank, or turned out to be serial killers. Didn't mean to go on so, but I see God Almighty in every butterfly that I release, & I thank Him for giving me the 'want to' to do this hobby. I just found a picture that I took of my first BST & a little saying I felt inspired to write "For by watching the phases of the butterfly, from the egg, to the caterpillar, all the way tp the final stage, the beautiful butterfly; surely we see the Hand of God at work, before our eyes, in today's world, as in the days of old, and appreciate even more His Wonderous Love for us daily." The photo is old, & the ink of the writing is a bit smeared, but it is so special to me. This was before I knew anything about butterflies & the terms, etc. Love to you all & In God I do trust..monarchs

Mulio's response intrigues me, because he has grown a zillion varieties and knows a good tomato. But when I grew BK next to CP, BFT, Carbon, JBT, Paul Robeson, Nyagous, Black Prince, and Black Plum, the Black Krim came out on top, with the Japanese Black Trifel as a second choice. I like to do side by side taste tests, so I'm pretty sure I wasn't fooling myself. JBT is another one that people either love or don't think much of. I have to wonder how much of a varieties flavor is personal taste-olfactory indiosyncracies and how much of it is climate and soil.

As an exercise in integration design, you may wish to get a liner drawing and see how it might be adapted. Wolf, for one, provides drawings of their equipment in various of their publications. Find their biggest hood insert and see how it is intended to be adapted to the exterior cabinet. Never mind the Wolf search, my curiosity lead me to the link below. It appears from the photo on this page linked to from here that the idea is to allow exposed wood. If I were using such a configuration, I would probably use ipe or redwood (perhaps too porous for finishes) or other fire-resistant exotic wood at the bottom where there is potential for direct impingement. The rest of the wood could be that of the cabinets. Also, it looks like cleaning has been eased in the example on the linked page, where the wood may be oak, by using significant protective coating. As a caution, it is possible that Wolf is illustrating a configuration intended for a "poser kitchen" (wouldn't be an unheard-of use for Wolf products). The designer of a real kitchen may with to start from first principles for integration of a hood liner. And as noted above, I'm confident that the custom hood makers could build a flanged liner if suitably funded. Another alternative is to put a standard liner well up in a larger cabinet and have built an extension "skirt" that brings the liner bottom to the bottom of the cabinet at an extended depth. These need to be sloped so that rising effluent does not tend to reflect down. (In the Wolf image, effluent hitting the cook's side wood panel could easily curl out of the hood zone; or in other words, the capture area is that of the liner (or maybe just the baffles) and not the extended wood section (depending on whether excess cfm is available). If I were using this liner and wanted to keep the lamp function, I'd consider just moving it out from the wall and using straight extensions on three sides and a sloped one at the back. Another option discussed on these pages a bit is to mount the liner out but not farther up in the cabinet, and put a sloped backsplash on the rear wall (where the square tiles are in the image). If cost were no object, a Wolf Pro Island Hood could be integrated into a cabinet (eliminating the need to dust all that stainless steel) providing an excellent depth capability for extravagant cooking. My Pro Island hood has 26 inches of open air capture depth, and of the difference with its 34 inches of physical depth, at least half would also qualify if mounted next to a wall. kas Here is a link that might be useful: link to links for Wolf pdfs

I love in a front plan area and I'm trying to figure out a way to elevate my fridge. Actually I had a new refrigerator only for about 3 or 4 months before the house flooded. Luckily it was okay no major damage. I had the service technician come out and he said if the water came up a little higher and I could have had some problem with the compressor. Anyway this place seems to flood about once a year so I'm trying to think of a way to elevate the fridge. I have some sort of construction bricks but I don't know if I necessarily want those in the living room. I'm thinking of having the carpenter guys build some sort of thing out of wood for me but I'm not sure if it can support the weight over the length of time. For example it's a pretty decent size fridge with the bottom freezer model. The Carpenters are pretty good handy guys but I don't think this is something that there used to building for anybody but I'm considering asking them about it. I'm also considering just using these bricks but the wood would look a lot nicer