So This Is Christmas

Merry Christmas is such an infectious feeling I like to feel that way all year around.

So if you are visiting just before Christmas, just after Christmas or even here on Christmas day I am sure you will find something of interest for you and in the spirit of Christmas.

It may be said that Christmas is no longer a celebration but this must be spoken by people that have never had trouble closing their eyes on Christmas Eve in an expectation of what maybe left for them on the carpet under the tree.

I continue to look forward to the surprise on my Grandchild's faces to this day at Christmas events.

Merry Christmas - Merry Christmas - Merry Christmas

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Second Spring Planting Season

By Keith Markensen

This is confusing to transplanted Easterners, who find it hard to realize that gardening is carried on twelve months of the year in many areas.

The main tasks are to get those seeds of perennials and biennials planted right away, order the spring bulbs; kill the weeds and carry on routine fertilizing of begonias, chrysanthemums and fuchsias. Don't give up the fight against pests and diseases either. However, it is the seed sowing and the bulb planting that make August the opening month of the second planting season.

While a long list of dependable biennials and perennials could be recommended, these are particularly useful: columbine, English and Shasta daisies, coreopsis, penstemon, sweet William, Iceland and Oriental poppies, salvia, campanula, thalictrum, delphinium and wallflower. The wallflower, by the way, does not take kindly to the heat of Southern California and Arizona.

Roses

Apply an organic liquid fish fertilizer to encourage the production of roses for the fall season. Keep a mulch on the rose beds until winter, when it can be either worked into the soil or, if this is likely to bury the roots too deep, removed. Be extremely careful about using an oil spray during very hot weather.

Get ready to plant sweet peas Prepare the soil for sowing sweet peas. If you insist on starting them this month in order to have flowers during the winter, you must remember not to neglect them at any time. They dislike hot weather and if neglected may have to be resown next month.

Stop Ants

Control ants by spraying or dusting one of the special ant control products around the garden and house foundation. Ants not only are a nuisance but also they spread other pests such as scale and mealybugs from plant to plant. If ants are eradicated now, controlling pests like the water lily pests will be easier.

Planting anemones and ranunculuses

A too-early planting of ranunculuses and anemones is a waste of time and valuable garden space. They should be planted in the cool season of the year, after the first of October. Bulbs offered before this time are usually left-overs from the season before rather than a fresh crop from seedlings which flowered earlier this year.

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Choosing The Ideal Furniture Without Having to Spend A Lot

By Kelly Kim

These days, furniture market is immensely unsympathetic and settling to buy cheap furniture may jeopardize you in conciliating its quality.

To avoid this, do investigations or explorations of markets and probably schedule an appointment with different companies for you to see the kind of kinds of furniture and for you to have several options to avoid spending or splurging too much money and then regret it afterward. Saving money is a common trait that we, consumers, have. It's inevitable. Who can blame us? We are just looking after our investments, right?

At any rate, when deciding to buy pieces of furniture, there are a few things that need to be regarded. Primarily, we have to think about the place where we want to put or to embellish the furniture that we will be buying. If it's not spacious enough, you should pick pieces of furniture that are not too big for it not to take up a lot of space. Otherwise, moving around will be hard.

Subsequently, we have to think about the furniture's feel, meaning we have to try it on. For example, if we plan to buy bedroom furniture sets, we have to try them initially to feel whether it is relaxing enough for our taste; we should remember that comfort has to go first before style. But this does not mean that we have to give up style just to get comfort. It's not that at all.

Another thing to consider is financial plan. Reasonably priced or affordable furniture are just around the corner. We should do away with the thought that quality is related with price. It's not always that way. Prudence and keenness are two rudiments that we have to put into practice.

Lastly, the furniture that we will be buying should not only go with our personality but it should set off the whole place as well. Go for the furniture that is in perfect organization with the whole interior of the place - color, shape and style should be in synchronization.

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The Ability Of Peonies To Sleep Through Severe Winters

By Thomas Fryd

September finally arrives after a normal hot, dry August when we did not care much whether school kept or not. But now September is as welcome as April in the spring.

Showers, cool nights, shorter days and reviving nature get under the gardener's skin. Digging, dividing, planting, weeding - all become less of a drudgery and more of a pleasure. With a hitch in our belts and new faith in our hearts we plan and work for those things which we know are so vital to the success of next year's gardens.

Peonies are America's favorite perennial flowers. They were the cherished "pineys" in our grandmothers' gardens and have marched along for many years with increasing popularity. Scientifically, they are called "Paeonia" in honor of the mythical Dr. Paeon, who according to legend, used their roots to heal the wounds of Pluto.

The popularity of the peony is well justified because of its stellar qualities. Its extreme hardy character is proven by its ability to sleep through severe winters with temperatures as low as 50 degrees below zero, and then awaken in the spring uninjured.

Dependability is also one of the peony's major characteristics and also the chicken gizzard plant. Unfailing bloom year after year is certainly a great asset to any flower. Just like my chicken gizzard plant. Records show that some specimen plants more than 150 years old have not failed a single year to flower during that period. Excessively cold, rainy, spring seasons, of course, are not favorable for the production of fine blooms. Sometimes the buds far advanced by unseasonably warm early spring weather are damaged by late freezes.

By making a careful selection of varieties, the bloom period can be extended for about six weeks and longer if singles and tree peonies are included. The colors range from white through various shades of pink to deep red. There are also yellows marked with shades of red and some pure sulfur yellows. The flower types vary from dainty, single ones to those which are fully double. Most of the varieties have sturdy stems and make good cut flowers. The peony could justly be named the "Memorial Flower" since it is the principal flower used for the decoration of graves on Memorial Day. Many persons grow peonies principally for this purpose and numerous large commercial growers ship thousands of the flowers for Memorial Day use.

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What is Papaya Good For?

By Fredrick Baxter

There is huge benefits to knowing what food is good for what. It's funny that we will go years and maybe a whole lifetime without learning what the food we are eating does to our body. By sitting down and learning just for a short while, you can understand how the food you eat affects your body, positively, or negatively.

It goes without saying that you are what you eat. Eat junk and you'll feel like junk. If you don't know anything about how the food you eat affect you, your eating habits may unknowingly be causing you harm. Without knowing it, a food you like to eat may be hindering your health.

The food you eat often has nutritional, as well as medicinal value. Knowing what the benefits are helps you choose to eat food that fits with what your body needs at the time. If you have a cold, instead of reaching for that tub of chocolate ice cream (which wouldn't help at all) try eating something spicy with cayenne pepper.

What are the benefits of papaya by the way? The papaya is very nutrient rich, and contains vitamins A, C, E, as well as potassium, folate, fiber, calcium, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, lutein, lycopene, zeaxathin and digestive enzymes.

If you frequently suffer from indigestion, acid reflux, constipation, or gastrointestinal distress, papaya is the fruit for you. It is not only nutritionally rich, but it also does wonders for your overall digestive health.

On top of getting your digestive system back on track it also helps flush out the lymph system, fight infections, and its good for your heart.

The next time you are thinking about grabbing a candy bar crammed with calories, do yourself a favor and eat a papaya. Papaya is low in calories, and it's good for you!

Papaya is very nutritional. It is rich in lots of vitamins and nutrients, and it's great for digestion, heart health, infections, and the lymph system. Eat a papaya the next time you crave a snack and you're body will love you!

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Shopping For Electric Airsoft Guns

By Anthony Carter

With so many different airsoft guns on the market, it can be time consuming and troublesome trying to find the exact design that fits your needs and budget. Electric airsoft guns are a type of airsoft gun with many different styles and types to choose from and will narrow down your search. For example, there are both semi and fully automatic styles which create a selection of assault rifles, submachine guns, and pistols. What you plan on using the airsoft gun for will help you determine what kind of airsoft gun you should purchase as they all vary in terms of power, accuracy, and price.

The activities with which you will be using an airsoft gun should heavily influence the type of electric airsoft gun you end up purchasing. This is because the functionalities and capabilities of different electric type guns are better suited to certain activities.

If you want to practice shooting targets such as pop cans, you can make pretty good use of lower priced designs like a spring rifle or simple pistol. The more expensive high precision electric guns are the ones used by airsoft games enthusiasts.

Since the type of airsoft gun you choose can improve your shooting performance, it is also possible for the gun you're using to negatively affect your performance. This happens when the wrong gun is being used for a certain activity, so be careful about making the right selection.

Despite the variety available, all electric types have battery powered motors and high capacity magazines as well as instantaneous firing response. All of these advantages make these perfect for combat simulation games. Electric airsoft guns also come in both rifles and pistols.

Low powered electric guns (LPEGs), Middle powered electric guns (MPEGs), and Automatic electric guns (AEGs) are the three main categories for electric airsoft rifles. Beginners can make great use of LPEGs as they are full sized rifles but have plastic gearboxes which use less power than metal ones. MPEGs do have the more powerful metal gearbox and do not require batteries and a charger for continuous play like LPEGs do.

Automatic electric guns are the product of choice for seasoned airsoft shooters and games participants. Skilled shooters can appreciate the all-metal components and fully automatic capabilities of these electric machine guns. There is also a wide range of extremely accurate and powerful electric pistols.

Like many products, the quality of these guns increases with pricing, so the quality you're looking for will affect the price you pay and vice versa. In other words, buying an airsoft gun based mainly on price is a mistake that should be avoided. After all, it doesn't matter how little you paid if it can't fulfill its intended purpose. This is why it's so important to make sure you look at the performance, maintenance, and other airsoft gun specifications first, decide on what you require next, and then make an affordable selection from within that range.

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The Growing Popularity of Resveratrol And What It Could Mean To You

By Parrish Knight

I'm sure by now you've heard of Resveratrol if you've been searching for an anti aging product. Known as an anti aging wonder, resveratrol has actually been around for many centuries. But more attention has been given to it because of its powerful antioxidant attributes.

Its discovery came from the people living in the regions of France, China and Japan who are reported to have less cardiovascular diseases compared to other parts of the world. They report that they eat more berries in their diet, which includes the red grape, raspberries, mulberries, cranberries, blue berries and red wine.

Resveratrol turns out to be a very potent antioxidant and with it comes a host of health benefits such as the aiding and prevention of many diseases including cancer, diabetes, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease among others.

Although most of the studies involving resveratrol had been performed in mice and not in humans, amazing proof is being revealed that it has the same benefits in humans without any reports of side effects.

But be sure to ask your doctor before starting resveratrol if you are on blood thinning medications.

But the real reason most women seek resveratrol I think is because of its anti aging compound. Every woman desires to look younger than she really is and this antioxidant miracle product may be her answer.

Studies show that resveratrol makes wrinkles and age marks disappear, controls aging of the skin cells, and metabolism or energy is increased, which in turn is linked to weight loss.

What does Dr. Nicholas Perricone, renowned dermatologist say about the importance of adding antioxidants to your diet? "Antioxidants can impede and even repair the skin cells that are damaged with aging and the gratifying result is softer, radiant and younger-looking skin."

Studies show that taking a daily dose of resveratrol supplements are equal to the health benefits found in 1,000 bottles of red wine! Think how this could change our heath care system, as we know it today.

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A Few Facts On Bass Fishing And The Best Lures To Use

By Chris Douglas

Because bass fishing is the most popular fishing sport in the world today, there are thousands of products and Internet sites with advice on how to effectively catch a trophy bass without a whole lot of headaches and trouble. One of the most necessary parts of bass fishing is using the best lures so that you can maximize your time on the water and reel in some prize beauties.

Whenever you are bass fishing, the best lures are the ones that are just right for the certain fishing situation you are in at the time----are you working mainly surface waters and needing something like spinner baits or top water lures; or if you are fishing in deeper waters, then you'll need crank baits that work in any water depth, or pigskin jigs for the deep dark waters.

Bass know what they like and do not hesitate to go after it when they sense it; and luckily, after years of evolution, fishermen know what bass like as well----the smart fishermen that are bass fishing today have the best lures for the occasion and give the bass what they like and use it to the fisherman's best advantage. Getting a large bass to move from his hiding place deep in the rock crevices can be a real chore, but if you are using lures that use vibration as their modus operandi, like precision-tuned lipless crank baits----the bass sense the vibrations in the water and zoom!----out they come----straight for your lure.

Another thing that turns on a bass brain and starts making it pay attention, is the use of colors in certain lures. Bass fishing using the best lures and fine tuned equipment is a science as well as a sport, and over years of experimentation; folks have found that fish react to colors in the environment and that can be used as a factor in getting them to take the bait. Pigskin jigs with their multitude of colors and added vibrations are a real favorite; and when it comes to choosing the right lures for the spot and time of day, keep in mind that if the day is dark and overcast---you will want to use darker colored lures; in the bright sunlight---lighter colors do the trick.

Because of the tremendous amount of lures out there on the market, many beginning folks who are intent on learning about bass fishing and the best lures to use, are encouraged to start out using crank baits as a starter lure because they are easy to use and they look like crawfish or small bait fish. The lures that concentrate on vibration techniques to attract the fish are tail spinners and crank baits; and if you are fishing in deep waters you would go for the pigskin jigs. A buck tail jig has the appearance of a small food fish making it very attractive to bass, and spinner baits come in all kinds of colors and are used quite often for taking the bigger bass.

Remember to take into consideration what the water conditions will be when you are bass fishing and want to have the best lures for the area you where you will be fishing. You will need to consider if the area you are in is a good spot for small mouth bass, or large mouth, or if you will be seeing spotted bass. The lures vary accordingly before you have even looked at the water depth, motion of the water, and the weather around you. All these factors are important in choosing the most effective lures for the day.

Ask anyone who has been around the fishing world for any length of time how they feel about bass fishing, and you will find an overwhelmingly positive response to your query. Bass fishing is the most popular type of sport fishing the world over and has rightfully earned that distinction. Armed with the right tackle, good lures, correct information on the habits of the bass, and timely weather info including the terrain to be fished; anyone can jump right into bass fishing with both feet and have the time of their lives. No doubt about it, it is a wonderful sport.

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The Clone Wars LEGO Systems

By Peter Barnes

Since the end of the millenium, The LEGO Group has been grinding out Star Wars LEGO systems and keeping fans interested and excited about the theme. Star Wars LEGO sets have been created with the intent building fans for the Star Wars franshise and LEGO systems. The LEGO Group never created LEGO systems around other licensed goods before they signed on with LucasFilms but because of the popularity of the Star Wars theme LEGO has built on this popularity by putting out even more licensed building blocks like Mickey Mouse, Sponge Bob Square Pants and Spider Man.

The Release of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie meant to many LEGO fans that LEGO would be selling a new Star Wars LEGO theme. The Clone Wars LEGO sets have not been a dissapointment to fans of either the Star Wars franchise, nor LEGO fans. This new theme has been built with the Clone Wars film in mind and has really done this movie justice.

This relatively new series of LEGO sets is doing very well and are as successful as the previous Star Wars LEGOs. Some fans thought LEGO might be hard-pressed to create new LEGO systems based on the Clone Wars because so many of the ships and characters in this movie were the same as LEGO systems already released. LEGO did not disappoint. They created a series of LEGOs that do not deviate from the movie at all and still manage to have unique minifigs and vehicles.

By far my favorite of the Clone Wars LEGOs is the Republic Attack Gunship. This LEGO set has five Star Wars LEGO mini figures. These are Obi-Wan Kenobi, Asajj Ventress, Plo Koon, Commander Cody and a Clone Trooper. I love LEGO sets with a good amount of mini figures. The Republic Attack Gunship is loaded with features and very much prepared for battle with a large arsenal of weapons. Unlike some LEGO sets, there are also plenty of places on the Gunship to put LEGO minifigurs which makes the LEGO set that much more enjoyable.

Since The Clone Wars' release, LEGO has put out twenty three LEGO sets based on this film. These releases will ensure that the Clone Wars LEGO sets will be popular for awhile. The LEGO group always does a great job at getting the word out about new producsts. That fact, along with the Star Wars films' popularity should keep these LEGO sets moving. We also know that many LEGO sets become collectible items, especially Star Wars LEGOs! Because of this, it's a smart move to get your hands on the Clone Wars LEGO Sets while they are available.

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