A bunch of Lens hybrid musks from europe. Sibelius was a most surprising little purple, Pleine de Grace, Matchball and Jaqueline Humery are healthy and delightful (had a white thing going on) My new rose hedge (well, post and wire between 2 allotment plots) has Nastarana (still very small and delicate), Goldfinch (think I may have to move this as it is going to be far too widely bushy), Leontine Gervaise and Ayreshire Splendens - very promising with trainable canes and an ability to grow almost horizontal - the most successful in the hedge, I think) Climbing Iceberg, and a rescued rugosa complete the hedge. I also have Aimee Vibert - slow, no flowers yet but healthy, paired with a softly cream hybrid helenae which is also quite small still (am expecting a lot more growth to meet Aimee over a long, high timber structure (currently doing duty as pea and bean pole supports). A couple of Austins, Crocus rose (being mugged by a large clump of cornflowers and thalictrum) and Summer Song - a great colour but terrible growth habit and not very healthy. The other duff rose is a Poulsen rennaissance rose, Lilliana/Claire Rennaissance - awful BS. Jasmina (Kordes), Perpetually Yours and Penny Lane(Harkness) and Nahema (Delgard, I think)are a healthy bunch, propping up various veggie posts and the like about the allotment - all work well, are healthy and good choices. Another early yellow, R.cantabridgiensis, a little spinossissima and R.pomifera duplex/Wolley Dods rose are perfect roses for my sandy soil and and open, windy plot - they are unblemished and beautiful with enough blossom to promise much more in coming years. Most disappointing is Hot Chocolate, which has languished next to Summer Song doing nothing - annoyingly, Liliana is also part of this vignette along with zinnias which are also rubbish (this weather!). The imagined glowing scenario of paprika and peach is gappy and splotchy - I avert my eyes. The most surprising is Crepuscule, a make up the numbers choice, bounding into flawless healthy beauty in a tricky but fertile spot (side of the compost bays). I expect the compost mountain will be prettily disguised next year. Most vigorous and fastest is, unsurprisingly Darlows Enigma - I think this rose is going to take to a UK climate with vim and vigour - a truly delicious rose, perfect for the rampageous allotment. Oh yeah, a couple of oddities, another hulthemia Alissar, Princess of Phoenicia (what a name!) and Pomponella - love them both. Finally, my failure rose - Pauls Scarlet Climber - done in by a vicious bindweed and an uncaring owner.

Normally if a local store is not competitive, there are one of two reasons: 1) The store owner has not adapted to current market conditions. Quite simply, as the profit margins move downward - and they have - they have not revised their business structure to capture sales that would otherwise go to out-of-area dealers. Some store owners insist on adhering to a margin-based price structure and will not adjust. The smart businessman NEVER lets a customer walk out to do business out-of-area. I know a number of store owners who are hard-headed and won't adapt. Its up to you, their local customer, to bring in a price quote and show them that they need to match it or you'll go elsewhere. If enough customers do that, they'll get the message. But if you never tell them, then they don't know. 2) Some furniture makers have a 2-tier price structure. Small stores don't get as large a discount from the maker as larger ones do. Typically its based on dollar-volume sold, or number of pieces put on the floor. So there is a chance that within a certain brand line that you local dealer is paying more for the goods than a larger, out-of-state discounter. This happens to me with Southwood Furniture as an example. My cost basis is 10 % less than the big store in the next county because they do more volume by accident than I do working hard at it. Still they get the volume price and I don't. Nevertheless, I adapt (being a savvy dealer!) and match price or go under them everyday. It results in thin margins, and it does not exactly make me want to invest in a lot of their product for the floor. Personally, I think it a bad policy from the makers as it tends to keep the little guys small regardless of how hard they work for the brand and limits floor exposure for their dealership network. Walk your best price into your local dealer and tell them in no uncertain terms they need to beat it. See what happens! Keep in mind however, that local sales tax is not something that your hometown store cannot waive and should be factored out when price shopping (the flip side of this is that these taxes do come back into your community infrastructure when you buy locally). Duane Collie

Lake Mayor - if you click on "my page", then click on "my journal" and then click on "teresa_MN's page" it will bring you to a link to my email. Send me your address. I got to the post office today and there were no less than a couple hundred people. I will take an earlier bus tomorrow morning and go to the PO when they open at 6:30. So Shambo and all others should get their rice Saturday. Lou - no need to send me anthing. I found a package of goodies on my steps today that came from you! That will be a seperate thread. This was really fun! And Joshua did a great job picking a good mix of folks. A couple have never had the rice, some people I know, one I've never heard of! I was very happy to be able to share rice this year. I've never seen a crop like this, and I don't expect I ever will again. There have been years I have ordered rice from Deer River, Minnesota when our crop was slim. I ordered 30 lbs of rice from the guy a couple weeks ago for a friend who was coming to town for Thanksgiving. The shipping to my house was cheaper than shipping it to Texas. I had plans to meet this friend for drinks and I handed off the rice then. If anyone wants the name of that place, let me know. There are several rice sellers in Deer River, but only one has hand harvested lake rice. Teresa

I didn't think there was a connection between build.com and Fergusons, either, but I checked into it and it turns out that there is a large, British parent company that owns both build.com and Fergusons. However, it's important to know that, whenever I compared prices, they were much better at build.com than at Fergusons (both online and at my local Fergusons). I just checked out the price of a Hansgrohe faucet I'm familiar with and it was $161 at build.com and $201 at Fergusons. Occasionally Amazon will be close to or about the same as build.com in pricing, but I have to pay sales tax most of the time at Amazon, and don't at build.com, which saves me nearly 10% on my orders. I also like build.com because they carry other products besides plumbing fixtures, like lighting, cabinet hardware, fans/vents, tankless water heaters, vanities, mirrors, etc.