Archive for the ‘Garden Information’ Category
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Are you a gardening enthusiast? Have you ever gone to a book store to
find a particular gardening book only to be bombarded by shelf upon
shelf of books on every type of gardening imaginable except the one
that you really want? How about the internet?
You’ve heard that it’s a good place to find information, so you
laboriously turn on your computer and enter whatever keywords you
have into whatever search engine you fancy, and you’re bombarded
by information. Again.
The solution? Simple really when you come to think about it. No, not
buying out the whole bookstore. Not even finding some willing victim
to trawl through those web pages for you, although that does sound
like a good idea. All you have to do is write your own gardening book!
I know, I know, that sort of defeats the purpose of your trying to
find the information you need for yourself. But just think of all
those lost souls, wandering out there in a daze searching with
mounting despair through the same maze of information that you
yourself searched through only days before.
You probably think that you’re unable to write, but hey, if you can
string two sentences together in a manner pleasing to read, and you
can capture the attention of your audience, then you’ve got it made!
You don’t know enough to write a gardening book? I don’t believe that!
If you’re an honest-to-goodness gardening fanatic, then likely as not,
you’ve been gardening for most of your life. You must remember
digging up your mother’s nice neat flower beds to see exactly
â??how it worked’!
So, you’ve got the requisite experience necessary to write more than
one gardening book.
Now what? Well, now it’s all a matter of finding someone to cook your
meals and remind you to eat regularly while you expound to the world
at large, or in this case, your word processor, your views on
gardening. You won’t need to be reminded to water your garden,
because conscientious gardener that you are, that’ll be the last
thing that you forget. Besides, it wouldn’t look too good to let
your garden wither away while you’re writing a gardening book!
And afterwards what do you do? Well, you could always start on a
sequel, because really you didn’t do justice to all that could be
mentioned in a gardening book. Or, you could just sit back in your
easy chair, a mimosa in your hand, the drink, not the flower, and
reap the benefits of your very own gardening book.
As for that little nugget of information that you were so desperately
searching for in the beginning? Well it turns out that you really knew
more than you thought you did, and it too, is now in your gardening
book.
Tomorrow’s article will be on Gardening Clubs – see you then!
All the Best – Ian Fleming
http://gardeners-handbook.info
The maritime province of the Algarve, often called the Garden of Portugal, is the south westernmost part of Europe. Its coastline stretches 160km (99 miles) from Henry the Navigator’s Cape St. Vincent to the border town of Vila Real de Santo António, fronting once-hostile Spain. The varied coastline contains sluggish estuaries, sheltered lagoons, low-lying areas where clucking marsh hens nest, long sandy spits, and promontories jutting out into the white-capped aquamarine foam.
Called Al-Gharb by the Moors, the land south of the Serras (mountains) of Monchique and Caldeirão remains a spectacular anomaly that seems more like a transplanted section of the North African coastline than a piece of Europe. The temperature averages around 15°C (60°F) in winter and 23°C (74°F) in summer. The countryside abounds in vegetation: almonds, lemons, oranges, carobs, pomegranates and figs.
Most of the towns and villages of the Algarve are more than 240km (149 miles) from Lisbon. The great 1755 earthquake shook this area. Entire communities were wiped out; however, many Moorish and even Roman ruins remain. In the fret-cut chimneys, mosque like cupolas, and cubist houses, a distinct Oriental flavour prevails. Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Visigoths, Moors and Christians all touched this land.
However, much of the historic flavour is gone forever, swallowed by a sea of dreary high-rise apartment blocks surrounding most towns. Years ago, Portuguese officials, looking in horror at what happened to Spain’s Costa del Sol, promised more limited and controlled development so that they wouldn’t make “Spain’s mistake.”
Algarvian beaches are some of the best in Portugal. Their quality has led to the tourist boom across the southern coastline, making it a formidable rival of Lisbon’s Costa do Sol and Spain’s Costa del Sol. There are literally hundreds of beaches, many with public showers and watersports equipment available for rent.
Since around 1965, vast stretches of coastal terrain have been bulldozed, landscaped, irrigated, and reconfigured into golf courses. Many are associated with real-estate developments or major resorts, such as the 800-hectare (1,976-acre) Quinta do Lago, where retirement villas nestle amid vegetation at the edges of the fairways. Most are open to qualified golfers who inquire in advance.
Many former fishing villages—now summer resorts—dot the Algarvian coast: Carvoeiro, Albufeira, Olhão, Portimão. The sea is the source of life, as it always has been. The village marketplaces sell esparto mats, copper, pottery, and almond and fig sweets, sometimes shaped like birds and fish. Through the narrow streets comes the fast sound of little accordions pumping out the rhythmical corridinho.
For motorists, the big news is that the final 62km (39-mile) stretch of A2 is open, linking Lisbon and the Algarve with more efficient access than ever. The road took a decade to complete and cost $375 million.
For more information about holidays to the Algarve and a great selection of Algarve villa rentals please visit www.jamesvillas.co.uk.
Now that you have a rose garden you are proud of, it’s time to
take the next step and let others see the beauty of your roses.
Rose shows and exhibits are exciting events where you get a
chance to see how your roses stack up against other rosarians’.
It doesn’t matter if you win — the experience alone will be
fun, and you’ll learn a lot.
Visit a Rose Show
Before entering your own roses, visit a few rose shows to see
how everything works. If at all possible, get permission to
enter the preparation room to see what experienced displayers do
before the judging begins.
Get The Rule Book
Get a copy of the rule book from the American Rose Society.
Visit their web site at www.ARS.org for more information.
When you decide you are ready, look for a show that’s close to
home to limit your travel time and expenses. Many exhibits offer
special judging classes for beginners, so try to find one of
those for your first time.
Follow this timetable and you’ll be ready to face the judges on
the day of your show:
30 Days Before The Show
It’s easiest to start with 1 single bloom on a stem, so select
the 1 rose you will be showing. Be sure to pick a rose with a
sturdy and straight stem.
Begin preparing the rose for exhibit by cutting off all of the
buds that are forming on the side of the stem between the top
and the leaf. This focuses all the nutrients to the single bloom
at the end of the stem.
Support the cane of your selected rose by staking it with a
bamboo stake and some rose or twist ties. This protects the cane
and helps to support the rose as it grows.
Spray fungicide when needed, and promptly remove any aphids or
spider mites. Aphids can be removed by spritzing with soapy
water. Spider mites can be lightly sprayed with plain water.
Water your roses as you normally would, and apply organics and
fertilizer as needed.
Put together your tool kit for the day of the show. Most
experienced rosarians carry the following in their kits: *
American Rose Society Rule Book * Shears * Several soft cloths *
Cotton swabs (such as Q-Tips) * Plastic wrap * Small, soft
artist’s paintbrush
7 Days Before The Show
Cover your selected bloom at night with a baggy that’s secured
below the bloom with a tie. Remove the baggie before the sun
rises in the morning. Do this every night until you leave for
the show.
2 Days Before The Show
Cut the rose, with the stem a bit longer than usual, because you
will be re-cutting it on the day of the show.
Place the rose in a florist’s bucket, cover the bloom with a
baggie and tie it off below the bloom. Place the bucket and rose
in the refrigerator.
Morning of The Show
Remove the rose from the refrigerator, place the container and
rose safely in your car, grab your kit, and head for the show!
I have always wanted to make my own salsa, and I anticipate in the next year or so I will be able to do that when my wife graduates and we find her a great job in a larger city. My plan is to start our own garden, and grow all the essential things I will need to create original, authentic sauces, including bitingly hot, spicy salsa.
I would really like to experiment with hot sauces like Louisiana style, Mexican, and Asian style sauces. In order to make a hot sauce with my garden, I needed to become familiar with the Scoville scale that measures hotness. I also needed to become extremely familiar with jalapenos
I do not know much about gardening, but the area where we live is very fertile, and there are lots of people around who know how to do it, so I can get some real pointers from them. My brother in law, as a matter of fact, comes from a family where the dad grew vegetables in a huge backyard garden. They were always giving us peppers, squash, onions, tomatoes, and all sorts of great vegetables that I knew would work wonderfully in a salsa mix.
So what I will need to do first is investigate about home gardening, and find out which peppers and other vegetables grow well in the area that we will be moving to. Then I will need to decide how large I want the garden to be. In order to do that, I will simply reference the information on the Internet, and also get some advice from friends that have small gardens. I suppose it would not hurt to visit the local do it yourself store as well, since I will be headed there anyway for seed and fertilizer.
One question I will have is what kind of yield to expect? Once I have my garden set up and ready to go, I need to have some kind of idea on how much food will be grown in that area. Then I can prepare for it, and when it is time to harvest the vegetables, I will have plenty of storage space for all the produce.
After harvesting, I will review some recipes for salsa. I’m already a fairly good cook, so once I’ve learned a recipe and it turns out well, then I will feel comfortable experimenting with different seasonings and combinations of peppers. Afterwards, I can share my new, homegrown concoction with some friends, and if they like it than perhaps I will approach the local grocer. Salsa is definitely one of my favorite foods. Hot or mild, sweet, tangy, sour, it doesn’t matter, I love it all.
It will take some work, and I know there are some unexpected challenges coming my way with the idea of starting a garden, but I think it will be worth it. I look forward to the upcoming year and the prospect of learning how to start my own garden, harvest it, and create a delicious salsa that everyone will love!
Excerpt
The following is an excerpt from the book Wandering Hearts
by Donna J. Grisanti
Published by Phoenix Publishing Corp.; August 2006;$14.95US; 978-0970886095
Copyright © 2006 Phoenix Publishing Corp.
1
Raine Foster knew with certainty that she’d have to leave her home that hot, wet spring when Nanny Vi started talking to the dolls. Through tears, Raine contemplated what to do as she watched the bright pink glow of the day-ending washboard sky. The Fosters’ farmhouse was falling down around Raine and her grandmother’s increasingly oblivious head.
Raine looked down at her rough, chapped hands, praying that the fluffy, pink cotton candy wisps in the sky wouldn’t become gray and threatening. All too frequent leaden skies poured our constant pinging rivulets that kept Raine running inside the house from bucket to rusty farm pail and then to the abandoned horse troughs she’d dragged from the rotting barn. If her prayers that the floors would stop buckling and no more leaks would spring from the Swiss cheese-like roof over their heads weren’t answered, she feared the second floor of the house would fall down and kill them in their beds.
People said Raine should leave the place and get started on her own life, even in this Depression time. Back tax vultures were circling the land in this backwater place, they said. The assessor’s rolltop desk was littered with tax notices, and no one in this generation had the money to pay anything at all to save long-held family properties. The landscape was riddled with broken dreams and lost fortunes big and small, like theirs, and in most folks’ estimation, the only way out was for Raine to leave or to marry. She had no money to leave, at least not enough to buy a nice seat on the train that stopped at Clinforks. So “starve here or marry” was the solemn advice of the old men in the few creaking rockers and barrel stools on the sagging front porch of Vitman’s general store, post office, and cotton-gin office.
Almost halfway into 1941 in Bridgeville, the old men in town had nothing better to do than come each weekday and Saturday morning in their clean but raggedy clothes to rock on the store porch in creaking comfort. They sat their days away, keeping the clerk, postmaster, and fix-it man company while watching people try to stretch their pay for supplies. The hard work of seeing folks trying to scrape a few pennies together to keep meals on the table tired them out. Things had been bad in Bridgeville for as long as anyone could remember. The Foster place, Raine’s home, seemed next on the long list of failures that didn’t show any sign of ending, the wrinkle-faced elders would say as they chewed on the ends of their empty pipes.
The porch elders were in a cantankerous mood, not being able to taste, or at least smell, the ripe fragrance of burning tobacco. It made the old gentlemen a bit irritable to be denied the luxury of pipe or chewing tobacco because there was no more money, either in their pockets or their family’s coffers. Their fading hearing longed for the deep-pocket snap of the round tins holding the golden or tarry shaved leaves. Sometimes they would lift their worn-out bodies from the porch rockers and circle the front of the cash register, praying that the air currents would bring a few fragrant whiffs from the glass sanctuary where Vitman kept the tobacco products lined up in gleaming tins and pouches, so near and yet so far from their lips, mouths, and pipe bowls.
“We might be in luck, boys,” Earll Miller said as he moved the end of his empty pipe from one moist corner of his mouth to the other. “Hear from Vestell Wright that Mr. Emil Vitman’s going to the Fosters’ place tomorrow.” He held off a second to make sure everyone was listening to his juicy piece of gossip concerning the tall, square-jawed owner of most of the businesses in their small town. If Earll had it right, he would be the purveyor of something to keep people talking for weeks far beyond the buckling boards of the general store’s porch.
One thing everybody already knew was that Emil Vitman was a mostly sour, spoiled-by-riches man past thirty. Earll sat forward in the best of the ancient rockers, made eye contact with each of the other four old men sitting with him, and said in a low voice, “Looks like there’s something important going on.” He knew he had them all interested, as each of his compatriots sat up and strained to hear every word. Earll shook his head solemnly, imitating the style of the circuit preacher who came every fourth week to the church down the dirt path called Pine Road.
Earll had gotten this important information from Vestell Wright, the plump widow who had been the Vitman cook and housekeeper since her husband died of rheumatism five years earlier. “Seems young Vitman’s going to take himself a wife.”
Earll seemed pleased with the bug-eyed reception his news engendered in his front porch cronies. He was especially satisfied with Pete Fisher’s reaction. When old Pete reached for his knees with both hands, stretched his neck as if he’d stopped breathing for a few seconds, and then let all the air out in his wheezy lungs, Earll knew the news he was spreading was having its desired effect.
“Yessir, Vitman and Raine Foster,” Earll said with authority, as if he could afford to buy the local paper and was reading from the four-page weekly Bridgeville Gazette. “Perhaps we’ll have a good meal and a better smoke when we attend the nuptials.” The men’s mouths watered at the thought of the taste of cigars and good-grade tobacco curling from their pipes.
Brady Fell, the Vitmans’ fix-it man, wasn’t so pleased by the news. Eavesdropping might be unmannerly, but it was necessary in this case, he thought. If his seventeen years as a Vitman employee were any indication, being Vitman’s wife might save Raine Foster from starving, but there were other things to consider, like the cruelties of his wealthy and powerful boss, which Brady and everyone else in town had witnessed.
Brady shook his head in disgust. He needed this menial job and needed to mind his own business. It was the only thing that had kept him, his wife, and their three children going since the accident at the Vitman cotton mill had cost him six broken ribs, a bum leg, and the loss of the family farm during his long convalescence. The farm deed belonged to Vitman now, and Brady and his family were allowed to stay there on that mean man’s whim. If he butted his nose into this situation about Vitman and Raine Foster, he and his family could be out on the dirt road without a house or a job before nightfall.
Although Brady was anxiously waiting for his oldest, Imogene, to get herself a husband and give him one less mouth to feed, his conscience got hold of him. Even if it meant another ten years of watering down the gravy and eating more week-old biscuits saved from the Vitman store trash, he’d rather risk homelessness then have Raine Foster marry his boss. Trying to make sense of Emil Vitman’s thundering moods, which changed more frequently than the hairstyle posters in the window of Miss Clover’s Wash and Curl Hair Salon down the street, would likely kill any woman. Not only that, but Vitman was also known for adding physical violence to the quicksilver mix. Vitman saved himself from the consequences of his irrational deeds by using his power and money to tidy up every mess.
Brady thought things over again. He was bone tired this Wednesday afternoon and hadn’t wanted to do one more thing than his work chores. This information changed his mind. He’d have to be late for supper and warn Miss Raine that the devil, in the form of Mr. Vitman, was coming to call.
To keep them going, Raine worked in the vegetable and flower patch and sold the flowers and produce at her makeshift roadside stand. To quiet Nanny Vi while she worked, Raine set the remaining dolls from the dwindling family collection on small wooden chairs in a tea party semicircle around her now frail, wispy-haired grandmother.
No matter how hard Raine tried to prevent it, when she combed her grandmother’s once thick brown hair, the now fine, downy edges of the greatly thinned mass laced with steel gray strands would start to slip from the tight bun at Nanny Vi’s neck. Raine wondered if her own thick auburn tresses, which were curly at the root and wavy at the long ends, would look the same if she lived as long as Nanny Vi. She now fixed her hair in the same tight knot at the back of her own head because there was no time to mess with it. Lots of things were gone, like real tea parties and loose tresses catching in the sweat of her face as she worked in the vegetable and flower garden.
Her grandmother hadn’t been out of the house in several weeks. On their last trip to Bridgeville for flour and lard, Nanny Vi had started talking to dead people again as if they were still alive. Raine decided she couldn’t allow her grandmother to be exposed to the sad, questioning eyes that remembered a different Vidalia Foster, the strong horsewoman and doll maker who was now a frail woman talking nonsense. Raine had to lock the outside doors and push the furniture to block interior access to the dangerous, uninhabitable second floor of the house when Nanny Vi was in a wandering mood.
There was also a debt to pay Brady. When she saw him on the last trip, Brady had told her, “I gave your grandmother a three-cent stamp. Paid for it myself.” He’d watched Nanny Vi place a packet of papers in the mailbox at the general store while Raine was putting the parcels in the mule cart. Raine still hadn’t figured out how Nanny Vi had gotten to the notepaper or managed to hide the envelope. She’d have to apologize to the postmaster if he discovered her grandmother’s gibberish in with the rest of the mail. The last time she’d been in town, he was in bed with a mustard plaster and hot lemonade and whiskey, fighting a cold well away from the post office. The apology to the postmaster could wait, but when she went to general store at the end of the week, she was going to give Brady the three pennies she’d scraped together. Mrs. Simpson would be paying her tomorrow.
The wasted money wasn’t the only thing. Neither Raine nor Nanny Vi had worked in the doll making business for more than a year. There was neither a market for the expensive porcelain dolls, nor the money to buy the intricate parts for the fragile beauties, their ornate clothes, or the expensive rocking eyes that opened when the dolls were upright and closed when the dolls slumbered in their bed. There was nothing else left to sell at the Foster place to buy the doll parts. All the money they had went for food and necessities. The old mule was the only stock left in the barns, as well as the only thing they were still able to feed besides themselves.
Nanny Vi and Raine had tried to keep the doll making tradition going with cloth dolls and even corn husk dolls. They sold only a few because people could make them from their own scraps and fields. Then Nanny Vi got sick. The only dolls they made now were for people with no money who needed dolls for gifts and holidays. Raine kept her hope and talent alive by collecting the best of the scratchy corn husks and the faded cloth pieces that were too small for her neighbors’ quilts.
Raine wondered how long they’d last this way. As if the house falling down around them weren’t enough, a few weeks earlier Nanny Vi had started chatting with two invisible people. The old woman called to them restively day and night. “Where are you, Ben?” she’d call. “Are you going to come in here soon, Charlotte?” Raine didn’t want to do it, thinking that giving in to her grandmother’s demands weakened the woman’s faltering grasp on reality, but finally she fashioned two more dolls to represent these unknown people. No matter how many times Raine tried to ask her grandmother about them, Nanny Vi wouldn’t say that Raine had never known a Charlotte and Ben.
The young woman had learned a hard lesson in keeping the peace. The last time Raine had tried to tell her grandmother that Raine’s parents, as well as Nanny Vi’s husband and parents, were all buried on the small sloped hill at the edge of their property, Nanny Vi had left the house. While Raine was working in the vegetable garden, Nanny Vi wandered two farms over calling for her husband, who she thought had gone over to the Nelson farm to sharpen his garden tools on the sharpening stone that Raine and everyone else in the neighborhood knew had been sold two years ago in the property sale after Ella Nelson died. Mr. Nelson had died five years earlier, and nothing was going to get sharpened that day except the gossips’ tongues as they passed along this sad tale about Nanny Vi and her out-of-her-head wanderings.
Raine never again wanted to feel that pressure in her chest or cry out in terror as she had after her grandmother’s irrational flight from the house. So she kept her peace and her information to herself while hushing her grandmother and working on creating Charlotte and Ben dolls from wood and cloth. Then after they’d had their late lunch and a trip to the outhouse, she dutifully placed them in the doll circle around her grandmother’s rickety upholstered chair. Raine lifted her eyebrows in frustration, but said nothing.
Suddenly Raine heard a noise. There was someone at the vegetable stand. Bridey Taylor had told her she would come by to get cabbages after she’d dropped off the laundry at Judge Marshall’s house.
After she paid the nickel for several large heads, Bridey rubbed her chafed hands. “I wish the Judge didn’t want so much starch in his shirts,” she said. “I can’t understand how the stiffness can give me such a rash and the Judge’s neck still stay as smooth as baby’s bottom.”
Raine gave her a dollop of udder cream on a piece of brown paper tied in a rag.
“Thank you,” Bridey said. “I need to get home to my laundry, but you know I wish I’d had the time to listen to the old men at the general store. Might’ve had some news to share.” She looked in her bag. “They seemed mighty interested in some tale or another.” She recalled the men sitting around the general store when she went to get more starch powder. “Earll Miller and his boys all seemed like cats that had swallowed canaries, sure enough. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d have asked them what was up. Even looked at my skirt hem to see if my slip was showing, they looked so beady-eyed.”
Concentrating on her next chore, Raine began to empty and carry the last of the ragtag collection of buckets, pails, and cans to her garden of water collected from the holes in the roof, which sat under the partial protection of a stately oak. The tree took the brunt of the hot sun and showers, protecting the fragile garden stems. Raine had taken a chance planting a few rows of corn earlier than usual, and the stalks had withstood the early heat and all the rain. She hoped these would bring her some extra money as well.
As Raine was considering which spring flowers would make a nice bouquet for Mrs. Simpson’s dinner table, she heard a familiar voice whisper from the bushes, “Miss Raine, I got to talk to you.”
“Brady? What you doing in the bushes?” Raine asked in an amused tone.
“Don’t say my name again, and keep doing what you’re doing. This is important!” Brady replied in a harsh whisper. Raine was confused, but she tried not to be stiff and unnatural as she concentrated on the flowers.
“I’m taking some flowers to the Simpsons’ tomorrow,” was all she could think to say.
“I can’t stay long, but there’s some bad news.” Brady gulped. He didn’t know how to say it, but knowing that Miss Raine was his friend and that she needed to know, he kept going anyway. “Earll Miller said his lady friend, Vestell Wright, told him Mr. Vitman is coming over to ask you to be his bride.”
Raine stood up straight like someone had struck her full force in the back. The flowers she looked at became hazy and then came back into focus. She grabbed her waist with her hands as if she were protecting herself from a sudden icy cold. “You sure?”
“Miss Raine, you know me better. I wouldn’t tell you no lie or risk being fired from my job for no foolishness,” Brady replied, still fidgeting in his bent-leg position, making sure he had his one good foot on the ground in case anyone had followed him from the general store. Mr. Vitman had plenty of spies down at the cotton gin, paid to do anything. A running start was all he asked if he’d been followed.
Raine swallowed and, not having enough breath as her heart pounded in her throat, whispered, “You go home now, Brady, and be careful. I thank you, and I’ll take it from here.” Her hands reached for the flower stems she was looking at and caressed the thin, green shafts. It was as if she’d seen her own death certificate signed. After a few short words, she now knew she’d have to leave and never return. She couldn’t turn Emil Vitman down and live anywhere near Bridgeville. Vitman would poison everything if he thought she had crossed him. She’d need to exile herself from everything she knew and loved in order to save her own life because she knew he’d either have her or see her dead.
What am I going to do and how am I going to do it? she wondered as iciness crept through her. Emil Vitman had been drinking, carousing, and fighting his way around the area for years now. Why should she be the target of his matrimonial plans? Ever since his daddy had died in the same flu epidemic that killed her parents, there was no one to bridle that erratic man or his goons, who acted first and then used Vitman’s money to get themselves out of trouble later. He was as mean as a snake and twice as dangerous, because in addition to money, he had the added currency of family connections of many generations’ standing. Several people had died in the last few years because they had come too close to Vitman’s temper. Who could say anything when the evildoer owned most of the town and paid off the people who knew things? Raine needed to plan — and fast. Thank goodness Brady’s warning had bought her some time, she thought as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
When Raine tried not to think about Brady’s news, her mind would snatch it back to conscious thought at the sheer enormity and horror of the prospect. Emil Vitman was not a patient man, so she’d have to play for time. There was Nanny Vi to think of; she was gone from her right mind more often now. Perhaps this would give Raine some leeway.
For all his hell-raising, Emil was a stickler for propriety in other people. A raving grandmother-in-law in the Vitman mansion wasn’t something Emil would want, and Raine wasn’t going to send her grandmother to the state sanitarium. She could play on people’s sentiments about a granddaughter wanting to keep her only living relative near her, even if people did think Nanny Vi was crazy now. Raine wasn’t sure. In her estimation, there seemed to be room for only one crazy person in the Vitman place, and that was Emil himself.
Emil Vitman was the product of the lovely, too-pampered daughter of a rum merchant who died a few days after his child’s birth and the watered-down bloodline of formerly hardworking, respectable stock on his father’s side. Fortunately for him, respect died hard, and connections could be bought in these lean times. So Emil successfully greased palms and mended fences after his binge blackouts and rages. As his neighbors, staff, and store patrons attested, he became progressively more moody as his sober hours shrank.
As word spread about the possible wedding, some observers were sarcastic enough to wonder in private if his increasingly surly moods might match the less frequent lucid moments of his future fiancée’s grandmother. Although all the gossips in town observed that Emil’s good looks were fading under the constant barrage of liquor, they made their comments outside of his earshot to avoid becoming the focus of his erratic, vengeful temper. They never knew when they might need a favor from the puffy-eyed, preening Vitman.
When Vitman made up his mind, he could not be dissuaded. He was convinced that Raine Foster was the answer to his problems. Raine, his soon to be ever-so-grateful wife, would take care of the store and his petty problems. Acting on his orders, his muscled assistants from the cotton gin could concentrate on handling more important things. He’d be free to consider weightier matters and give orders to all of them from the comfort of the leather chair in his library, with the cut-glass decanter of bourbon at his side.
Although nearly penniless, Raine had a fine pedigree, which certainly counted in his community. She could smooth things over on the church and social fronts. He’d keep the books of his businesses, set the credit rules, and let her run the rest — just as long as she didn’t ask to fix up that wreck of a homestead she and her grandmother were living in. Their ramshackle home had to be filled with all kinds of must and contagion, proof that Raine came from hardy stock and would make an excellent broodmare for his many forthcoming children. They would be her responsibility, too, he thought as he considered the delights of home, hearth, and business. Perhaps he could even manage some discreet dalliances on the side.
He had to plan carefully. Just to be safe from the decaying pile of lumber Raine called home, he would call her out on the lawn to talk about his plans and their upcoming marriage. With her hand-to-mouth existence, she couldn’t last much longer. If his spies had it right, there were only a few dolls left from her great-great-grand-mother’s collection of French dolls. If Raine stretched the money, it would last a year at most. Then there would be nothing else except her vegetables and flowers to sustain her and her grandmother.
Emil thought a minute. He could send Sweeney from the cotton gin over to steal the dolls and hasten the process. He tucked the possibility away as a last resort in order to get his way. Though he relished winning by any means necessary, he still considered matrimony a fine, honorable thing. He wouldn’t use any more force than necessary, unless Miss Raine gave him a reason to reconsider his tactics.
Emil looked in the mirror at his relatively handsome face, missing the signals of his increasing liquor consumption — reddening facial skin and the beginning of tiny broken blood vessels around his nose. He turned his head and admired the legendary Vitman cocoa brown hair, which kept its color well for all the men in the family until near the time they entered the hereafter.
There had been a few other changes in Emil. At thirty-seven, he had taken to wearing vests even in the warmest weather because the material hid his burgeoning waist. His blue eyes were a bit bloodshot, but there was always some ragweed around, wasn’t there? He turned a bit to consider his profile. With his long legs, he still rode a horse well when he thought to take to horseback. But he preferred the sedan Brady Fell washed and waxed every Wednesday morning, or whenever Emil wanted to remove any grime from Bridgeville’s puddles and ruts. Brady could restock shelves or take inventory later. Emil enjoyed seeing his reflection in the clean coal-black finish of his Packard.
Should that be the way he greeted his ladylove? Emil wondered. No, he thought, as he considered the classics his tutor had read to him those long ago years when he couldn’t be bothered to pick them up himself. Even then, he had been misunderstood at the community school. His father had hired a tutor for him, but the thin, spindly-legged man — named Harris, if Emil remembered correctly — ran away one night with some farmer’s daughter from the other side of town. In the grand style of romantic literature, Emil thought, he should ride over to the Foster house on his horse, Renegade, to impress Miss Raine. Women liked that kind of romantic drivel.
When Raine Foster said yes, his ride over on horseback was all the romance she was going to get besides her wedding day. So he’d go to the trouble of having his stable hands wash and curry Renegade and then make sure Mrs. Wright got the horse smell out of his clothes after he got back from the Foster place.
Emil fished into the breast pocket of his gold satin vest, feeling for the ring taken from his Aunt Clara’s body after she had died seven years ago. If memory served Emil correctly, her hand and Miss Raine’s were similar, so there was no use in wasting good money. After all, there was still the cost of the wedding bands. Besides, didn’t women like sentiment? He could tell Raine some cock-and-bull story and save himself the cost of a new engagement ring. She wouldn’t be wearing it long anyway after she started working in the store and taking care of their children. It would just come back to him and sit in his jewelry box. She’d get a plain gold band to mark her as his wife.
After a heaping breakfast of country ham and eggs with Mrs. Wright’s biscuits, followed by a light bourbon and water to brace himself, Emil Vitman set out for the Foster farm on Renegade at a light trot. Although he loved the thought of flying through the air on a galloping horse, he saw no reason today to jump fences and get the horse or himself sweaty. Emil patted his Aunt Clara’s ring in his vest pocket. As he reined in his fine black horse about fifty yards from Raine’s front door, a light breeze rippled through the tall shading oak trees at the front of the once-proud Foster home.
Copyright © 2006 Phoenix Publishing Corp.
One of the things I encourage people to do when they start out online is to quickly create a plan of what they want to achieve. A vision for your business is better, but not everyone is ready for a vision. Even a plan for the next six months will help you to focus on what you want to get done.
The internet offers an opportunity to reach a wide market if you are effective, and your “shop” never has to close. It will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to anyone that chooses to visit.
Not only is the potential for customers huge, but the number of areas you can focus on online is also huge, and whilst I will not be covering them all in this article I wanted to give you a flavor of some of the things you can do.
Affiliate Marketing – This involves you selling the products of a supplier. Its one of the more popular things to do when you start out online because you don’t need your own product, and many affiliates don’t own their own website.
When you sell goods on behalf of a supplier they give you a commission based fee – which varies but can be anything from 5% to 75% of the total cost of the product.
It makes for a great start because they take care of all the customer service and delivery of the product. The downside of affiliate marketing is the fact that you never earn as much as someone who actually owns the product.
Info-preneuring or Information Products – Information products are amongst some of the greatest products currently churning out money online. And anyone can create an information product. Imagine you know how to build a pond from scratch. That already makes you a lot more knowledgeable than me -the only thing I know about ponds is that they look great in my garden!
Maybe one person in a thousand will want to know how to build the kind of pond you know how to build.
Offline you can write a book about it but not many publishers will want to publish it (although there is self-publishing now!). because for a publishing company it’s just not worth the marketing.
On the internet though, one person in a thousand gives you a potential market of 340,000 customers. If you write a book and sell it online for just $10 per copy you could make as much as $3,400,000. All you have to do is tell people what you know-and tell them it’s out there. And that costs next to nothing.
If you love writing, or if you have work that you have tried to get published and failed, this may be a great alternative for you.
Niche Marketing – Now you have your information product on how to build a pond, this is called a niche market. You are not talking about knitting, or how to improve your golf swing so you will not want to market to those people.
Niche marketing is basically marketing your website to a particular market. Once your pond ebook is selling well there is nothing to stop you putting up another website about improving your golf swing, or looking after your new hamster. You just decide on the product, create it and put up a website. But again, you must first do some research into what people want if you really want your site to be successful.
It pays to focus in on one particular niche because then people will arrive at your site knowing that you potentially have the product they are looking for. If they are then presented with 30 different products on different topics they will not hang around long enough to bother looking.
Membership Sites – This has become one of the bigger money earners. Imagine taking everything you know on how to build a pond, filming yourself as you build and then creating it into videos. Interviewing pond and fish experts and turning them into audio. Then putting all that information into a membership area where people pay to gain access. 2,000 members paying a monthly fee of $10 to get access to this membership site is a nice chunk of change! Your site could charge a one-off fee, a yearly fee or a monthly fee (or all 3!)
Google Adsense – Google provide adverts that can be placed on your website, when someone clicks on this advert you get money (don’t get any ideas about clicking it yourself, Google monitor that and ban you forever!). What has become popular is to have a site that contains articles on a topic, e.g. Looking after a kitten and the adverts will reflect the topic, so there may be adverts on vets, insurance, food especially for kittens, etc etc.
As this information site will help people they are more likely to read the article and then click on one of the adverts. Even better, if you have a product you are selling and you write the article, chances are people will then take a look at your product and buy it.
Google changed the way it reviews sites late July/early August 2006, which really only affected sites that were setup with the sole purpose of getting people to click on their ad link, rather than provide information. The key is to provide quality unique information that you have written yourself, not just a load of clickable adverts and you will be okay.
Network Marketing – Network Marketing or multi-level marketing (mlm) is an area that is well known offline as well as online. Amway is one of the leading network marketing companies, and now, there are a host of opportunities to get into online.
Network marketing works because it uses leverage. The more people you introduce and help them to introduce others the more money you make. The difficulty can be in just getting people involved and then keeping them interested enough to learn how to replicate your success.
But if you manage that network marketing is definitely a great income generating opportunity. The key is to find a reputable company with years of experience, or a new company with solid backing both financially and in terms of the people who support the business.
Finally….
Turnkey Businesses – A turnkey business (also called plug-in) is a business that provides everything for you. You will usually be given a product, a website and/or some training/tools in how to market. Some turnkey businesses offer incentives to be paid if you recruit others to take up the opportunity.
This is a great way to get started because you have everything you need. It is definitely important to look for a company that provides you with help and support.
A great example of a turnkey business is my business called The Wealth Director at http://www.thewealthdirector.com You receive a website, a newsletter system (with newsletters), subscribers and leads when you buy a package, everything you need is in one place.
There is also a complete business including personal development support at http://www.businessstartuponline.com to help anyone with online business startup and network marketing.
The above is a small part of what is possible online, 7 ways to start making money online. There are many other opportunities and I encourage you to research and find out which one works best for you before getting yourself involved in one.
I also encourage you to focus on one (or two at the most) and enjoy earning a living from them before moving on to running another business.