Spring's Here & It's Time To Fertilize - THESE Saved My Arborvitae!

I have a row of majestic arborvitae which help separate my house from the neighbor's.  They provide just a little extra sorely-needed privacy.  So after past seasons involving ice storms and Hurricane Sandy, one or two were looking....sick.  Their leaves were turning brown and I was concerned that they would never recover from ice and snow damage. 

Enter:  Miracle Gro's Evergreen Fertilizer Spikes! 

  

I found these at Home Depot last year and figured, 'What do I have to lose?  The shrubs are already dieing anyway!' so I picked up a package.  

These are fertilizer spikes.  You take one out, put the plastic cap that comes in the pack over the spike, and pound it into the ground per the package directions.   

Make sure the ground is soft when you do this.  I originally treated the trees last fall and just did it again today.  If, by any chance, some of the spikes are broken in the package, just dig a hole and put the cracked ones in.

These spikes DEFINITELY saved my precious trees.

Today's treatment took about 30 minutes for me to do a row of six trees, but that's a half an hour well spent to keep these beauties healthy!

Give them a try and let me know what you think!

 

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Oh, and if celebrate Passover, Happy Pesach!  If you celebrate Easter, Happy Easter!  And if, like us, you're an Interfaith family  -

HAPPY EASTOVER!

 

 

Right Time, Right Light, Right Space – Mighty Light

A few years ago, our outside porch light stopped working. Just plain, old stopped for no reason. It was a unit we really didn't need for security, since we have others outside, but it came in handy when you needed to find your keys in the dark. We asked our electrician how much it would be to install a motion-sensitive light which would go on when we stepped into the porch and then go off when we entered the house; the number he quoted almost made me faint. Then one day, I was in Target and spotted Mighty Light.

This is one of those Seen On TV products, although I never did. Mighty Light is a small, but very bright LED light that also contains a motion sensor. It can be mounted inside or out, instantly, because it has no wires. I hammered a nail into the porch near the door where I wanted the light, popped the 3 AA batteries in the unit, and within 5 minutes was good to go. For less than $10, I have a light that does what I want it to do, when I need it to.

I also use it in the entryway between the garage and the house. There's no light in that hallway and rather than guess where the stairs are (can you say “broken leg”?), Mighty Light shines just enough light to illuminate the hall. And it came in quite handy during Hurricane Sandy when the kids needed to walk around with a powerful, but safe light.

It provides just enough light to find my keys and get in the door. 

Supposedly, it's guaranteed to last 30,000 hours, but the batteries will give out before that. In the three years it's been on my front porch, I've only replaced the batteries once. I've read reviews that complain that you have to get pretty close for the light to go on, but that hasn't been a problem for me, since I'm using it in tight quarters.

Mighty Light is one of those products that you wish you'd had a long time ago. It would be great for senior citizens who might fumble for a switch when they're getting out of bed and it's perfect for deep closets or even in an attic where access to light isn't readily available. If there's space you need light, but you don't need it on all the time, then Mighty Light is for you.

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Thanks for reading!  

Sunrise After Sandy - A Photo By Daniel Danzico

How We Prepare For A Storm & What Helped Us Through Sandy

As I mentioned in my previous post about aging, my area has weathered two large storms the last two Autumns.  The first was a freak megastorm that dumped 19" of snow on us in late October of 2011 (Yo, Mother Nature!  Too friggin' early!).  Then last year, Hurricane Sandy visited.  My kids can tell you about the exact moment "Mommy lost it" and hurried everyone (in truth, screamed at everyone to run) down to the basement.  I huddled with my children in that cold, dark room as the beast that was Sandy roared overhead; it's a sound I will NEVER forget...

Now that Fall is here, it's time to prepare once again and here's how I do it and what has worked for my family.   Obviously your needs will be different.

  The Red Cross Preparedness Checklist  (http://chapters.redcross.org/ca/mtyco/ds/emgcheck.html) lists what you should have in your Emergency Kit .  I check ours every season to make sure the food hasn't expired.  I also tweak it; diapers and baby food aren't needed by us anymore, so that leaves room for other things that we didn't need but do now like cat supplies for the feline we now have. 

Some of the foods I stock are:

Make sure you pack a can opener!

-  protein bars (We LOVE Zone Perfect bars which are chock FULL of vitamins.  My growing teen eats them by the dozens!)
-  boxed milk
-  chocolate (For energy?  Maybe, but it was comfort food for us all.)
-  instant oatmeal
-  canned soups (I make sure a can opener is packed as well)
-  enriched pastas (I like the Barilla pasta made with chick pea flour.  It's loaded with vitamins.)
-  sauce
-  tuna
-  turkey jerky
-  snacks
-  tea (Camomille tea calmed my kids during the stress of the storm.  The gas was working, so I'd make them a cup before bed every night.)

I also make sure my freezer contains at least one frozen chicken or turkey; here's why.  Last year, upon learning that the storm was coming and realizing that we would almost certainly lose power, I cooked anything in my freezer that could feed the family for a few days without being cooked.  We just happened to have one of those free turkeys the supermarkets give out during Easter or Thanksgiving.  I defrosted it a few days ahead of time and cooked that sucker up; it gave us protein for most of the power outage! 

More of the kitchen preparations I did included: 

- Cooking brownies.  Sounds stupid, but those sweet treats were comforting!
- Freezing GoGurt yogurt sticks, containers of egg whites, and milk. We put those in the cooler and not only were they nutritous, but they served as cooling agents as well, in addition to the ice we had.

Since Halloween had been cancelled, my stress-reliever proved to be the Milk Duds I had planned on giving out to the trick-or-treaters.  I now have a secret Fall-stash of those candies just for me.   :)

As for equipment...

I mentioned in my other post that we do have a portable generator; we've named it Justin as in "just-in case."  My husband has already tested it to make sure it's working and we have a bit of starter gas to power it.  Last year while everyone around us used their generators to power almost everything in their houses, we used it sparingly in the evening to charge our electronics and power one lamp for maybe two hours at a time.  That was an important strategy because while our neighbors were searching for gas on a daily basis, we only needed to make one gas run the whole week!   Each evening, we'd watch a movie on my son's computer.  It kept a semblance of normalcy going.  This year I think we'll be plugging the refrigerator in so we don't lose all the food we lost last year (and which was NOT covered by our insurance).

Let's talk about the cooler.  Before the storm we'd only had the mini ones you take to the beach, but a few days before Sandy hit, I'd snagged the last large one at Home Depot; I'm SO glad I did!  We were able to keep quite a few perishables in there without constantly open the fridge.  Ours has a little spigot at the bottom so I could periodically drain the water and wheels so I could easily take it to the back steps.  

Besides the cooler, another essential for us is battery-operated candles.  The kids can easily and safely carry them around a dark house.  We also used ours as a nightlight when my little one went to bed.  The larger one we have (see below) is on a timer, so it goes off after I think 9 hours.  I'd set it when it got dark, and by the time we woke up, it was off.

I bought the larger one in a 3-pack at Costco.

Let me mention the importance of a good-quality battery-operated lantern which was excellent for reading in the evening.  You can find them in the camping section of Walmart or Target.  I also recommend having battery-operated miner lights - the kind that strap onto your forehead leaving your hands free.   Those were useful when my husband had to go out in the dark to tend to the generator. 

One thing I have this year that I didn't before is this little gadget.  It's a solar phone charger that goes on my

Leave it on your dashboard to charge all day

keychain;  I bought it at Target for about $20 and it gives me 25 extra minutes of phone power.  That doesn't sound like a lot, but it's saved me a few times when my battery gave out and could be helpful in another extended power outage.  I'll be buying a higher capacity one from Amazon soon. 

Something I didn't have enough of but will this year is firewood.  We have a fireplace that doesn't do much of anything except provide light and a little heat.  Gathering around the fireplace in the evening, all snuggled up under blankets was comforting.  Last year we ran out and I wound up foraging in the little patch of woods behind my house for kindling.  That proved important last year and I'll be stocking up on some - just in case. 

This morning my husband informed me that we're expecting a Nor'easter today.  Now that I've outlined what I need to do, it's time to go do it!

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I mentioned above Zone Perfect Protein Bars.  They're always on my Costco shopping list because my son eats them by the dozens.  They're full of vitamins and keep you feeling full for hours.  And the best part is they taste like a candy bar!  I keep them in the car for snacking and in case of unexpected delays.  They take the edge off your hunger and, combined with a glass of non-fat milk, even make a great little meal.  They are the "official protein bars" of our family!

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Thanks for reading! 

Aging & The Positive Side Of Being A Nut

My husband and I actually managed to have a .conversation the other night, tucked somewhere between picking up one child at gymnastics and arguing with the other about getting off the computer.  "I'm discovering something about aging," he said.  "The older I get, the calmer I get.  I'm confident that I can handle the big stuff."  His view was in sharp contrast to mine.  As I get older, I'm becoming less serene, more, shall we say, a tad neurotic?  It's not that I lack confidence in my ability to handle the big stuff.  It's the realization that there's SO MUCH BIG STUFF!

I used to look at older drivers and feel superior to them.  Why do they drive so slowly, I wondered.  Can they not see other drivers?  Are their reflexes slower?  What pains in the butt, I thought as I'd smugly dart past their little grey heads which could barely see over the dashboard.  I never gave a second thought to the fact that one day I'd be older.  Now, as I inch closer to their ages (I'm guessing most of them were 70+), I understand why, perhaps, they drive so slowly.  No, they cannot see and hear as well as they used to.  Yes, their reflexes are slower.  But maybe they're also aware of the sound metal makes as it collides with concrete.  They may know the horror of screams as vehicles hit each other and bodies smack with an unanticipated force.  Clearly they're doing something that many people on the road forget:  driving carefully with the realization that being in control of several tons of metal containing your life and, sometimes, the lives of others is an awesome (and I do mean AWEsome) responsiblity. 

That's big stuff.  I am also cognizant of other facts like little germs can cause big problems, cautiousness does not always prevent disasters, and bad stuff happens to good people. Sure, preparation may not stop catastrophes, but it can help. 

Two years ago, my state was hit by a freak snowstorm that left us without power for five days.  There was little warning from the media and honestly, we NEVER expected that amount of snow.  It was a difficult experience that left me jittery about the weather.  But the following year, when Hurricane Sandy hit, my decidely neurotic tendencies proved advantageous.  I remembered what we'd lacked the previous year and learned from it.  I made sure we had the supplies we needed.  Sure, I was a little nutty, but memories of the previous year prompted me to get a large cooler, cook all the food I could before the storm hit so we'd have provisions, and charge our computers and smartphones.  My husband dragged out the generator he'd bought earlier that summer while the prices were low.  Despite losing power, this time, for six days, we were okay.

Having a sense of how much Big Stuff is out there has made me appreciate the present much more.  I've seen houses crushed, know people who lost everything in the blink of an eye.  Iheld my children close in the basement of my home, and prayed as Sandy roared overhead.  I've learned from it.  I've lived through car accidents and hear, in my head, the crunch of metal when I see other drivers do stupid things on the road.  If my eyes and ears start to fail, I have no doubt that  I'll drive as cautiously as the old people I encounter.  And I pray I have the confidence that my husband has that I'll be able to handle the Big Stuff ahead. 

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Stay tuned for my next post when I'll talk about some of the strategies and products that helped us through Hurricane Sandy.