I usually use either a wooden or plastic step stool in the garden. I can't use the rolling ones due to how close together my plants are usually growing. Plus a step stool is usually a lot less expensive then one of those special rolling garden seats! Right now I have a home made wooded step stool that I bought real cheap at a thrift store and put one of those foam kneeling pads on top of it for some cushioning.

I have the first one you listed at the $499 price. It works great. But just the same as in hand shelling if the peas are still green it will only mash them and not shell them. It will shell dry peas and beans just as quick as you can feed it which is why I bought it since I process about 100 bushels beans and peas for seed each season. On fresh shellies it is a little slower but can easily do a bushel in 30 mins but must manually by hand insert the peas or beans small end first into the rollers if they go in randomly and go thru parallel to the rollers it will mash the seed and not shell. So I load a peck or so on the tray then as quickly as I can feed the peas in at right angle to the rollers or pointed end first. I also have a little hand sheller that I bought from redhill general store and it works great sitting on the porch doing small batches. I mounted my hand sheller on a board that fits over a wooden box. This holds the sheller in place and it is quite fast. I would recommend the $38 hand sheller over the $499 sheller for a few bushels of peas works great and I have used mine for 5-6 years now. I still use the hand sheller when doing up a mess for a meal rather than setting up the electric one for a few peas and having to clean it after wards. I have not had luck with either shelling Butter beans in the shelly stage but works great for all bry beans. Rodger Here is a link that might be useful: pea sheller

I did the sad task of tapeing up all my nestboxes and winterizing them today. They will be nice and warm for the woodpeckers. It means I have to say goodbye to my Blues, (though I did hear them out there today). Most of my summer birds are gone, a few late Hummers are still here, not unusual, I'm sure they will take off on the front of the next storm or two. I remembered I had some dried bird house gourds. I have wanted to get some little roosting houses and thought ...hhhuuummmm why not bird house gourd roosting houses? I cleaned them up & out and poly coated them today. I will try to do the inside with some wood shavings for comfort and insulation. We are predicted to have a cold harsh winter in MI this year. We have hundreds of natural cavities in our woods but knowing I am placing about 10 more "out of the wind and dry" options makes me feel like I am helping. We grew at least 50 nice sized gourds this year. I think I need to call the PM group here, I need to share.

We have concrete countertops on the perimeter of our kitchen and leathered granite on the island; we also have concrete countertops on the wet bar. I extensively researched concrete countertops and my Asheville, NC based fabricator/installer before deciding to go with them. IMHO, getting a good installer who really knows what he is doing and has a lot of experience is key to your ultimate satisfaction with concrete countertops --- perhaps more so than with about any other countertop material. The other key is getting a good sealer. Until recently, the concrete countertop sealers all seemed to have one problem or another --- either they looked plastic-y, they scratched badly, or they didn't provide adequate protection. A new sealer has come out in the past couple of years that seems to have solved all of these problems. I wish I could tell you the name of it, but unfortunately, I don't know it! All I know is that it is cured by a UV lamp. I tested samples by leaving a variety of products (red wine, mustard (usually hard to remove), lemon juice, ketchup, etc.) on a sample overnight. Nothing etched or stained the concrete. I was sold. The countertops have now been installed for nine months and we have no cracks, scratches or stains on them. Admittedly, this is a weekend and vacation home so the countertops have not been used daily, but the countertops have not been babied. Mine is a working kitchen, so the countertops do get exposed to lots of messes. I actually find the concrete countertops as easy to keep clean as the leathered granite on the island. I use the same cleaner (Method for Granite) to clean both of them, although my concrete fabricator recommended a beeswax finish (too much trouble!). You can get a lot of good information about concrete countertops at the link below. Just for the record, I have no affiliation with this group, whatsoever. There's also quite a few previous posts on the subject if you can get the GW Forum's search function to work correctly. Cheng's books are good if you intend to attempt this project yourself -- not something I recommend and definitely not a project not for the faint of heart. Hope this helps. Here is a link that might be useful: Concrete countertop institute