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Tidying up the garden beds

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Last week I said that it was such a nice day that I thought I’d go out and start cleaning up the front garden beds. Well I did. As much as I could anyway, given that there was still some snow on the lawn and in some of the beds:

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Now do you believe me when I say we’ve got a small front lawn? Look at that, the grass area which is still covered in snow, is smaller than our compact car! It’s actually a good thing that the front boulevard was covered in very deep snow most of the winter because it was really a sight for sore eyes once the snow melted.

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In case you’re wondering the boulevard was still full of hard woody sunflower stalks and the stakes that held the tall flowers up last year.

A few hours in the increasingly cold afternoon and at least three yard waste bags later and the front boulevard looked like this:

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I didn’t take after photos of the front garden beds, but they and the back garden beds were a lot tidier too with most of the leaves that had blown on them removed and some of the old dead foliage cut down.

We even took about 45 minutes and ducked out to Home Depot where we bought the stone edging for the front boulevard. That will help keep grass from growing into the flower bed. I also purchased several new spring plants to fill up some empty shady areas in the garden which I hope to plant later today.

By Tuesday all of the snow was gone and any growth that we’d discovered in the front and back garden beds when we were cleaning on Sunday had pretty much doubled or tripled in size.

Most of our crocus’ are happily blooming away now too:

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Have you been busy cleaning up your garden and perhaps even planting new plants?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!






Solar lights in the garden

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I was just wondering how many of my readers use accent lighting in the garden?

We didn’t want the hassle of putting in an electric lighting system and I figured that in the long run we’d save more money by using solar lights so that’s the kind of accent lighting we use in our garden.

We also purchased a number of garden torches. I think they are about five feet tall. We place them in a symmetrical fashion, like the solar lights, throughout the garden and light them when we are in the garden in the evening.

The torches help to keep bugs away from us in the garden. It seems that there’s always a few mosquitoes or sand flies and gnats around and I must have sweet blood because they love biting me!

So … if you use lighting in the garden what kind do you use and how do you use it?

Get a warranty from SquareTrade

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Have you ever purchased something online from eBay or even a retail store and then later wished that you’d purchased a warranty for the item? Or perhaps you are like my husband and I and you purchased an item but the extra warranty offered by the store was just so expensive that you balked at paying such a high price for coverage that you might not ever use?

That’s right. Chris and I purchased an HD video camera and a Digital SLR camera from Best Buy this past Sunday. The two items and accessories cost us well over $3000. We were offered extended warranties for both items, but do you know how much those extended warranties would have cost us if we’d purchased them? Close to $800! That’s almost a quarter of the price that we paid in total for the two electronic items! Geez! We could get a new washer, dryer or even a desktop computer for that price!

This is where Square Trade comes in. SquareTrade offers warranties on electronics and appliances at 30 to 50% below retail. It doesn’t matter if you purchased your electronic item or appliance online or in a retail store you can get a warranty for the item.

Now if Best Buy had offered their extended warranty at half the price that I just told you about we might have purchased it. It’s there loss I suppose. Now that I know about SquareTrade I’ve looked into the warranties that they offer for the two items that we purchased and the warranty prices really are about half the price of what we were offered at the retail store on Sunday.

The website states that warranty claims are served within five days and that they do not charge for deductibles. You can also cancel or trade your warranty at any time.

The site looks pretty easy to use. Go to the main page of the site and click on the “Get a Care Plan” button, or the “Get a warranty” button at the top of the page.

There are two columns on the page that you are brought. One if for an item purchased from a retail store and the other is for an item purchased from eBay. Pick the correct button and begin filling out information as to what product you purchased as well as the purchase price and date if you bought from a retail store, or simply fill in the eBay product number if you bought from eBay.

Once you fill out your information you’ll be offered a warranty for the item. Once you’ve read the information on what you are being offered you can purchase the warranty.

If you do purchase warranties through SquareTrade you’ll be able to manage your warranties and any claims you make towards those warranties online via the SquareTrade system.

SquareTrade covers items purchased from online and offline stores such as Amazon, Dell, Sears, BestBuy, Circuit City and many more. Plus, you can buy warranties for any times that you purchased in 2007. It doesn’t have to be a recent purchase as far as I can tell.

Warranties are only available to buyers in the USA at this time. Being in Canada I won’t get to try out the SquareTrade service, but if you are a US resident you might want to take a look at what they have to offer and decide if purchasing a warranty via SquareTrade is right for you.

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