Around here the corn burning stoves went into houses like crazy. Corn seems to burn well, much less work than wood, little mess left for cleaning out. Takes small amount of corn to keep the WHOLE house warm. I was rather surpised at how enthusiastic the new owners are over corn stoves. Transportation may not be the whole cost, but tractors are fueled with gas and oil, to work the soil and bring in the crops. Tractors are not especially efficient in fuel usage, cost a bunch to produce those crops. Costs that farmer has to pass to buyers so farmer can at least pay his bills. Hay is supposed to be costing more, I know the truck to go get it runs on fuel that has more than doubled in cost since last year. Much equipment is diesel powered, even costlier than gas. Diesel has always been cheaper to produce, now they just WON'T produce it, keeping cost high. Bush and his Oil friends are making plenty of money. Keeping cost of doing business for truckers very high. Consumers pay that extra. I don't know if Ethanol is going to be cost effective as a fuel. We have a local plant being built 5 miles away, 60 new jobs in a very hard hit job market area. Everyone is excited, but for corn fuel to be useful, it can't cost more to produce than it costs to sell. At least the farmers can sell their product, so many were just losing money planting corn. Prices just never got where you could turn a profit. I buy our grain, mixed at a local mill. No commercial bagged food for the animals so I am not seeing those costs. We use quite a bit of corn in the horse feed, prices seem to be staying higher than other years. I think the oats come from Canada. Not sure why they are not local, we do have oat production. Dry dog food prices are higher, even on the junky stuff. Again, I would point at mostly fuel prices to raise a crop, then transportation to get products to market.

I have an online subscription to Consumer Reports. I pulled this information from that site. Even if a mower comes with a bag, you can usually elect to use it or not. Hope this helps! CU Best Buy Cub Cadet SC100 11A-A92J Gas push mowers $250 CU Best Buy Craftsman 37432 Gas push mowers $220 CU Best Buy Yard Machines 11A-B96N Gas push mowers $240 CU Best Buy Lawn-Boy 10730 Gas push mowers $240 CU Recommended Ariens Razor 911173 Gas push mowers $350 CU Recommended Troy-Bilt TB-110 11A-A23N Gas push mowers $200 CU Recommended Murray 11A-A23K Gas push mowers $195

Thanks for the heads up on GAO. I got a very good quote from a cabinet maker late last fall. Good references on his cabinet work (but don't let him do/manage a full remodel). Lucky for me, I am behind and hadn't gotten him started -- he went bankrupt, closed shop, keeping money and not delivering what he had been paid for. I'm sure this wasn't the way he wanted things to go, but he just didn't survive this market, along with the encroachment of the cheap solid wood Chinese cabinets on the lower end. Your experience and mine will change the way I do business for the rest of my remodel -- I won't purchase ahead and leave items with the vendor, I'll be more likely to use a credit card so that I have some hope of efficient recourse.

Thanks for the heads-up, pal. There was a couple of cents increase just the other day, darn it! Travelled to Toronto yesterday, about 5/8 full last night - so I guess I'd better fill up on the way home. Came out today to a flat tire (there's a pump in the garage, left over from uncle's day - and landlord has one in his shop, but I have no key) - so glad that didn't happen yesterday, as I've used a substantial portion of my CAA calls ... and it's barely April. Car's getting sort of old and tired. Better go out and check it - as I don't have a tire pump in the car. o j