Our county fair winds up tomorrow, and I haven't even thought about going yet! My kids showed sheep and cattle in 4-H and FFA for 13 years, and I put in time as Superintendent of the 4-H Wool show, Sheep show, Livestock trophy and awards chairman, and county 4-H treasurer, and FFA Alumni secretary at the same time that I was a co-leader in our sheep club. It's nice to take a pass on it this year, but my daughter is now a club leader, and will assume a sheep superintendent position at the fair next year. I'll probably go tomorrow to see the breeding stock classes, and haul our club's pen equipment back to the club storage at a neighbor's farm. Having an F-350 makes the hauling easy, and my co-leaders who have shepherded the kids all week will appreciate the break. Marion County, Oregon, used to be one of the most diverse and profitable farming counties in the Western United States. Over the last 5 years, though, we've seen rampant urbanization, and even though there's still lots of farmland, there's less and less livestock, and farm kids aren't encouraged to have farm projects as much because they're more involved in "towny" activities through the schools. In 1991 when we first joined 4-H, our club had over 40 kids and there were 5 families that I can think of that were nationally competitive. The rest of us were regionally competitive. Today, there are about 10 active members, and most don't even live on the rural property where they are raising their market lambs, and only 2 families have breeding stock at all. Guess I gotta get myself fired up in the volunteer area again, or I'll be living in a high-rise and wishing for the good ol' days!

DVL just thread searching here and found your post 5 yrs earlier re dudleya guadalupense. Where on earth did you acquire? Am looking into increasing my collection of HTF specimens. Any chance you're still on this site?

I've had the Elux Icon single oven for more than 5 years now. Yep, solid, reliable, great performance. Love the glide out shelves , large oven window and the wavetouch controls. Good decision to go with a single oven---they have a far better reliability than do double ovens, regardless of brand. We use our Elux Speed oven, as our 2nd oven, actually we use it more than the larger oven, saves a lotta time and energy, like baked taters or yams in 14 minutes instead of an hour. Most the folks that have the Advantiums are as happy with them, as I am with mine, but being older, I kinda like to have similar (wavetouch) controls on both ovens, kinda like always getting in the same car and driving it, you get familiar with it---Ya know what I mean? Anyway great decisions!!! Gary

Flo, that's the Nabi Jewel. I have a sample of it. Pink, I also have a sample of the blue macaubas and white marble in the basketweave. (Esplanade Winter Lake? ) diff color, but this is how the layout looks it's gorgeous. I have a sample in the black and white option, and the Linen one,,far left. you can see the Nabi Jewel 2nd from right they only give you two little bars for a sample. Order one full sheet if you really want to see how the tile will look. that's what I did w/their black/white , Cindersmoke, or the Black Beauty. the other blue/white is pretty. But they are both expensive, sign up for their trade program. you get a nice discount. they have this design too. this is no cheap date tho. that's why I mentioned the trade discount Nabi Argyle. comes in diff colors do you like this kind of tile layout pink, have you also looked at encore ceramics? they have some beautiful blue glazes, all sorts of shapes/sizes, and you can blend colors. look at Rain in the chevron. man it's pretty or imagine this, but in these diff blue crackles, or mixed w/the marble. they can do 3 or 4 colors Lapis and Azul wave ignore the shape, but look at the color blends. so pretty peacock and light azul in the flame wave or these color blends. (they literally have 100 diff shapes and sizes) larger chevron in Ocean gradient blend