Look for an extention office in the county you will be growing in .You already are used to a short grow season ,this will be shorter still .grow the early maturing varieties , designed for cold climates,but you allready knew that .

The furnace is propane. The house is a ranch and is about 1500 sq ft. The home is about 28 years old, we have only been in it for 1 year. I think it is fairly well insulated. Some of the windows have been replaced, but not all. But I don't see daylight coming through any where and I haven't felt drafts. The furnace is located in the crawlspace (it is a large crawlspace, earthen bottom but has a vapor barrior). The problem with the existing one - other than it is the original and really old - is that the pilot light kept going out. The service folks came out and replaced the burning element and/or the panel around the pilot and cleane it. But the next time we went there, the pilot light would be out again. The contractor thought that there was no air flow so when the furnace fired up, it would light improperly and extinguish itself. Forgive me - I don't totally understand how the furnance works. I don't know if the home could accept a high efficiency condensing furnace - I am not sure what the requirements are :) I appreciate any thoughts that you have! Beth

Hi Carol, I live in Kannapolis, NC (Cabarrus County) just a brief drive from Mooresville. I go there every few months or so and I've taken classes in Mooresville. They have a bigger thrift store that I go to (same co. not a big in Kannapolis). It's a great small town and GROWING close to major cities, like Charlotte. Davidson is just a few miles away, a lovely college town. Right now, the prices for homes are still low and if I could move, I would probably move to Mooresville. It still has much of a small town feel to it. The downtown area is lovely and quaint. I don't know about the property taxes, you will have to refer to Iredell County. I've been here 30 years, moved to Charlotte at first. Got out of there, had more crime happen to me than all my 20 yrs. in S.Fla!! The surrounding towns are much better, cheaper taxes, less traffic, and it's a quick trip to Charlotte for theater, symphonies, plays. The wonderful aspects of North Carolina are varied. There are a lot of small towns to travel. You would be right in between the mountains and the ocean, about 6 hrs. away from Wash.DC, 8 hrs. away from Kentucky. I used to live in S.Fla. so I am still amazed that you can get somewhere in just a few hours. Virginia on the west side is just gorgous! Lake Norman property taxes are going up up up, so I would avoid that area. I just read that in the paper. I was talking to a new employee at work, she was born in S.C. but lived in N.Y. for 13 years. She is now South again in N.C. She said that she had forgotten how "friendly" the folks are here in the south!! And of course, she does NOT miss the snow and dark days. Just had daylight savings, and it will get dark around 7:30...stays light till almost 9 in the summer months!! I am enclosing a link from the PBS TV stations that show North Carolina Weekend. I think you can watch the shows online. I have learned a lot about NC by watching these shows. It really shows the history, cities, out of the way super good restuarants, the outer banks, the mountains. It's all good. This is a good show to watch also : http://www.unctv.org/exploringNC/ And the link to the PBS channel is: http://www.unctv.org/index.shtml Hope this helps! Keep me posted! If you click on my name you can send me an email and let me know. June Lynn Here is a link that might be useful: NC Weekend

Annie - I'm staying at The Swift House Inn in MIddlebury. A few years ago I was off on a tangent to go out there at Christmas and settled on this place - even made a reservation and then decided traveling at Christmas was a dumb idea. I think it will be good for a couple days. I did see a bunch of places in Burlington but I just can't bring myself to stay in a chain hotel on a trip like this - actually I never like to do that. I did make a reservation at the MIrror Lake Inn - it looks wonderful - thanks for the recommendation. Also staying at a highly rated B&B in Geneva even though I generally don't like B&Bs. Considered Geneva on the Lake but that had some bad reviews and the B&B had wonderful reviews so giving it a try.