Whew! Finally a chance to sit down and do some mind-numbing activity, like posting a blog. *Grin* Hubby’s doing great, I’ve found a distant cousin through Ancestry and am in the process of helping her solve a longstanding family adoption mystery (it gave her a definite road to explore once we verified we were blood relatives), and I’m busy putting together a spring garden. We decided this year to try raised beds, an idea we settled on when we found lifetime guaranteed USA made metal corners from raisedbeds.com, which are used to construct whatever size beds you want by supplying your own lumber. We purchased two sets of 12 inch tall corners to construct a bed, deciding on 8 feet by 2 feet for the first one. Using the square foot method of gardening, I had 16 squares to plant after adding soil, lining the bed with leftover solar screen I had from creating window screens, using that as heavy duty weed block. It worked REALLY well, so much so we purchased more corners and crafted a bed that was 8 feet by 3 feet, creating 24 squares for plants. That’s what I finished planting today.
Here’s the 8 X 2 foot bed, which is planted with white onions, cherry tomato, bush cucumbers, red onions, broccoli, carrots, Parks whopper tomato, a jalapeno pepper, more red onions and white onions, more bush cucumbers, a golden jubilee tomato, a cajun bell pepper, extra broccoli and spinach.
Here’s the 8 X 3 foot bed, which is planted with regular peas, 2 kinds of snow peas, 2 kinds of okra, turnips, Mortgage Lifter tomato, swiss chard, red onions, pie pumpkins, 2 Cherokee purple tomatoes, a bell pepper, watermelon, carrots, red cabbage, cantaloupe, spinach, 2 kinds of summer squash, Brandy Boy tomato, Super Sauce tomato and 2 kinds of bush green beans.
Keeping my fingers crossed that everything will grow well, and will keep weeds down to an absolute minimum.
Now, onto Roku. If you’re not familiar with it, it is a streaming device. An AWESOME invention, at least to my minimally technically savvy perception. You see, before we had cable and internet through one company, and usually ended up paying approximately $120 a month, or more, depending on the number of movies on demand we ordered over the course of a month. Sure, we had a huge amount of channels to choose from with our “package”, but the majority of those we NEVER watched. I don’t need 14 channels of golf, or tennis, or rap music, or the jihad channel, thank you very much. For approximately $89, on sale, we purchased the Roku 3, which is the top of the line HD streaming device they offer. Did I mention there is NO monthly fee? If you decide to subscribe to other channels that carry a monthly fee through Roku, that is your choice. The number of free channels is mind-boggling. We did subscribe to Netflix for $7.99 a month through Roku, which gives us the option of watching unlimited movies, TV shows, etc, that they offer. Since I was an Amazon Prime subscriber for $79 a year, I also have access to a section of free videos, movies, TV series through Amazon. (The price is going up to $99 a year, which I will not continue the subscription to once it expires–can’t see the return on investment at $99–sorry).
Roku has worked out well. We cancelled our cable TV subscription and just kept the internet, which meant our bill went from $120 plus a month down to $35 a month. Huge savings, and more flexibility in what we watch, when we watch it, and absolutely no commercials. I purchased an indoor antenna to capture local channels, but even that is becoming obsolete. I cannot recommend Roku highly enough. The free channels alone (classic movies, horror movies, cooking shows, youtube, exercise channels, etc) are worth the purchase price. Go to Roku.com to get more info on the device, as well as channels they offer.
Well, I’ll cut it off here–a pot of turkey tortilla soup needs my attention at the moment. 🙂
Petals of Yesterday 