5 Steps To A Better Lawn And Garden

If you're lucky enough to have a lawn with a good topsoil base, much of the hard work of keeping a lawn beautiful is already done for you. But many of us do not have this luxury, and besides, even with a good topsoil base, you still have to work hard to keep a beautiful lawn and garden.

1. The best time to mow a lawn is when it is cool and dry. Wait for the morning dew to dry off, and before the afternoon heat takes hold. Alternatively, late afternoon or early evening following a watering in the morning is also a good time.
2. A hedge is a much better boundary divider than a fence. It will provide better privacy and keep pets and children in - or out. It will attract birds to its shelter, and provide a great backdrop for plants and flowers.
3. Bring the beauty of your garden to you; plant hyacinths near walkways and doors. Their magnificent perfume will swamp the spring air and make your garden really come alive.
4. Add your garden to non-garden items, such a lampposts and mail boxes. Surround these items with flowers planted to take advantage of the earliest to the latest flowerings. You could have white snowdrops, purple and gold crocus, blue hyacinths, and various colored tulips. You could also surround the posts with rocks to provide added interest.
5. Simple, but effective weed control can be achieved on your lawn by mowing often during spring. This will prevent dandelions spreading by eliminating the yellow blossoms and preventing seed formation. Mow high during late spring and early summer. This will allow grass blades to shade the ground, and will help prevent crabgrass from sprouting.

Your lawn and garden should be a source of pride and beauty. You don't need to spend lots of money on expensive fertilizers and herbicides, or fancy lawn furniture and ornaments. A little common sense and thought can go a long way to making your lawn and garden a much better place.

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Texting and Communication

I often wonder what all this technology is doing to our communications these days. I mean, I know that I belong to the generation that literally created txtpsk, evolving it through the earliest days of chatrooms and ICQ. But nowadays (and I am old enough to say that) it just seems to be getting out of hand.

The other day I was hanging out downtown, and I decided to tell a joke to this guy I was talking to. At the punchline he looked at me and said, "Lol." Not spelled it. Said it.

IDK if he was a n00b or if he was just crazy, but this cute redhead at a cafe seat next to us looked at me and colon-dash-endparenthesised. I semicolon-dash-endparenthesised back, and we xchanged dgts.

Isn't it great when languages evolve beyond the need for actual emotions? You can tell how someone's feeling just by using punctuation. You don't need to actually laugh when you can just say "Lol."

There's a great divide here though. My mom makes up txtspk according to some code that she thinks others will understand intrinsically. She hasn't grasped that, as made-up as the language is, it's been around for twenty years and has certain standards applied to it. Her logic: it's made up, so she can make it up too.

I suppose in the final analysis, she's not far off the mark.

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MOVIE PRODUCTION STUDIO SETTING UP SHOP IN COBOURG

Cobourg, ON - Owned Entertainment (Canada) Inc. has announced that it will open up a movie production studio in Cobourg, ON. Owned Entertainment (Canada) focuses on movie, TV and DVD productions based on the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as well as other entertainment entities aimed at a demographic of males 16-30.

Company President, James Hergott has chosen his hometown of Cobourg and is excited about the possibilities for his business. “MMA is the fastest growing sport in the world and especially popular in Ontario and the GTA. This geographic area has one of the strongest fan bases in North America and is a perfect location to work on my future projects,” stated Mr. Hergott.

Mr. Hergott’s production plans for Cobourg are two-fold. First he will be directing and producing a scripted feature film, OWN3D, in Cobourg in the spring of 2012. The second part of the plan is the building of a state of the art studio facility in Cobourg. In addition to future projects by Mr. Hergott the studio would produce 5-6 additional film projects as part of a distribution agreement.

Mr. Hergott will work closely with the Town of Cobourg, as well as the County of Northumberland with a strategy to grow the economy as well as provide jobs.  Mr. Hergott comments: “With many jobs in North America going overseas it is important to invest in innovative business opportunities in growth industries. Currently the MMA business is growing at a rapid pace despite the economic slowdown. The UFC’s first event in Toronto had an economic impact on the city of $44 million.  The entertainment industry is one that cannot be easily outsourced because it must reflect the artistic culture of the world it is presenting.”

“We are very pleased to be able to work with Mr. Hergott in developing his business plans” says Wendy Gibson, Economic Development Officer for the Town of Cobourg. We have been targeting businesses in the Creative Economy and this type of business fits nicely into that category”.

For more information please contact:

James Hergott, President

Owned Entertainment (Canada) Inc.

Email: james.hergott@ownedentertainment.ca

Or

Wendy Gibson, Economic Development Officer, Town of Cobourg

Tel: 905-372-5481 x 4125

Email: wgibson@cobourg.ca

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TACFIT: Back in the Game

"What allows me to train 3x/day at 40 years old as intensely as I do isn't a secret formula. It's very simple. But it ain't easy. I strive every day to become the father my children deserve, the husband my wife deserves, the coach my students deserve, the athlete my teammates deserve, the servant my country deserves, and the disciple that God deserves. I continually fail. But I will never, ever give up." 

- Coach Sonnon (founder of TACFIT Commando)

Well, no more excuses. It's time to get back in the game.

As I wrote previously, I had a few more than significant interruptions in trying to get keyed up for TACFIT Mission 2. Rather than wrestle my way through with half-assed effort, I decided to just cut my loss and start over on August 1st.

I like starting on the first of something...Monday, first of the month, etc. Just something weirdly compulsive that I do.

Anyway, where I left off (July 5) I recorded the following stats:

Waist: 38
Weight: 200
BF%: 23.44%

In today's measurement, I can see where the intervening month of just general yard work has got me:

Waist: 39
Weight: 205
BF%: 24.69%

Time to get back on the wagon. I've done the first two No- and Low-Intensity objectives, and the first Moderate-Intensity one. I eased myself back in with only half sets, because I was doing them very slowly to get the movements right. The exercises are pretty complicated, but I can still hold my own. We'll see how that goes today with the High-Intensity workout.

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Site Issues...and rain.

Regular readers will no doubt have noticed a dip in the posting schedule lately. Well, it's not for lack of ideas. For reasons as yet undetermined the posting in my blogger back office has ground to a halt.

I've been over at the community site trying to raise an answer, but so far nothing has worked. The next step is to go right to Google for support.

I have to say that I love the stuff Google is doing, integrating all my usual business activities through a single login. But their one failing is in relying almost exclusively on user forums for support, rather than providing a straightforward help desk. If I find them I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I'll post what I can from my phone.

In other news, it's finally raining. I haven't actually mowed the lawn in almost a month simply because I haven't had to. The weeds are doing great mind you.

That's been the joke; eventually I'm going to have to get out there and mow the weeds. But today has been the first day of almost constant rain in a very long time, so I suspect the grass is going to come back with a vengeance.

Nothing for it but to mow I guess. At least the rain will soften the ground a little so I can finally get a spade under those dandelions.

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