05.01.2007

(off-site links open in new windows)

Don says:

One of the links in this issue of our ezine, which was sent in by our friend Jerry Fox, shows you how to put yourself in the money.   Of course I couldn't resist giving it a shot.

I found an awfully cute little dog on the web a few days ago. I forget whether it was in an email or on a website, I just snagged it in passing.   What do you think, is this one worth an "awww"?

By the way, I'd sure like to give credit to whoever took this awesome photograph so if you know anything about this picture please pass it on.

This week I've been "test driving" Mandriva and SAM on the 600 MHz machines I recently acquired.   Both distros are nice but Mandriva is technically crippleware because you can't get updates, once it's installed, unless you register and pay a fee.   Like Debian it runs beautifully on older hardware and while I don't mind paying for a good operating system, or paying a fee to be eligible for updates, don't tell me it's "free" and then, after I've bought the four CDs and installed it, that there's "a catch".   All of which is moot really because SAM has newer software and outperforms Mandriva on the same computers. There are a few bugs in SAM and it requires some post-install tweaking but most of these issues require no more than a brief visit to the forums on the website to resolve and I'm confident that SAM will mature into a stable, user-friendly distro.

"In other news" I'm still itching to try Linux Mint (Bianca KDE Edition) but it really needs a newer (i.e. faster) computer system than any I've got so it'll just have to wait a bit longer.

Lisa says:

"Big Project" is my middle name.

OK, I had this idea.   I wanted a rock garden.   Not a little rock garden.   Oh, no, a BIG rock garden.   I had been hauling in large, pretty rocks from all over the neighborhood.   People gave me some and whenever a rock looked lost or neglected I let it follow me home.   I'd been bordering flowerbeds, a little corner for roses, etc., then outlined an area for a rock garden.   I was going to put down nursery ground cloth, then mulch heavily with mulch from the tree service who has been happy to dump their precious trash on our property, to be used later for flower beds and such.   If you don't mulch heavily here in Texas you're doomed to watering several times a week in the summer, and this year it's just not happening.   Grass is on its own around here, too.   Then our lake, Lake Buchanan, got very low, and there's this beautiful pink granite gravel...ooooooh...

A couple of years ago, a local gas station changed brands, and the pump toppers (the thingie with the '4' on it in this picture) with the old brand name were tossed out on the curb.   I spotted them, thought immediately of raised beds, asked for them and hauled them home to await paint and inspiration.   I got a color of paint that was about the average color of terra-cotta pots and applied several coats, working on the garden itself between coats.   The local nursery had ground cloth which covered the grass so it didn't need to be dug up (more on this distressing subject later) and many trips to the dry lake bed commenced.   With a square-headed shovel I scooped off half an inch of gravel wherever I could find the size I wanted. Further down than that and there was sand, which was not suitable.   This went into many, many buckets in many 'gravel runs' until there was an average of 1 inch overall.

Raised Beds                  Ground Cloth                 View from Back
   


Outline of an Idea                  Finished Gravel Garden
 

Meanwhile, I'd been repotting plants my friends had given me last year, also potting up more and passing them around; have to be fair, y'know.   Last fall I planted wildflowers between the low rock wall and the street, eight feet wide and in this area, Black-eyed Susans decided it was 'just right'.   After the gravel was distributed, the painted raised beds were placed, filled with a good soil and planted with yellow straight-necked squash, zucchini, holy and lemon basil, and Patio tomatoes.   The plants haven't grown much in the last week, the weather hasn't really warmed much, but we've gotten lots of rain.

Now, on the subject of nutsedge...*sigh*   It seems that nutsedge will poke through almost anything but plywood and I wasn't going to put that down over the septic drainfield.   The little blades were coming up through the weave of the ground cloth within days, making me madder by the minute.   According to my friends and neighbors, the only thing that will kill it is a product called Image, and I've hit it once with that.   There's lots of it and it looks a little discouraged after 3 days.   If it doesn't work once, you can hit it again, and I will.   Grrr....

The adventure continues...