Cucumbers with Folding Trellis

Cucumber garden in Wisconsin with simple folding trellis.

This is my raised bed garden with a portable trellis made from scrounged materials.  My old neighbors gave me the planks for the raised bed.  The folding portable trellis is made from our old broken recycled box spring that served us well.  We got a bunch of cucumbers to eat this year which supplemented our grocery purchases nicely.  The pretty little squirrels and sneaky raccoons didn’t seem to bother the cucumbers.  I planted a variety that had some small little spikes sticking out of them so that may have discouraged the rodents from making a meal out of our food this year.  The longer smooth variety I planted last year was gobbled up pretty fast by some little animal at night.

I plan to increase our garden with perennial veggies and small fruits.  Anything I only need to plant once and that will come back year after year is a long term work saver.  It is much easier to plant a small Carmine Jewel Cherry Bush than to plant annual veggies.  I have some difficulty doing the work for a garden put given years of future continued persistence I should be able to transform our back yard into a mini-farm designed to provide us with some well needed  healthy food.

We had a gigantic garden on my childhood farm however we also had tractors, plows, cultivators, planters and plenty of free cow manure.  I don’t have access to all this wonderful stuff anymore and my physical capabilities have deteriorated.  Composted cow manure is great stuff for city gardens but it costs money.  My father would have got a great chuckle out of seeing me pay for a bag of composted cow manure.

My goal in gardening is to provide some good tasting fruits and veggies at the most minimal cost of money and work possible.  It is also a relaxing hobby.

 

My Best Garden. Garden decoration.

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Hate Speech in Wisconsin

A group of college students recently made a video showing their hatred of police.  Police were depicted as anti-black, pigs and were beheaded in the video.  It certainly looked like hate speech to me.  I don’t think hate speech should be totally prevented even if it is extremely vile unless it used to directly incite a riot.  We have freedom of speech in this country no matter how stupid and repulsive.  Hate speech needs to be opposed with reason and positive emotional arguments whenever it presents itself.  Suppressing any type of speech by law is a slippery slope that will backfire because whoever is in power will use those types of laws to limit their opponent’s ability to have free speech.  State resources should never be used to promote hate speech.  Hate speech can also be regulated because it is similar to shouting fire in a crowded theater.

Hate speech can come from people of any race.  Black hate speech is just as bad as Neo-Nazi hate speech and should be equally condemned.  The ability of our society to function is slowly deteriorating because we are so afraid to point out criminal black racist actions and the legal system is skewed to protect criminals of all races in many situations.  Excess political correctness is a great philosophy until someone starts looting, kills innocent people, wrecks your town and burns it to the ground.  Hate speech by students can incite violence in Wisconsin just like what has happened in other states.

The students producing the anti-police hate video have a constitutional right to produce such a video with their own money on their own time.  Were taxpayer dollars used to produce the video or was it some type of class assignment?  The university should reject and suspend any student or professor that engages in garbage of this nature using university resources.

The practical solution to any type of perceived police prejudice can only be to have a higher percentage of non-whites represented in the police force.  Hate speech against the police is not going to help anyone and it will discourage blacks from entering into police work.  Any professor that encourages anti-police or race related hate speech by students should be fired by the university because he is clearly damaging our entire society.  We need to accept the fact that people of any race are capable of being prejudiced and there is no way our society can overlook the criminal actions that result from this evil belief. Certainly professors should not teach college students to propagate hate with taxpayer dollars.

 

Make Money From Your Website With SEO

 I have read a few free books on how to make money from a website and I get emails from some successful bloggers on what to do.  I am certainly not making any cash from my blog probably because that’s not my primary purpose for my website and I am not willing to invest any of my limited money in a high risk venture. It takes at least a little money to make a return on investment for a website and there is fierce competition. It takes real work and an investment of time to make a website produce money and the failure rate is high.  The low hanging fruit has already been picked.

The best most reasonable book that I have read so far about ways to make money from blogging is 3 Months to No. 1:  The No Nonsense SEO Playbook for Getting Your Website Found on Google.  I recommend this book as a good starting point if you plan to operate a non-hobby website that is intended to make a profit.  I think the author is right when he says “A mediocre product marketed well can create immense wealth.”  Just look at all the stuff being sold on the internet.  If you can find some profitable niche market and get Google web searches to notice your website, you should be able to make some money.  SEO is the key to getting Google to notice your website but it requires constant technical work and will not happen by accident.  I think it is best to hire a professional to handle SEO if your website is intended to be a significant business.

Will Coombe is the author of 3 Months to No. 1…. and I find his book to be enjoyable to read besides being useful for business bloggers.