Solar Energy Tax Credits
Congress Extends Federal Solar Energy Tax Credits Through End of 2008
Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs
Contacts and critiques of more than 2,000 catalogs from around the world. Is there a better service that could be provided to an avid gardener? Click on the Title to get you there.
Dave's Garden
Dave's site is a gardener friendly destination. The plant database is billed as the largest in the world, "...with 86,188 entries, 58,365 images and 33,503 comments." You can search by name or plant characteristics or just browse through the pictures. Searches are limited if you are not a registered member, but membership is free. Click on the title to get you there.
Ginger Milk
This sweet ginger-milk drink is wonderfully calming if you have an
upset stomach. Ginger-root is a well-known nature medicine, and is especially recommended for stomach ailments and motion sickness.
1 quart of goat's or cow's milk
1/3 cup sugar or to taste
3 knobs of fresh ginger root, peeled and grated finely.
Put ginger root into a saucepan and add the milk. Stir to mix. Bring the milk to the boil. Just before the milk begins to boil, whip it with a egg-beater to make it frothy. Pour through a fine sieve or tea strainer into mugs, add sugar to each mug and enjoy.
Winter is an important time to help the birds make it through.
Place your feeders close to windows so the birds don't fly into them and so you can enjoy the entertainment.
Some of the bird seeds on the market have ingredients the birds don't like and even weed seeds. You might want to get a large tote and mix your own birdseed to attract a variety of species. This recipe will bless your ground and feeder types of birds and even get a few woodpeckers stealing those black-oil sunflower seeds.
Homemade Bird Seed Mix
1 part white proso millet
1 part cracked corn
2 parts black-oil sunflower seed (or twice as much as you did of corn or millet
Combine the seed, millet, and corn in a large container. Store in a dry trash can or storage can with a tight-fitting lid. This mixture can be offered in a tube, hopper, or platform feeder. Black oil sunflower seed is a great choice because it is higher in calories.
Reducing Our Use of Trees
We can all do our part to use a fairer and more sustainable share of the Earth’s resources, taking action to preserve forests every day in our homes, with our friends and colleagues, and in our communities. Suggested First Steps:
USE CLOTH NAPKINS AND DISHTOWELS and forget about the paper versions forever.
USE CLOTH SHOPPING BAGS - They’re lightweight, collapsible, and can hang out in your car or slip inside a backpack without taking up too much room until you need them at the grocery store or other retail establishment.
WRAP ALL GIFTS IN REUSABLE MATERIALS (cloth scraps, scarves, or cloth bags) or in waste paper (newspaper comics, brown paper bags, etc.) that will then be recycled.
BRING REUSABLE CONTAINERS TO RESTAURANTS for take-out, instead of relying on their disposable paper and plastic containers.
ELIMINATE JUNK MAIL - Call or write to catalogs, nonprofits, magazines, and other companies and ask them not to share your name. When you do receive junk mail, call the company and ask it to remove your name from its list. Contact the Direct Marketing Association (www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html) to remove yourself from as many lists as possible.
PAY YOUR BILLS ONLINE - Most credit cards and many utilities now offer online payment options that can help you reduce your use of envelopes, checks, and paper bills. If online billing isn’t an option, or if you prefer to receive paper invoices for your records, you can call your credit card company and ask it to stop including junk-mail “inserts” with your statement.
RECYCLE ALL WASTE PAPER - If your town doesn’t offer curbside pick-up, find a recycling facility near you at www.earth911.org.
BUY RECYCLED OR TREE-FREE - whenever you must purchase a paper product, including computer paper, manila folders, sticky notes, toilet paper, etc. Every paper product you might need has a recycled or tree-free version available. This site has a directory of places to shop: www.ecobusinesslinks.com/recycled_paper.htm
Frugal Exercise
There are many ways to get fit without spending a lot of money. The following are easy, inexpensive ideas for getting in shape.
Walking - You can walk in your neighborhood. You can walk to do errands. You can walk at the mall. Just slip on a pair of shoes and start.
Videos - Exercise videos are available from the library, come in a multitude of levels and skill sets and can be done in the comfort of your own home. There are also many local, national and cable TV exercise shows on each day that you can follow along with at your own pace. Tape them if you have to, in order to exercise at your convenience.
Stair climbing - You can do it the old fashioned way and climb real stairs. Many buildings, sports stadiums, outdoor parks and maybe even your own home have stairs that you can climb for free as many times as you want.
Weight lifting - Lift canned goods, old (well sealed) milk containers (half or full gallon sized) filled with water or basically any other item that has some weight to it and a handle of some sort.
Jumping rope - Jump ropes are fairly inexpensive, or as they did in the "olden days," use a piece of rope.
Calisthenics - Use plain old-fashioned calisthenics such as sit ups, push ups, squats, etc. All of these can be done in your own home at absolutely no cost.
A field - Get your kids or a friend and play catch with a base ball, kick a soccer ball back and forth, toss around a football, or play tag. Anything that gets you moving and works up a sweat is exercise!
Play tennis or basketball - Many cities have free outdoor (and occasionally indoor) tennis and basketball courts for the public to use at no charge.
Ride a bike - The old bicycle you have gathering dust in your garage can be dusted off, tuned up and used to ride on quiet country roads, nature trails or any other out of door location that is reasonably safe for cyclists. Be sure and wear your
helmet!
Swim, roller skate, or ice skate - Many communities have recreation centers that charge very little to use their pool and skating facilities. Check out their prices; often mornings or mid-week cost even less than the more popular weekend and evening sessions.
Getting in shape and staying healthy doesn't have to be expensive. You can use the items you have on hand, along with a healthy dose of motivation, to lose weight, get healthy and put together a successful exercise program for next to nothing.
USDA: Food & Nutrition Service
Despite the abundance of foodstuffs in the United States, many individualsand families go hungry on a regular basis. There are a number of public andprivate organizations working to address this problem, and the USDA's Food &Nutrition Service is just such an organization. Their website allows personsworking in this area to learn about their various nutrition assistanceprograms through their online newsroom, their specific program areas, andtheir "Spotlights" features. For a brief introduction to their currentinitiatives and work, interested parties should browse on over to thenewsroom, where they can learn about recent grant awards, state food stampparticipation rates, and disaster assistance. After that, visitors may wishto look at the multimedia materials within the "Eat Smart. Play Hard"feature designed for young people. Here they can learn about the foodpyramid and how to eat balanced meals everyday. [KMG]>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006.http://scout. wisc.edu/
Stop Child Poverty
A number of international organizations are committed to helping end childpoverty, and one of the best known of their number is the Global VolunteerNetwork. Through their advocacy work and the Stop Child Poverty campaign,they are dedicated to the proposition that child poverty can be completederadicated. Through sections titled "Learn It", "Live It", and "Pass it On",visitors to this site will learn about the "big picture" of child povertyand how they can become directly involved in any number of volunteerprojects. The "Pass It On" area is quite fine in this regard, as visitorscan look over a message board where they can discuss the campaign, and thenuse a zip-code search engine to find volunteer opportunities in their area.[KMG]>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006.http://scout. wisc.edu/
Auto and Truck Repair and Advice
George G. Scott, Jr. has been an auto mechanic for over thirty years, and hehas also found time in his busy schedule to create this website dedicated toproviding both the average person and future auto mechanics with informationabout car and truck repair. While the site does contain some banneradvertisements, there is plenty of fine free material here as well. Visitorscan begin their journey by looking into areas titled "How Your Car Works".After that, they can look over an alphabetical list that includes sageadvice on everything from alternators to water pump repair. The site isrounded out by a fun collection of sounds of cars in "trouble", including abad motor mount of 1994 Saturn and the valve train tapping of a 1993 Isuzu
Rodeo. [KMG]>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006.http://scout.wisc.edu/
David Rumsey Map Collection: Antique Atlases
The world of antique maps and atlases is a wide one, and includes such finevolumes as the exquisite atlas of New Spain created by Alexander vonHumboldt in 1811 and Mitchell's School Atlas of 1847. These atlases andhundreds more can be viewed at this site, provided courtesy of the DavidRumsey Historical Map Collection. Online since 2000, the antique atlassection is divided geographically into smaller sections that cover NorthAmerica, Africa, and Europe. After clicking on over to one of thesesections, visitors will be presented with a complete list of the availableatlases. As the site utilizes the powerful Insight Browser, visitors canscroll around on each document at their leisure, zooming in and out alongthe way. [KMG]>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006.http://scout. wisc.edu/
Hummingbirds
Living all the way from the rocky coast of Nova Scotia to the forests ofBrazil, hummingbirds can be found in a vast range of climates. Recently, theNational Geographic Magazine created this multimedia portrait of these hardycreatures and placed it online for the general public. On the homepage,visitors can read a brief overview essay on the lives of hummingbirds, andthen continue on to over of the site's six primary sections. These sectionsinclude a photo gallery, an "On Assignment" area which includes field notesfrom staff photographer Luis A. Mazariegos, and a "Learn More" area, whichincludes links to relevant websites. The real highlight of the site is thenarrated tour by Ernie Franzgrote into the lives of different hummingbirds,including the violet-capped, the purple-crowned, and the marvelousspatuetail. [KMG]>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006.http://scout.wisc.edu/
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
While many writers have to wait decades, if not centuries, after their deathto receive critical or commercial success, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow waslucky to achieve both during his lifetime. Born in Portland, Maine in 1807,he was a figure of national prominence by the 1850s, and a much-belovedprofessor at Harvard. Recently, the Maine Historical Society created thisfine tribute to the man and his work. The site is divided into seven primarysections which include an extended biographical essay about his life andwork, information about his family and his homes in Portland and Cambridge.Of course, any site about Longfellow would be incomplete without a generousselection of his poems, and this site has that particular detail wellcovered. In the Longfellow poems database, visitors can view a sortable listof his works, which can be arranged by poem title, first line, andpublication date. [KMG]>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006.http://scout. wisc.edu/
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance
Living and coping with depression or bipolar disorder can be difficult, butthere are a number of high-quality online resources that can be very usefulto those with these conditions, or for those who work directly with theseindividuals. The homepage of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance(DBSA) can be of great help in this area, as their site includes everythingfrom their "Real Recovery" podcasts to such basics as factsheets on bothdiseases. A good place to start here would be with any of the five primarysections, which include crisis intervention resources and recovery steps.Visitors can also view many of these materials in Spanish and they may alsowish to sign up to receive the DBSA's electronic newsletter. [KMG]>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006.http://scout.wisc.edu/
Support our troops - sponsored by Xerox
1. Go to their website:
">http://www.letssaythanks.com
2. Pick out a thank you card.
3. Xerox will print it and send it to a soldier who is serving in Iraq.
4. You can't pick out who gets it, but it's going to a member of our armed services.
Cable Shows for Free
How I Get Cable Shows for Free
http://sharonhr.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-i-get-cable-shows-for-free.html
PIN NUMBER REVERSAL
If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse.
For example if your pin number is 1234 then you would put in 4321. The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.
The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber,
the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.
This information was recently broadcasted on TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don't know it exists.
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