Spring And Landscaping In Bloom

t’s finally getting warm outside, and now it’s time to get some yard work done. And according to some , most people have a good idea of what they want their yards to look like. To help with those projects, customers seem very much in the know about what products they need to accomplish their goal.

Skorik, owner of ’s Nursery and Landscaping in Ransomville, said there are customers who are shopping for certain products.

“People are looking for , shade trees and anything with color,” she said.

Like several other businesses, ’s offers a designing service that helps customers plan out any project. The project can be planned out on site, if the customers want to do the work, themselves. Many have already taken advantage of the service, Skorik said.

“We’ve seen a lot of people come in with ,” she said. “It could be something like someone and they want something around it. Or something just to spruce up the yard.”

Although costs are increasing, like every other business and industry, Skorik said ’s has been able to manage those costs well. Fuel for transportation is a big one, as well as labor costs and materials. However, being able to grow most of what they sell, ’s is able to handle the rising costs.

Mark Van Buren, owner of Zehr’s Farm Market and Nursery in Burt, said with the Internet and the rise of gardening shows on television, customers usually know what they’re looking for. They have an idea of what they want and what they need.

“What we’re finding out is that customers are more knowledgeable,” he said. “They’re more savvy, more sophisticated.”

Van Buren said Zehr’s grows all of the plants it sells, and it usually draws the type of customer who is looking for something unusual. Because of its , Zehr’s can grow what it wants to, instead of growing more . He added the larger stores, such as Home Depot, help by drawing customers looking for items while Zehr’s can concentrate on people looking for that unusual product.

Van Buren said Zehr’s Web site, www.zehrsonthelake.com, offers a lineup of what kinds of different flowers and are available. It also contains articles about different trends in gardening and . According to Zehr’s site, the color purple and red were pretty popular. Earth tones are pretty popular choices, too, for flowers.

Customers can also create a shopping list online and bring it to Zehr’s. They can have their projects designed on a computer to see how they look, or even see pictures of the yard or the they want.

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Monday, May 12th, 2008

Blasting ruining outcrop

Landowner Stephen Clearwater said blasting of the outcrop in Dipton west was ruining what was a unique piece of Southland landscape.
Ravensdown had been blasting the hillside at the quarry for several years but had promised landowners the blasting would not destroy the areas natural beauty, Mr Clearwater said.
The company had also promised that the most recent blast, which occurred about six weeks ago, would be minimal in size, he said.
Instead, it was about the equivalent of four blasts and had sent rock and debris billowing over the edge of the bluffs, he said.
Landowners wanted the blasting to stop before the remainder of the limestone was ruined, he said.
%26quot;We think they have other areas in the quarry that wouldnt deface the uniqueness of the ,%26quot; he said.
The group was in the process of establishing itself as a district-wide entity, and would hold a public meeting down the track to further gauge community feeling on the matter, he said.
There were also plans to bring in an expert to examine the quarry for fossils and other items, he said.
Ravensdown general manager-lime Shane Harold said the company was happy to continue meeting with the community to keep it informed.
%26quot;We are happy to continue meeting with the community to keep them informed as required. At the November meeting (with the community) we agreed to engage with the community over future extraction in the quarry and this process will be ongoing,%26quot; he said.
The company had voluntarily developed a quarry management plan, which included preserving a significant proportion of the limestone outcrop, and that plan was now being peer reviewed, he said.
He disputed claims the companys last blast had sent debris over the bluffs and into neighbouring land.
The blast, carried out on February 5, was monitored by Ravensdown and videotaped from three angles. The video showed any rock debris was contained within the quarry site, and had also shown the blast caused no more vibration or flyrock than previous blasts, he said.

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Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Baking Versus Cooking

We’re all different. No two individuals are exactly alike; however, there are some general categories that seem to hold true. For instance, there are the Morning People and the Night People. I am definitely of the latter variety. About 9:00 p.m. something kicks into geara burst of energy, creativity, and feeling totally aliveand I could work until daylight, and have done so many times. Mornings are an entirely different storyfor the first 30 minutes of the day I hardly know which planet I’m on. There are some Morning People in my family. They awake with the birds, happy, cheerful, and ready to meet the day with a smileit’s disgusting! Suffice it to say, we just don’t understand each other.

In the culinary category there are also two basic classes of people as I see it: the Bakers and the Cooks. Baking is a very precise science. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, soda, milk, buttermilk, flavorings, shortening, oil, butter or other ingredients are used in a variety of ways in baked goods recipes, but they interact with each other in very specific ways. have to be precise or it’s disasterville in the kitchen. Commercial bakers even weigh their ingredients to assure they’re using just the right amount. Cookbooks have recipes that are tested and re-tested until the directions shown, if followed, will result in a tasty dish. There is very little room for personal variations unless the baker has a great deal of experience. When we see a famous chef on TV appearing to simply mix in this and that in a somewhat carefree manner, it’s just because he or she has put in a great deal of time learning basic and techniques that yield that mouth-watering masterpiece.

Although I can turn out a good cake or pie when I have to, it’s not what I enjoy most. A few of my baking experiments have yielded some “interesting” results, like the time I thought I’d vary a mini-chocolate cupcake recipe. I added some extra chocolate, filled the cupcakes with raspberry jam to which I had added raspberry liqueur, and just knew I had created little masterpieces. What I took out of the oven was a pan full of mini-disasters that resembled lumps of coal! So much for baking innovation.

Apart from my creative baking experiments, there’s the whole other category of baking blunders. Recently, I prepared a batch of cranberry-orange muffins to thank a friend for his help with a computer problem. When he took the first bite, I knew something was definitely amiss by the scrunched up look on this face. He ran for the kitchen garbage can, spit out the offending mouthful and said, “Sorry, but that tasted terrible!” As I looked at the recipe again it dawned on me that in my haste to get the muffins in the oven before he arrived I had forgotten one very vital ingredientsugar! This was another reminder to me that baking is a precise science that requires careful attention. If one ingredient isn’t measured correctly or, in this case ignored, the result can be completely inedible.

On the other hand, there’s COOKING, which I love! I’m fascinated with creating new recipes, varying others to make them look and taste just a bit different, or using ingredients in new ways.

For instance, take that good old American standby, potato salad. Most of us have our favorite recipe, but have you ever thought of some ways to vary your version? Take potatoes, the main ingredient. Do you go with Russet, Yukon Gold, White Rose, Baby Reds, or some of the more than 40 other less known varieties that are grown? And what about the onion family? We have lots of choices there too: white, sweet, and red onions, scallions, chives, or shallots, to name a few. Dressings are another story. Some people prefer mayonnaise; others, salad dressing, a creamy sour cream mixture, French dressing or a light vinaigrette. Then there are the add-ins, which can vary greatly. Some people don’t consider it a real potato salad without the addition of chopped, hard-cooked eggs. Others prefer crumbled bacon bits, chopped pickles, sweet relish, or a variety of crisp vegetables. You get the ideawith cooking, there’s room for innovation, and that sparks the creative side of me.

I am definitely a Cook as opposed to the esteemed title of Baker. My motto is, “a pinch of this, a smidge of that, a little bit of that spice to kick up the flavor, and don’t forget the lemon zest.”

Which kind of culinary aficionado are youa Baker or a Cook?

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Friday, March 7th, 2008

At Surefoot even Sasquatch could get custommade ski boots

WHISTLER, B.C. — If the apparatus had been attached to my face, what they were doing to me probably would have been illegal under the Geneva Conventions.

Fortunately, in this case, the torture device was just on my feet. So it was probably legal, even in Canada, where they still treat political prisoners politely and then stiff them on the way out with a huge GST bill that can’t be refunded.

I was standing in the “foaming station” at the Surefoot store in Whistler Village. It’s where people go when they’ve skied for 20 years, every day in pain, and finally plunk down the equivalent to about a month’s salary to have ski boots built literally from the ground up.

I’m not saying the boots are overly expensive, or that they’re not worth it. But every branch of the store has a table right next to the foot-sizing computer where you can fill out the necessary paperwork for a second mortgage.

“The Most Comfortable Ski Boots in the World!” the company’s literature proclaims. Anyone who’s walked the walk of downhill skiing for many years will tell you this takes damning with faint praise to an all new height.

Generally, if you can stand for more than about four minutes in plastic ski boots which Dave Barry so aptly described once as melted bowling balls on your feet without shrieking in pain, you’re doing pretty well for yourself. Bottom line: The most comfortable ski boots in the world are still a longshot from, say, the world’s least comfortable house slippers.

But I digress. In the Foaming Station, you stand and grasp two metal bars while your boot technician, with the look of a mad scientist, maniacally shakes up a plastic bottle of goop that’s been injected with a catalyst. Within seconds, the goop reacts and expands, flowing up through a tube and down into the ski boot, where it begins to fill every crevice between your flesh and the ski boot’s hard plastic outer shell.

With the plastic boot buckled super tightly around your foot and calf, the goop injection feels a bit like having night crawlers burrow under your skin and race toward your toes. A little unsettling. But nowhere near as horrible as, say, flying all the way to London with nothing but reruns of Oprah on the seat-back TV. So I hung in there.

Emjay, filling out the final papers for the refi, looked at my reddening face and asked: “Are you OK?”

“Super,” I said. “Be sure to have them take out enough equity to get me a new pair of ski socks, while you’re at it.”

As I stood and sweated and grimaced, the boot tech scratched his head and informed me that the only surprise was that it took me so long to get here. It turns out that my foot were, indeed, unusual, with a combination of width and height second only to one other previous customer, who happened to be a rhinoceros.

Within moments, the goop had settled and all I had to do was stand there and sweat while the molten lava between my toes hardened into stone. Once this happened, they took the boots off and disappeared into the back, where a bunch of power-tooling went on.

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Thursday, February 28th, 2008

A Concerned Parents Guide to Moving Your Family Overseas

There are lots of issues to be considered when deciding to move your family overseas. It’s not as simple as discussing it with your spouse, packing up and getting on a plane! Moving to a new country is both exciting and challenging, and should not be undertaken lightly.

Making the Decision

Consider the impact of such a move on each member of your family. This move will affect all of their lives. Parents should review the benefits and liabilities of such a move before presenting it to the children. Make sure that moving your family overseas is better for you in the long run, not only for the short term. Think about whether the sacrifices you’ll need to make will be worth it. We want to prevent the children from growing up resenting their parents’ decision to move during what they feel is an important part of their lives.

Opening Discussion

If you’re set on moving your family overseas, the next issue to tackle is how to break the news to the children. Parents often tend to disregard the opinions and feelings of their children in making decisions that will affect the whole family. Some like to simply announce: “Kids, we are moving overseas.” Blunt and to the point, end of discussion. This isn’t the best way as it makes clear to your children that they don’t have any say as to what happens with their lives.

Even if the decision to move has been made, you still need to listen to what your kids have to say about it, to show them that you care about their feelings. Try saying the following instead: “Kids, we’ve been presented with a wonderful opportunity and in order to take advantage of it, we’re going to have to move overseas. What do you think about that?”

Overcoming Fears

Parents know that most children will react negatively to the question. After all, it’s the unknown and that’s scary. This is natural. Encourage your children to ask questions and bring up issues they’re worried about. By having an open discussion, you can assuage their fears. You need to assure them that despite their concerns, everything will be okay. By listening to what they think and feel, you will get an understanding of their issues. You can answer all questions and begin to find solutions to any foreseeable problems.

Planning the Move

After you’ve broken the news to the family, the time has come to make preparations. Good planning will help you make the transition much smoother for your family. Try to find people who can help you understand what’s involved in the move. Find and hire services that can assist you with the intricate details of moving your family overseas.

You need to learn as much about the country you’re going to as possible. If you’re moving your family to a location where a different language is spoken, think about learning the language together. Make it a fun family activity and try to use it daily when you’re all together. Conversing at the dinner table only in the new language can lead to lots of laughs.

Culture shock is also a potential problem when moving overseas. Learning about the customs and culture ahead of time will help you and the children feel more comfortable. It will also make everyone more excited to see these new customs in action. There will also be differences in small, previously disregarded things like and electricity features. If your new country uses different standards of measurement and different voltages of electricity, you’ll need to learn about these things and prepare for it ahead of time.

Preparing for the Move

Good preparation means taking care of all the little details concerning moving your family overseas. Where will you stay? Where will the children continue their education? Which personal items will you take with you and which will be left behind? What clothing do you need in this new climate? These are all questions that need to be answered. Think about the legalities involved in moving your family overseas, including passports and other necessary papers. Find out about banking and money exchange. It’s important to understand the value of the new currency. Kids will love to learn all about the new coins and paper that doesn’t look real!

Remember, the way of life you have known so far is not the only way of life. People in other countries have their habits and oddities. Respect the rights of others and you’ll be just fine. Make sure to teach this lesson to your family too.

By following these suggestions, your family can successfully navigate the sometimes daunting, always exciting, move to another country. With the right attitude and plenty of research and preparation, you can tackle the job with ease.

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Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Building Childrens Furntiture

Having glued and joined all T%26#039;s and L%26#039;s, the next step is to assemble these joined sections together to complete the basic shape of the piece.

It is best to do this without glue at first, assembling the entire unit with screws alone. Then, when it is together in good order and you are satisfied that nothing is out of line, take it apart, clean and sand all the pieces to prepare them for finishing, and reassemble the unit again, this time permanently with glue.

Though this method imposes some extra time and effort on your part, it makes the sanding operation easier and better, and reassembly goes fast and accurate witheverything fitting back into place like a glove.

Furniture, in order to have good lines and smooth working drawers and doors, must be squared up during assembly before letting the glue-joined sections dry.

In many cases, a large square will serve to check the accuracy of smaller joined sections. On larger cabinets with big rectangular compartments, you can check for squareness by measuring diagonally across the compartment opening from corner to corner. Note this measurement and then measure the opposite crossing diagonal in the same manner.

If the cabinet is square, the two will be the same. If the differ, the piece is not square. To make it square, apply pressure on the corner that has the longer measurement until the cabinet has been forced into a square shape and both diagonal are the same.

Having squared the cabinet, it is a good idea to tack the back panel on next before making any doors or drawers, or doing any further work. The back panel will serve to hold the cabinet in shape while adding the rest of the features and, if necessary, it can be removed temporarily whenever it interferes with work to be done.

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Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Enhance your Style of Work Life With Conversion Services

Are you always running out of time? Or curse your efficiency because you cannot hire a huge staff for your firm? Then you surely have not heard of the utilitarian conversion services that are an excellent solution to manage your complete data and all records. The massive use of Internet has been defined as a boon to the humankind. Not only it has made the official work much more simple and time saving, but has also generated many assistance programs to simplify the work strategy at a greater extent. And one of the amazing results of this is the of conversion. Finding anything and getting information is so simple with the Internet. Make use of any extensive search engine of your choice to look out for the websites that come with the facility of this service. Redefine the real meaning of easy functioning with getting your tiresome job done in just few minutes You just have to visit the website that has the provision of this sort of service and get the needful done including the tiresome tasks of converting area,, mass, length, temperature, speed, density and volume.

Extremely useful for those who run their business in various parts of the world, reaching to numerous countries? The theory of conversion makes it easy to interact on the platform of one, uniform modular aspect for all and conveniently let the conversion values accessible on the specific website. It lays an added bonus for the people convening with counterparts from other places which do not follow the similar pattern for measurement. Ordinary works and other simpler tasks regarding the weather and temperature of a region that comes for a comparison to another place are simply sorted out without any issue even if it is recorded under different units of Celsius and Fahrenheit. The websites offering the option of conversion service are designed to solve all such problems for better results.

The main objective of the Conversion is to assure that everyone who is in need of any sort of data and information must be served thoroughly with no waste of time and appropriate guidance. The websites are in total functioning mode all the time, you just have know as what has to be converted and how, else everything is performed with complete concentration by the . Such for converting your data are present on a number of web portals. Just select the most befitting website that suits the best of your requirements.

Through online sites the conversion are easily approachable. Now you can also imagine of doing your all time taking calculations with almost so big assistance and no staff. The conversion are used as intense help assortment and the perfect feature about it, is that you do not have to sit for added hours in your office, just log on to site from anywhere. Stay assured of the fact that the online conversion totally avoids the access of any foreign party while you are working, nothing can be downloaded or copied from your confidential data and information.

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Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Spain to make clothes for real women

MADRID, Spain –Some 10,000 volunteers have undergone laser beam zapping to measure their actual shape as part of a pioneering project for Spanish designers to make clothes that fit real women, officials said Thursday.

The Health Ministry wants to standardize sizing, and it says retail chains including Zara already have signed on to follow the guidelines.

The project is Spain’s latest effort to fight the perception that thin equals beautiful - a belief widely blamed for encouraging eating disorders.

Last year, major fashion designers in Spain agreed to stop using storefront mannequins under a European size 38, which is equivalent to a size 8 in the United States. Madrid also banned ultra-thin models from fashion week runways in 2006.

A total of 10,415 women between the ages of 12 to 70 took part in the five-month study, standing in booths equipped with laser beams that measured their bodies from every imaginable angle in a matter of seconds, rendering a 3-D image.

“The study promotes the image of healthy beauty, adapting catwalk and storefront models to the dimensions of the real population,” the ministry said in a statement Thursday.

Nearly 41 percent of the women said they usually have trouble finding clothes that fit them, and the majority said clothes tend to be too small rather than too big.

The Health Ministry said that clothes should have three - one for the bust, one for the waist and one for the hips - rather than a single size. The standardization project will be phased in gradually over the next year or two, it said.

Spain is the first country to seek standardized clothing sizes for women, the ministry’s consumer affairs director, Angeles Heras, said last March when the project was launched.

Milan also banned ultra-thin models from fashion week runways in 2006, and last year the Council of Fashion Designers of America announced guidelines designed to help models eat and live more healthfully.

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Friday, February 8th, 2008

Teeoff in your Own Backyard

Charlotte has no shortage of golf courses; in fact an avid golfer could probably play a different course everyday for months. Sometimes it’s nice just to work on your putting technique without having to go anywhere. I know I practice on the living room carpet, others pull out those portable putting greens. Wouldn’t it be great to have a private putting green, right in your own backyard?

If you keep it small, surprisingly, it’s not that big of a job, but maintaining it takes a certain amount of commitment and discipline. Here are the steps for creating your very own putting green.

1. Decide if you will be doing the work or getting a contractor. It’s more expensive to go with the latter, but someone else is doing the work, you’ll get a quality result, and a warranty.

2. Choose between one of the synthetic grasses out there versus using natural grass. The climate, amount of sun or shade, and precipitation in your area will all factor in when deciding what type of to go with. Remember it needs to be mowed, fertilized, and maintained. Although synthetic materials have their own pros and cons, they are a lot less work.

3. Decide where the green will go, making sure you choose higher elevations that won’t collect as much water. Avoid areas near buildings, bodies of water or trees. Also avoid close proximity to common pathways or play areas. Measure the space you’ve allotted for the green and obtain square foot to get quotes from contractors or price out material if you plan on tackling the job yourself.

4. After enlisting help from your friends rent a bobcat or start digging with shovels. You need to dig out the entire area you’ve selected, removing any debris, rocks, weeds, etc. Get a soil sample while you’re at it.

5. Plan your irrigation channels so that the water will run down hill and away from your green. Learn about the area, where the dry spots are, the shadows, where the low spots are, and where the sun shines on it. This knowledge will help you understand how to care for your putting green.

6. Research the type of that is best for your and conditions. It is vital when applying topsoil to elevate the green above the surrounding , and use a sandy loam topsoil for the root zone and a slope of about 1 percent for surface drainage.

7. Maintain and fertilize your green on a regular basis. You’re working with a and extremes in water, drought, fertilizing, or even excessive cutting can damage your lawn. Also, do not use the same types of fertilizer used on professional golf courses, they are highly toxic and may kill your neighbor’s cat.

Have fun and don’t forget to have a tee-off celebration with your friends when the job is done.

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Monday, February 4th, 2008

Bamboo Rollup Blinds Provide Ultraviolet Protection

When sitting on the porch in the afternoon or evening, there may be times when the sun is blinding or causing damage to outdoor furniture or carpets. The use of bamboo rollup blinds is one alternative to eliminating this problem with an economical and aesthetically pleasing solution. Typically installed outdoors, bamboo rollup blinds can also serve as a privacy curtain near swimming pools, outdoor patios and for use as temporary changing rooms.

Bamboo Rollup Blinds Provide Ultraviolet ProtectionMost bamboo rollup blinds are available in from two to 10 feet wide and from four to eight feet long, they can be custom ordered to fit the needs of the homeowner and they can even be embellished with decorative paintings to add to the design of the home. They can enhance the appearance of a larger or outside room and can withstand most , although it is highly recommended they are rolled up in rain and high wind for their own protection.

Made of bamboo, rollup blinds can serve as temporary obstructions for privacy purposes. When rolled up they are transportable in most vehicles and can be hung as a privacy screen on most campers or on walls of a campsite to protect the user from prying eyes.

Lightweight And Functional, Easy To Install

Installation of bamboo rollup blinds is fairly quick and easy, depending on the width, as the wider the blind, the more hangers it will have. Typically, a six-foot wide blind will require three points to connect it to a header. Screw hooks are usually used inserted into the header, one in the center of the blind and one each on either end, between six to 12 inches from the end.

Once the hooks are installed, attachments on the blind%26#039;s header are hung from the hooks and the blind is ready for use. Most bamboo rollup blinds should be initially hung in the rolled up position to make the job easier. In the event of inclement weather, many people opt to put the blinds in storage to prevent weather damage and possible rotting from having them rolled up while wet.

Cleaning bamboo rollup blinds is easy, usually squirting them with a garden hose will remove dirt and dust and once allowed to dry can be rolled up, taken down and put into storage. For some reason if the homeowner alters the configuration of the and no longer needs the blinds, they can still be useful as a beach blanket to lie on in the sand.

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Saturday, January 19th, 2008