The Plusses and Minuses of the Book Club Book
11 years ago
Featured Answer
Sort by:Oldest
Comments (14)
11 years ago
11 years agoRelated Discussions
What now?
Comments (23)Roald Dahl (my favorite) Henry Huggins Books & other Beverly Cleary like Ralph S. Mouse (my other favorite) Encyclopedia Brown How to Eat Fried Worms The Chronicles of Narnia Zilpha Keatley Snyder (most of her characters are girls except in the Blair's Nightmare books, which I think are the best). Issac Bashevis Singer has an awesome collection of stories for children Gordon Korman (the Bruno & Boots books) Richard Peck Scott O'Dell The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald (my absolute favorite) Gary Paulsen is a good author for boys but maybe for a little older boys. I haven't read the captain underpants but they are supposed to be great. Louis Sacher's "Holes" is our Seattle library's all-kids-read-the-same-book book this year. He also wrote "there's a boy in the girls bathroom" Some of my suggestions might be for when he is a little older, I can't really remember....See MoreTwo questions on landscape services and lawn maintenance
Comments (8)First question: Where do you live? That makes a big difference as to the advice we might give you. And as a corollary to that statement, not knowing where you live is why there are no really good lawn books for you. It seems to me that the lawn books are all written in Indiana for Indianans. So if you live in Minnesota, Vermont, Florida, Texas, Washington, or really anywhere outside of Indiana, the advice will not be the best. And if you live in a big place, please tell us what town you live in. For example SoCal has every hort zone and soil type, so just saying SoCal is not helpful. Even saying Los Angeles is not good because there are not that many lawns in LA proper. Plus LA extends from Long Beach to Santa Monica which covers a lot of ground. What kind of grass do you have and what do you want to have? Do you just want it green, do you want it to be all one type of grass, or do you want it to be the nicest lawn on the block? Lawns need water, mowing, and fertilizer. If you are doing those things right, then they should not need dethatching, crabgrass control, other weed control, insect control, or mechanical aeration. Lime is a different topic. You're going to be surprised at how easy it can be to have a very nice lawn, so here goes. The following is fairly generic with some attempt to expand outside of Indiana. Watering Water deeply and infrequently. Proper watering is your first line of defense against weeds. When you water deeply you will not need to water every day. Weed seeds LOVE it when you water every day. If you don't water for a week or two (or three or four), then the weed seeds cannot germinate. So just doing this right will save you the cost of all the herbicides (eventually). Deeply means a full inch all at one time. Measure that by putting out cat food or tuna cans and turning on your sprinkler. Time how long it takes to fill all the cans. Mine takes 8 full hours. It can take as little as 20 minutes, so time yours carefully. Then remember that time because that will be the time you water every time you water from now on. Infrequently depends on many factors but is so closely related to air temperature that you should start with this guideline: Above 90 degrees - once per week. Above 80 degrees - once every 2 weeks. Above 70 degrees - once every 3 weeks. Below 70 - once every 4 weeks. If you start now with that schedule then by July your grass will have developed deep roots which can withstand the summer heat and go a full week without watering. There are very few exceptions to this rule (Las Vegas area because of soil, aridity, and heat). Improper watering is the cause of many lawn issues, so get this right. Mowing Most grasses do best when mowed at or near the mower's highest setting. The exceptions are bermuda, centipede, and creeping bentgrass. Those should be mowed at the mower's lowest setting. Mulch mow once a week unless you have bermuda. That needs to be mowed 2x and sometimes 3x per week. Fertilizer You mentioned Scott's. I believe they are selling you more stuff than you need. It sounds good when you hear it, but you don't need all the stuff they push. One of the elements of lawn care which has come to prominence since the late 90s is the importance of a healthy "soil food web" in the garden. We're talking about microbes (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and microarthropods). These critters need food to thrive and develop a healthy soil for you. So what do they eat? They eat food. If you look at the ingredients on a bag of organic fertilizer you'll see it contains wheat, corn, soy, alfalfa, and some animal byproducts (chiefly feather meal and poultry litter). All these materials are food for the surface layer of soil microbes. Lower layers live off of the waste products from the upper layers of microbes. After going through 3 weeks of microbial processing, the food you put on the soil is converted into natural plant food for your grass and delivered at root level. You don't have to do anything! The Scott's 4-step products don't have any microbial food in them so your soil can become less than healthy as the food is depleted. In fact the insecticide in their product actually kills the microarthropods...because they are insects. Wiping out an entire class of species in the food web can throw off the balance of nature until the species eventually return. All this is to help get you over the hurdle of using organic fertilizer. Most of the lawn gurus are using organics; however, they are not necessarily buying organic fertilizer. It turns out you can buy the ingredients at your local feed store for about 1/6 the cost of commercially bagged organics. The application rate is from 15 to 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you accidentally double that rate it will not hurt the grass, so there's a huge safety factor built in. Or, if you want to use chemical a approach anyway, someone can help you with that, too. How often you fertilize depends on what approach you take and what grass you want. Soil testing If you want to have the best lawn on the block, or if you are having trouble growing any lawn at all, then you need a soil test. The only place to have that done is Logan Labs in Ohio. Sure you can get it done locally, but for $25 the test you get at LL will be much MUCH better than what you get at your local university or county extension service. If you do that, post your results here and morpheuspa can help you understand it and tell you what to get. Good soil tests are necessarily complicated. Cleaning up bare patches and turning them into grass will depend on what your grass is. Answer the questions at the top of this post and we can help you more....See MoreI miss books! (spin-off of Marie's thread)
Comments (12)Until my arthritic wrists and fingers cannot hold a book at all, the web will not be a substitute. I suspect, no I am sure, that the people here on GW who are encyclopedic in their knowledge learn, learned, and re-learned from books (as well as experience and the web) Is it a generational thing, this difference between learning from reading a book and learning from the web? There's a lot to gry_'s comment about finding something again on the web (though one can become more skilled at bookmarking) and findiing it in a familiar book. The book can carry physical evidence of experience: the soiled pages of a frequently turned to topic (like my brownies, roast turkey and bread recipes in my first cook book; you could boil the book and get the nutritional equivalent of a meal) The penned notations in the margin (really, did my handwriting look like that 20 years ago) I really don't think I'd remember Dirr's comment about the edibility of the Kousa dogwood fruit "I'd rather have a Snickers" if I hadn't read it dozens of times over the years. Dirr's books are bedside reading all winter. Alas, the encyclopedias were actually too heavy for me to hold comfortably.. I think I'll need an adaptive pillow or tray to get through this winter. I love the internet; I spend a lot of time on it. But I suspect way deep down that I believe the learning from access to so much information is somehow inferior to learning from books. I think that's wrong and the wrongness will be proved repeatedly from research. But I'm talkiing about a prejudice born of hours of learning since childhood how to parse info in books, assimilate it and reorganize it for one's own use.....or come up with an original idea of one's own! What a great question!...See MoreEngineered Hardwood vs Luxury Vinyl Planks with dogs
Comments (58)Thought I would also update this thread since it popped back up. We moved into our new build 2 months ago and ended up choosing engineered wood for most of the house, except the mudroom, laundry room and their connecting long back hallway, which got tile. I can close this area off and the dogs stay here if we are gone for several hours. Their food and water is also kept in the laundry room. The floors are Duchateau - Riverstone collection - Sava color. So far they have not shown any scratches from the dogs making the crazy run to the front door when they hear the doorbell and/or fedex! The floors have a rustic look and slight texture that will make it easier to hide any scratches and dents....See More- 11 years ago
- 11 years ago
- 11 years ago
11 years ago
11 years ago
11 years ago- 11 years ago
11 years agolast modified: 11 years ago- 11 years ago
- 11 years ago
- 11 years ago
Related Stories
KITCHEN DESIGNAlternatives to Granite Countertops, Part II
Still looking for a new kind of countertop? Try sodalite, zinc, limestone, onyx and more
Full Story
LANDSCAPE DESIGN5 Reasons to Consider a Landscape Design-Build Firm for Your Project
Hiring one company to do both design and construction can simplify the process. Here are pros and cons for deciding if it's right for you
Full Story
SMALL HOMESHouzz Tour: Rolling With Simplicity in a Tiny House on Wheels
Just 240 square feet, this California home encourages efficient living — but there’s still room for yoga
Full Story
ACCESSORIESTo Chop or Not to Chop?
Karate-chopped pillows pop up in design photos all the time — to the delight of some, the dismay of others. Here's why
Full Story
KITCHEN DESIGNKick Back in Comfort in Your Own Kitchen Lounge
Keep the cook company or just relax solo in a kitchen hangout with all the comforts of a lounge
Full Story
LIFEIs Cabin Fever Real? Share Your Story
Are snow piles across the U.S. leading to masses of irritability and boredom? We want to hear your experience
Full Story
DECORATING GUIDES10 Design Tips Learned From the Worst Advice Ever
If these Houzzers’ tales don’t bolster the courage of your design convictions, nothing will
Full Story
MOST POPULARThe Not Naturally Organized Parent's Guide to the Holidays
This year get real about what you can and cannot handle, and remember the joys of spending time with the ones you love
Full Story
COMMUNITY15 Ways to Make Your Neighborhood Better
Does your community lack ... well, a sense of community? Here's how to strengthen that neighborly spirit
Full Story
MOVINGHow to Avoid Paying Too Much for a House
Use the power of comps to gauge a home’s affordability and submit the right bid
Full Story
martin_z