By brwood
at 6:58AM,
a year ago
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under
Product Review
I am a suburban home owner and like many other home owners I have a small vegetable garden in my back yard. Last year was my first year attempting to grow anything and it was a real learning experience. For one thing, I learned that even after adding six inches of free dirt from Craigslist, I still had soil better suited for making adobe bricks than for growing tomatoes.
So, what to do? Well, this year I was going to dig deep break up all the hard clay and start fresh. Doing it by hand, even in my 5" x 12" garden would be a backbreaking task.
Time to call in the power tools! Luckily I had a Troy-Bilt TB154 tiller at my disposal for the weekend.
But, the real question to be answered: Would one of the smallest, least
expensive, lightest weight tillers be tough enough to break up the hard
packed clay of my 50 year-old suburban back yard? Let's break out the
Troy-Bilt tiller and see.
By brwood
at 9:56AM,
9 months ago
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under
Shop Smarter
Hurricane Irene struck a few days ago and some people in the Northeast are still without power and other basic services. This got me thinking about some basic emergency preparedness and how sometime the old solutions are still the best. You may get all your news on your
iPhone via The HuffPo, or eat only microwave organic food normally--but most likely that's not gonna cut it after an earthquake, hurricane or other natural disaster.
Here are ten items you are going to want stashed away somewhere in case of emergency.
By brwood
at 11:55AM,
11 months ago
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under
Money Saving Tips
They say good fences make good neighbors, and I guess it's true. Personally if I have a problem with my neighbor, I'm the type who would actually knock on their door and discuss it with them. But, in my suburban Van Nuys ranch home one neighboring house is actually a rental, so there is a bit of turnover there. Unfortunately that is also the house that is adjacent to our bedroom and bathroom windows.
So it was decided between me and the wife to put up a privacy fence. Actually our entire subdivision is subdivided by 5' tall concrete block walls that have been up since the 1950s, so all we had to do was add a few feet to the top.
By annika.barrantiGuest Blogger
at 7:52AM,
11 months ago
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under
Loose Change
Image by castle79 via FlickrTurn off the oven! It's officially summer and (
at least here in Los Angeles) it's HOT.
After a rather unpleasant experience last week when I foolishly roasted some bell peppers for our dinner and thereby raised the temperature of the whole apartment, I started thinking about cooler ways to cook.
Here are a few ideas I came up with.