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An Update on Previous Posts
The experiments are going well, the garden is dead, the classes are thriving, and business is still growing. There… all done. You can go home now.
More detail? Well… If you insist…
Megafamilies and Natural Diabetics are both earning better than before. The forums are hard to get going. People like to post to a busy forum, they shy away from taking the lead. So you have a tidy little catch-22. Nobody posts because nobody posts. So every week or so I email the site members (they DO sign up… they don’t necessarily DO anything once they have, but they do sign up!). I welcome the new ones, give them an idea of the overall membership numbers, and invite them to go out on a limb and get the forums rolling. And I reply any time someone posts. So far the courageous are few.
But the Google income is up. So far up that one of the sites is now making what ALL of my sites used to make. Traffic has not slowed down at all. They’ve been in the new format for a month now, and the traffic is still high – in fact, Megafamilies seems to be particularly high, with a 50% increase over last month, primarily Google traffic. Natural Diabetics has maintained its growth trend.
Our web development class is going well. Five students payed for the whole course at once. One could not afford to do that, so he pays for each class as he goes. He is my bellweather. As long as he is coming back, I know I must not be doing too badly. We teach SEO this week. Last week was a whirlwind tour of images and the web. Kevin continues to film me, and I continue to sound good, but look stupid. Pretty normal.
The University Outreach Coordinator has asked me to do more this spring. Two full courses, plus four smaller classes. That is a lot. They’ll be done in a series of three saturdays for each full course though, instead of spread out through 12 weeks. I don’t know if that will make it easier, or harder. We’ll teach Joomla, and CRELoaded. The curriculum is outlined, but unwritten, so I’ll have a busy few months getting that done. Fortunately the four smaller classes (2 hours each), will be expansions on four of the modules from the full course that I am teaching now. That means the curriculum for them is already 90% finished, I just have to polish them into stand-alone classes.
Contracts keep coming. I have a few appointments each week to meet with prospects, which is about how it needs to be to keep us in shoes and milk and potatoes. Been so busy lately though that I’ve just wanted to sit down and cry a few times. I’d rather be busy than not, but sometimes it does get overwhelming.
My computer developed some dead pixels. Quite a lot, actually. Enough to be a problem. So I’m now working from a brand new HP laptop (it was cheap), which is in need of a RAM upgrade since it is running Vista (I’d have stuck with XP if they’d have given me a choice). After discovering how to get into the hidden Admin account in Vista, and running from that, I’m less frustrated with the OS in general. Still don’t like it, but now I can at least function at a minimal level.
I’ve had trouble transferring things over though, so I’m functioning with the technological equivalent of having one arm tied behind my back. It is certain to be a few more days before I have this thing firing on all cylinders where my personal info archives are concerned.
And this laptop had 40 GB of stuff on it out of the box. I uninstalled about 10 GB, but STILL… THIRTY GIGS, and they called it a “barebones system” as far as software was concerned! They were right…. it has almost nothing on it but Vista and a few games, and HPs stuff. Greedy beggers, aren’t they? The system has two hard drives – I suppose they thought they should make sure both got used?
Pending Growth within the Medicine Bow, Wyoming Region
The name “Medicine Bow” has been known to only a few traditional western fans. It is the fictional site of a book that is renowned as the “first Western” novel – The Virginian, by Owen Wister. It has been the setting of three movies based on that novel, but has never been the SITE of the actual filming.
Recently, the name of Medicine Bow has been bandied about within the government and alternative energy circles. If you Google “Medicine Bow Coal to Diesel”, you’ll find a treasure trove of both factual and speculative information.
DKRW, a relatively new company, is in the development process for a coal to liquids facility which will be located just 10 miles from Medicine Bow. The facility will support a workforce of approximately 300 workers when it is fully functioning (numbers vary according to sources, this is the most often repeated number). Work crews are currently reported as being scheduled to begin construction in the spring of 2008.
The facility will be the first of its kind, and represents freedom from foreign oil, as well as significant advances on the environmental front. It is supported not only by regional government, it has widespread support on the national level. Several other facilities are planned to be built, based on the success or failure of this one. Coal states are watching this one.
Land prices in Medicine Bow are already rising. The last round of property taxes showed a fairly high increase in tax values (nearly double for many homes). Of course, since taxes have been very low here, the increases were not huge by standards elsewhere, but they still ruffled a few feathers.
Medicine Bow has had a depressed housing economy for decades. Where else can you purchase a 3 bedroom home in decent shape for under $100 k? WELL under $100 k. That may change within the next two years though. Even the housing of the work crews will present a challenge in a town that usually has only 4-6 houses for sale at a time, and where finding a rental is as much a matter of luck as it is of timing.
Growth within Carbon County in general is already strong. Housing in the surrounding towns is becoming increasingly difficult to get. The spillover is already affecting the ‘Bow. If a person had planned to purchase land low and sell high, the opportunity is already all but gone. The feeding frenzy is already on, and houses that you could not give away last year are being priced at twice their current value. In a year, they’ll get it.
For now, the small and isolated feeling is preserved. And even with growth that doubles or triples the size of the town, we’ll still be considered unbearably small to most people. When you are starting with an optimistic estimation of 300 people, the anticipated growth still won’t move us beyond “small” or “rural”. Most people in town really just want to regain a small grocery store, and it would take doubling or tripling the town size to make it feasible. It may no longer be an unrealistic goal.
Some of the atmosphere that brings people here will undoubtedly be lost. But it would be lost due to stagnation and neglect if the growth does not occur, and loss due to growth is infinitely preferable to loss due to attrition. Things will change. But we hope to find progress within the change.
Take a look at the town website for more info about Medicine Bow: http://www.medicinebow.org
Network, Network, Network
It wasn’t just about the people who came to our booth and were interested in hiring us. That was really only a small part of the value we received from purchasing a booth at a state-wide business event. I went in with expectations of more than just one advantage, which allowed me to gain a great deal from the event that went far beyond those few potential contracts.
Networking is all about getting to know people, building relationships, and reciprocity. If you have something of value, people will recommend it, but only if they trust you to deliver. Trade events are a good place to meet people who may be interested in what you have. But they can also benefit you in other ways, depending on what your goals are.
You can meet up with people who might be considered your competitors. If you shun them, and treat them like the enemy, you’ve just cut off a potential advantage. If you get to know them, and learn the differences between what you do, and what they do, you may find that cooperation is possible, in a way that benefits you both. For example, two other web design companies at the first event were happy to take our card, with the intent of passing on referrals. They wanted big contracts. We wanted the small ones. We can help one another.
Those two benefits – potential clients, and potential cooperations, are two benefits that nearly every business can gain from networking, and from event participation. There is a third, which will benefit a business if they have goals that go beyond their own business. If you want to change the world, one more benefit is possible.
You can meet people who have the power to help you gain credibility to achieve great things. I’m not a power pusher. I don’t get into the games involving scratching and clawing my way to the top. But I do understand now how knowing the right people can help your business in ways you never dreamed.
I’m trying to define a new niche industry. To do that, I have a two-pronged approach to my business. It includes both DOING the job, in a service business, and TEACHING the job, in an educational environment. To teach it, I need more credibility than I do to just DO it. People with power can help me do that, and can help to grant me the credibility I need. They can refer me, put me in a position of being “the” expert to call on the topics I want to educate people about.
The events we attended did that, to a certain extent. We came to the notice of people who have an agenda of eliminating certain problems. The things we teach help to address some of those issues. In talking to them, once they finally understood the real difference in how we are approaching the industry, we were able to make an impression, and be remembered as the only people doing this one thing. Long term, that will benefit us. It already is on a local and regional basis.
No one else is going to build your business for you. They really don’t care whether you succeed or not, unless you are doing something that will benefit them also. People in power won’t want to help you unless it makes them look good too. You have to have your ducks in a row, you can’t just ride someone else’s coattails to the top. But if you DO have it together, and if you ARE willing to work hard at building a smart business, networking can help you succeed in ways you cannot predict.
The Intellectual Footprint of Your Business
She wasn’t getting it. I could tell that by the way she kept looking at me with this, “so… and this matters to me, why?” look on her face. It should have mattered to her, because my goal was to eliminate one of her problems.
All week I’ve been at trade shows, explaining what I do and where I am going, over and over. Some people get it right away. Some people don’t get it until you really tell them flat out, “I am not trying to just provide a service. I am trying to redefine an industry across the globe.” Then they begin to have a clue how big a thing I am trying to do.
I’ve decided to call it the “intellectual footprint”. And every business, or person, has one.
- Consider Charles Dickens. What did he contribute to the world that was good?
- Think about the safety pin. It forever redefined how we performed emergency clothing repairs.
- The Frosty made people reconsider how they thought about ice cream in a cup.
Are you trying to build a business? Or are you trying to make an impact on more than just your little corner of the world? Why, exactly, are you IN business?
If you are out to change the world, are you documenting what you learn? Are you assembling a means of passing on what you learned to others who may want to follow in your footsteps?
Often, the real difference between someone who owns a business that serves a few people, and someone who owns a business that redefines the way a group of people think about something, is nothing more than the fact that one of them documented their knowledge, and shared the life-changing lessons that they learned. They left an intellectual footprint on the world.
How big are your shoes? Will people know where you’ve trod, not because of how loudly you yelled as you went by, but by what you shared that helped them to do what they do just a little better?
You have the capacity to change the world for good. How do you intend to do that?
Realizing a Dream
My class starts Monday, through the University of Wyoming. I am not TAKING the class, I am teaching it, through their outreach program. I am not a licensed teacher. I have no post-secondary education to speak of (well, a drama course I took at the local community college when I was in highschool, but I don’t think that counts!). So this is a cool thing for me, especially since I was originally approached by them to do a course in web design.
The class was not highly promoted, and we have just a few students taking it. The Outreach Coordinator called today to ask if I still wanted to do it, or if I thought there were too few students. I told him that I’d do it. It is a necessary step for me, I need the experience, and this opportunity will help me polish my courses and add value to them.
Besides, small classes are fun. With web design, when you are building an actual project, you can help the students in a more personal way. The lessons can be adapted to their specific needs instead of just generic. That is cool. They’ll get more out of it.
I’ve done a lot of teaching, but never something like this. I’ve done individual tutoring, and workshop presentations, and short classes. But this one is quite different. 12 classes, each one building on the next, and no supplied curriculum. I had to write it myself. Would have been an overwhelming task if I had not already had so much of it done.
I asked the Outreach Coordinator whether there were enough students to justify the class for the college. They said this class, they’d run anyway, because they do not have a web development degree program, or anyone who teaches it on campus. They want to offer this through the outreach department on a regular basis.
So now I just need to live up to their expectations. I know I have the ability, and the knowledge. I just have to be able to present it in an organized and understandable way.
And I know that I cannot do this without the help of the Lord.
Volunteering When You Don’t Have Time
Somehow I always seem to open my mouth and volunteer when I really DON’T have time to volunteer! But sometimes I just cannot let a job NOT be done.
We are in one of those phases where we have a lot of fish in the pool, sniffing the bait, but nobody is biting. Oh, we have several pending contracts, but we don’t really believe that the money is coming in until it gets here! Web Design is just like that.
I rebuilt my Carry to Term site about two months ago. Stuck it in Joomla. Seemed to have more potential that way, and better options for encouraging people to talk to us and ask for help and support. I stuck a forum in there. It has not been used yet.
A few days ago, a lady who contacted me when I was pregnant with Sidney did so again. She is finishing the book she started then. She’d like more ability to reach people who have received negative prenatal diagnoses too. So it appears that the site that I rebuilt will be needed and used. Kinda cool, since I had just come to the conclusion that I had a site that needed a network of people to run it, and she comes and says she has a network of people with no site to run. Pretty cool how God works those things out.
And then I volunteered to build her a blog and a new site framework to sell the book. I’m sure I’ll find the time to fit it in, but the painting job we are trying to finish just may suffer a bit!
Now, if I can just give away a few more websites… anyone out there ready to raise a hand and shout, “Pick me!”?
Two New Experiments
Well, after making the decision to rebuild Megafamilies and Natural Diabetics, I finally got the job done. The new sites are functioning well, and are two of the best sites I’ve built in a content management system. We’ll see where they go now, since they have the ability to handle much more visitor interaction than the previous structure.
Taking a site out of a static HTML structure and putting it into a CMS is complex. It involves setting up the CMS, then transferring the content in page by page. In this instance, I also had to restructure the site layout for the Diabetes site – it had grown too large for the original simple link structure.
Once that was done, and the site ready to launch, I had to set up redirects for every link – old page to new page. That was not hard, just tedious. But doing that means that when someone tries to visit one of the old pages, they’ll get sent to the new one instead.
Google income dropped slightly during the transition, then picked right back up again. We’ll see if it gets better or worse, and how the changes affect the traffic, and income. I’ve changed sites before, but they have not been ones with strong traffic trends or AdSense earnings.
You can see the results at: http://www.naturaldiabetics.com, or http://www.megafamilies.com.
The Difference Between Privilege and Responsibility
His eyes lit up as the knife was held out to him. His first chance to use the knife to divide something. He eyed the pie carefully, considering how he could cut it into six pieces while still reserving the largest piece for himself. He poised the knife to cut, just a little off center, and then froze as he heard his mother utter these words:
“You have to take the smallest piece.”
Suddenly his entire goal shifted. From the goal of getting more, he now has the goal of being scrupulously accurate! He now has a responsibility to be fair, added to what he thought was merely a privilege! He considers more carefully, and checks all options before he makes the first cut.
He learns more as time goes on, about being the one with the responsibility for the wellbeing of more than just himself. And much of it goes back to those words on the first occasion that he was entrusted with the knife – “You have to take the smallest piece.” He learns that even when he tries his hardest, sometimes inaccuracies WILL happen. And that he must accept the outcome even when there was no fault on his part. Sometimes there are consequences that we don’t intend, that we have to make up for anyway. We musn’t require others to do that for us.
Privilege is often thought of as something ungoverned. It is only as time goes on and we mature that we realize that it comes with a price, and that it must be earned. And that the hidden responsibilities that go along with it are far weightier than we had originally considered.
In business, this marks the difference between true integrity, and the mere appearance of it. The appearance considers only what they perceive that people will notice, while in the background, retaining the thought, “How can I get a bigger piece than they do without making it LOOK like I did it on purpose?”. True integrity means you always take the smaller piece when you were responsible for creating the pieces. That you look out for the interests of your clients, associates, and even your competitors. That the Golden Rule is carried through every level of everything you do.
The result is pretty awesome – customers who come back again and again because they know you will never cheat them. And beyond that, they know that you will consider their needs and situations as carefully as you consider your own. All other things being equal, such a business will always do better than the competition.
Gone to Seed
We planted, and watered, and watered, and watered, and weeded, and watered. And just the squash came up. We watered some more, and replanted, and some lettuce came up. The deer ate it. We put stinky fertilizer around it. The deer left it alone.
This summer was hot. And stormy. For three weeks we had blazing heat. Right about the time we planted, of course. So the seeds got cooked before they could sprout. The soil is clay, so heat just bakes it and the soil holds the warmth.
The zucchini bore fruit. So did the squash. But the squash did not pollinate correctly, so it did not mature. The cucumbers grew, and we had enough cucumbers to eat and give away. Ah… the feeling of wealth that comes when you have something everyone else wants, that you can share!
Finally the beans and more lettuce came up. Along with about 6 beets. And countless tumbleweeds. Not to be outdone by the tumbleweeds, the grass, of course, sprouted and hollered for attention. Grass always does.
It is autumn in Wyoming. It comes early here. The storms are back, and the wind is picking up. The kids are a little less enthusiastic about watering the garden now, so it is not bearing as well. The weeds are attempting to come into their own. We are battling them, but it is a tough battle. And some of the plants want to go to seed. Growth, yes, but not USEFUL growth right now, since we don’t WANT seeds, we want fresh veggies.
Again the comparison to business is too strong to ignore. Have I let it go to seed – have I let it grow into something I did not want, and have no use for, at the expense of something I do need? Have the weeds of discouragement, disorganization, and distraction taken over and sapped the strength from the desired growth?
And if so, what do I do about it? I think it is easier to spot the problems than it is to actually SOLVE them. A plan. Some action. Good action.
Tomorrow WILL be better.
Flash Really Ain’t Bad
You hear it all the time – Flash interferes with SEO, Flash slows down a site, Flash is expensive, Flash won’t benefit most sites it is on. And while all this is true, in many situations, there is another side – that is the wise use of Flash.
Now, let us be plain about just what we are discussing. Part of the confusion about Flash comes down to the fact that people are lumping everything Flash together. There are actually three basic uses that are totally different:
1. Flash INTROS. When a site is created with a doorway or home page that is nothing but Flash. No meaningful text, no useful information other than this “loading” bar, and then a movie which, more often than not, really doesn’t tell you anything helpful. These pages are all but invisible to search engines, and to people with visual disabilities. A double whammy.
2. Flash SITES. Even worse. Like an entire site full of intro pages. Links built in Flash are invisible to search engines and to the visually disabled, or to anyone who does not have the right plugin. In other words, if the person cannot view the site on your terms, it is useless to them. It is also extremely slow, which translates as annoying.
3. Flash ELEMENTS. This is just a box on the page, maybe the header, maybe part of the page lower down, which has an animation in it. Nice for galleries, short visual messages, etc. All of the disadvantages that intros and sites have are eliminated, except for the speed issue. Even that is mitigated, because there are other things on the page for the visitor to see. There is content for the search engines, text for the blind to be able to grab with a text reader, and a potential enhancement to the appeal of the page to everyone else.
Now, that said, it still is not the “best” thing for every site. Most sites we build would not benefit from video animations at this time. Some do – I mean, if you are in a high end market that targets certain personality profiles, then video is a definite enhancement. For others though, it makes no difference, and therefore, cannot be a justifiable expenditure.
To include it in a site, we have to be reasonably certain that it will increase the monetary gain of the site owner – enough to offset the cost of including it. And there is an expense to be considered. Flash element creation requires either specialized skills and software, or simplified software that is purchased on a single site user license basis. So either way, there is going to be a cost. For a few businesses, you can see immediately that the cost would be justifiable. A few are equivocal, and others you can say with certainty that there would be no benefit.
Sites that WOULD benefit:
- Any site selling videos.
- Any site selling video production services.
- Any site selling high end graphic design services.
- Sites promoting highly visual products or services.
- Sites promoting to a market that is impatient and largely visual, such as video gamers.
- Sites selling action related items or services.
- And other sites where motion is a definite enhancement to a sales message.
Sites that might benefit – worth using only if the site owner can afford it:
- Sites selling trendy items.
- Sites selling visually appealing items that are artistic in nature, but not high end.
- Sites catering to teens or college age visitors.
- Sites promoting design services where displaying a range of styles in a single place is helpful.
- Sites selling unique and visually identifiable merchandise.
Sites that are unlikely to benefit from Flash:
- Those selling products that are not easily identifiable through a picture.
- Sites owned by people on an extremely tight budget – they can get more bang for the buck in other ways.
- Sites catering to a frugal crowd – Flash looks expensive, and detracts from the message.
- Sites that target the visually impaired.
- Any site for which there is no strong purpose in the imagery and content of an animated or video clip.
Flash can be a great enhancement, and indeed a good investment for some websites. Of course, it also depends on what you DO with it – whether you are just throwing something in to throw something in, or whether you have a purpose, a plan, and a concept which will actually add to the quality of the site! Assuming it is done well, a certain percentage of sites can benefit from wisely used Flash elements.
And, technology is changing all the time. The standards by which we measure today will certainly change in a year or two. As internet speeds increase, and the low end moves up, we’ll have more options for using more resource intensive elements. As Flash evolves, someone is BOUND to create a means of coding to overcome the accessibility and SEO limitations. Until then though, it pays to understand what the limitations are, and how to work around them in effective ways.
From Durable, to Consumable
We are watching an evolution in our marketplaces. It has been happening for many years, and it has gained a little attention, but perhaps not what it should.
Manufacturers are changing durable goods, to consumbable goods. Durable goods are those that last long enough that purchases are infrequent. Consumable goods are those that we “use up”, and purchase more of. Traditionally, durable goods included clothing, tools, appliances, equipment, etc. Today, we see a trend, inspired partly by greed, to make durable goods consumables.
Consider – How long does clothing last now, compared to how long it lasted 20 years ago? A computer, once a 5-10 year purchase, is now a 1-3 year purchase. Appliances break and are discarded in 2-3 years. Washers and dryers, which once had a 10 year warranty, now have a 1 year warranty. Vacuum cleaners have plastic parts, and wear out in a very short time under use within a family (one of ours lasted just 4 months, and it was not abused). Athletic shoes are made to last “one season” – that is, 3-4 months.
Prices have come down on many of these items, but durability has definitely taken some heavy hits. We live in a plastic world – I don’t mind plastic in general, if it is tough plastic. But many of the items that are being made from plastic are being made from plastic that is too weak to stand up to the average use of the product.
We’ve also seen a trend of lowering the prices of durable goods, while increasing the price of their related consumables. Printers are the best example of this – A printer used to cost several hundred dollars, but the ink cost $20 for a large cartridge. Today’s cartridges cost between $20 and $45, and hold less than a quarter of the ink the old ones held. But printers are cheap. In fact, printers are SO cheap, that it was once less expensive for us to purchase a new printer on sale than it was for us to replace the ink cartridges!
A durable good allows a manufacturer to profit just once per customer, for a specific period of time. A consumable good has them coming back, again and again. But the cost of making “disposable” goods in place of durable goods runs through more than just our pocketbooks. Environmentally, it has a huge impact. And it has a negative affect on society as a whole, in perpetuating the myth that nothing is permanent, and that if something bugs you, just throw it away.
Some say this is just a reflection of the society we live in. It should not be. The trend is disturbing, and continued, will have disastrous effects on the ability of families and small businesses to survive. If you have to not only plan to get something you need the first time, but also to afford to replace it every year, your budget is quickly out of control.
I see no solution though. I think in this instance, greed will out.
The Flu… and the Flu again, and Something Else
Eavesdropping on our family would be horridly unexciting. The sounds lately consist mostly of sniffs, coughs, harrumphs, snorts, low pitched nasal voices, and frequent whining. When everybody is sick, everybody has to do their chores anyway!
David did it. He came home from camp with a pretty severe respiratory virus. Erik got it. Then he got something else. Then he got a cold, all in rapid succession. Then David got the cold, Alex got a fever and headache, then Adriene, then Betsy, and about the time that Alex got the cold, Kevin and I came down with the fever and aches. No cough yet. I’m TIRED of everybody being sick. I’m tired of the sounds of mucus being expelled from bodily orifices. I’m tired of running out of Kleenex! Our acetaminophen and ibuprofen budget is out of control!
So Kevin and I, neither one feeling too good, tried to build a small porch today for a trailer house. Both of us moving slowly, worn out. Like a bad carpentry show in slow motion. But being self-employed, you work. You work even when you feel sick, as long as you are able. Nobody will pay us to stay home and wrap up in a blanket and force fluids. If we don’t work, there is no income. And we need income! The result was solid – but it wasn’t much work for a whole day!
We’ve been enjoying life around the illness though. It is good to have David home, with his humor and helpfulness. I took him to pick up his brand-new glasses yesterday. He asked me how fragile the filament was that held the lense in on the bottom. I told him I though it must be pretty sturdy, after all, Kevin has had a pair of glasses with half frames for about 4 years, and it has never broken. On the way home, after getting the glasses, David made an attempt to adjust the frames, and pulled the wrong way. The filament on the left frame snapped before we were even halfway home (it is an hour drive home, but STILL!). He sat there feeling really foolish, with a brand new pair of glasses with just one lens. He contemplated the possibilities of monocles – and abandoned the idea when holding the lens in with just his eyebrow and cheekbone gave him a cramp. The glasses lay in his other hand looking pathetic. After about 10 minutes, he perked up, and said, “Maybe I could just tell the other kids that I got contacts!”
The kids started homeschool yesterday. David is a great help with it, and Erik is now learning to tutor his siblings also. I was proud of them, they got right to their schoolwork without anyone having to tell them to, and they worked diligently to finish their lessons TWO DAYS IN A ROW! I know that the honeymoon is going to be over probably Thursday. After that, there will be the usual “I can’t find my pencil”, and “I didn’t eat breakfast yet!”.
And in all of this, I made two critical business decisions. The two sites I’ve had for sale forever, which are worth every bit I am asking (hey, they make me money… people think I’m gonna GIVE them away?), which I get LOTS of nibbles about, but which everyone runs from when they realize I want an actual amount of money for it, are no longer for sale. I’ve decided to rebuild them in a CMS, so I can expand their features. A monstrous amount of work, no idea HOW I’ll fit it in, but know that I have to so they can keep earning for us. Yes, that was two business decisions… keep one, keep the other. Two choices.
We’ll also be doing a booth at the Casper Events Center for the Idea Expo. This is our target market, and it makes sense. It is pricier than our usual, but should be worth it. This is one of those scary things though – going out on a limb to gather the resources to get everything together for it. Gotta go out on a limb to get the best fruit though.
Our son reports for his mission on the 24th of October. The same day our daughter is scheduled to ship out to Kuwait, for training to go into Iraq. Bit of an irony, really.
Gardening doesn't have to be that hard! No matter where you live, no matter how difficult your circumstances, you CAN grow a successful garden.
Life from the Garden: Grow Your Own Food Anywhere Practical and low cost options for container gardening, sprouting, small yards, edible landscaping, winter gardening, shady yards, and help for people who are getting started too late. Plenty of tips to simplify, save on work and expense.
