It’s no secret that eating your vegetables everyday is important even though most of Americans don’t even come close to eating near the amount that is recommended. In fact, I had to laugh at a recent commercial where a little girl touting a serving of vegetables in a popular canned food tells a little boy dressed up as corn that corn is not a vegetable, but a grain. I laugh because I had a grown adult person tell me I was wrong one day when I told them the same thing. But I had to sit up after a conversation with a friend of mine that has had multiple health issues of which none are severe but could eventually be. He has completely changed his diet to raw vegetables.

I asked him if he had noticed any considerable changes and he informed me that he no longer suffers from insomnia, stomach pains and headaches and no longer has the insulin imbalance that was leading to diabetes. He said it wasn’t always easy to eat raw and though he can have fruits he has chosen not to. He has also lost about fifteen pounds and continues to loose weight.

When looking for the right home for you and your family, there are always certain things that come to mind that may or may not be the trigger points for an area. While diversity might be more important to one family, the education and school system might be what drives another to a particular area or neighborhood. One of the worse things that can happen is to buy a home in an area because of the price or the house itself and you not be happy because it doesn’t meet with a core issue that you overlooked.

One of the things that might help you is to work with a local realtor who knows the areas you are interested in buying a home. A qualified realtor should be able to tell you about each neighborhood, the schools that are available, public and private, the shopping, crime statistics and anything else that you may want to know. Purchasing a house just might be one of the biggest investments you will make in your lifetime so make sure it’s the one you want!

I overheard a conversation the other day that got me to thinking about the economic situation for small businesses. I happen to be in my bank waiting for someone to help me and overheard a woman with a small business who could not get any credit at a bank that she has banked with for over 10 years because she was behind on a couple of credit cards from another major bank. Needless to say, she was frustrated and in tears when I left.

So I got to thinking about that and called a friend of mine who is a credit advocate and found out that yes, banks and credit card companies are sharing information, through the credit agencies, to determine if you are credit worthy or not and there is nothing you can do about it. If this was true when I was a kid, my grandfather would have lost his farm one year and my uncle his feed store. If a small business person has to not pay a business account or a personal one they will choose to let the personal one slip. If, in return the bank then cuts their business credit; well, how are they going to make money to pay any of it back? This makes no since to me.

I am always amazed at what people talk about in relation to post caps and finials. So many do not understand what they are made for and how they work in relation to your yard and the overall look and feel in your outdoor spaces. Though the fall season may seen to be an odd time to discuss what is generally seen to be a spring project, it’s actually the perfect time to talk about these great fence and deck post protectors.

As the weather changes so does wood. It contracts in the cold and expands with the heat as wood is a porous material. With each season change the wood weakens somewhat so anything you can do to keep it strong against the elements is great. The caps that sit on the top of the post actually keep water and bugs from being able to get easy access to the post itself through the pores and tunnels that are natural in a cut or broken end of a post. By simply capping this up and creating a barrier from the elements you accomplish this well. If you would like to further the look, finials are made to be placed on top of the cap. So the post caps are to protect the wood post while the finial is decorative.

I have recently started looking into research on honey bees for a design project at school. Before doing even the slightest bit of research, I knew the decline in bee populations would have an effect on our food supply, I just didn’t know by how much. I was amazed to find out that over eighty percent of cherries rely on bee pollination. It takes about 100 grains of pollen per cherry blossom to produce fruit. Bees carry about 100,000 grains of pollen per load. I also learned that almonds rely completely on bees for pollination. In fact, due to the decline of the hives, many bee keepers are taking their colonies to central California to assist with the almond trees. These are just two examples. There is no doubt countless others.

There are several theories about what is happening to the bees – cell phone tower signals interfering with the bees internal GPS systems, mites, viruses, etc.  This is much more an important issue than I had originally given it credit. Can you imagine what will happen if the decline continues? Food prices would go up tremendously due to simple supply and demand…but what happens when there is no more supply? The bees are a crucial party in the human food chain supply. Even foods that are processed many times start out as something coming from nature. God save the Queens!