Easing Out of a ‘Going Nowhere’ Career

work from home onlineI love what I do for a living working online.  Or at least I used to love it.  Now I like it, but the results of all my hard work is not as satisfying.  For two years I’ve tried to come back from the changes Zazzle made in summer of 2013.  Within a couple of months, my pay dropped by two-thirds because of those changes.

This is a post about my experience with working online at the print-on-demand company, Zazzle. It is not intended to put the company down in any way. I still believe that Zazzle is a good place to earn income online, for many reasons. I would encourage anyone interested to give it a shot. Their products are high quality, and they offer nice sales year round. I’ve received many reviews from happy customers. This post is about my own personal experience as I’ve made Zazzle my career for the past eight years.

It may seem like a fabulous opportunity to be able to work from home.  And it is!  I have loved working the hours I choose, usually getting up at 5 or 6AM and working all morning, with my afternoons left for gardening, cooking or other things.  I work 7 days a week, putting in about 50 or 60 hours and can still be home for my son. But there are downsides as well, which mainly have to do with lack of control. It’s nothing like having a regular job, where seniority counts, dedicated employees get ahead, and the pay is stable and usually increases over time.

learning When I began working online at the Zazzle site I had to spend a lot of time learning.  I didn’t have the advantage of youth and computer knowledge.  Everything was new for me.  From uploading and re-sizing photos and art, to learning about using social media, this old gal was in school all day long.

But the money began to come in.  And for about 5 years the income steadily increased.  Eventually I was making enough to support myself and my young son, while saving up for a house of my own.  I even wrote a page about My Zazzle Success Story.  Back then, working hard brought in more money.  It encouraged me to expand and do more.  For years my income continually increased, and I looked forward to ‘going to work’.  Then suddenly, things changed.

It’s something we get used to, those of us who earn money online.  We are at the mercy of the online platforms themselves.  I had many articles at the writing site Squidoo when it ended, but not as many as others.  My small monthly deposit to PayPal went away, and I missed it.  But that was nothing compared to my dip in pay at Zazzle. Continue reading “Easing Out of a ‘Going Nowhere’ Career”

What I’ve Learned About Planting, Harvesting and Drying Garlic

Information on how to plant, harvest, dry and store your own garlic.

hardneck garlic bulb cloves
Planting, Harvesting and Drying Hardneck Garlic

I live in southwestern New Hampshire and each year I attempt to grow my own garlic.  After much trial and error and reading articles and books, this is what I’ve learned about planting, harvesting and drying garlic in my area of the country.

The first couple of years I had little luck, but I didn’t know what I was doing.  I wasn’t sure exactly when to plant it, and it never grew very large when I did manage to grow a few bulbs. As time went on, I read more, and realized that it needs to be weeded well. Weeds will compete for nutrients and keep the bulbs small. Also a little fertilizer when the stalks begin to grow can help. Continue reading “What I’ve Learned About Planting, Harvesting and Drying Garlic”

Picking Zucchini Every Day Now!

Freeze zucchini to preserve it for later, when there is too much to use fresh.

zucchini in the garden
Growing Zucchini

Anyone who grows their own zucchini knows that once those suckers begin to appear, it’s zucchini picking every day.

When I begin my vegetable garden in June, I include two squash plants, and one is always a zucchini. Usually I have yellow squash too, but this year both plants are zucchini. Within the past few days I’ve picked two zucchini each day. My neighbor gets some, but she lives alone and won’t need all that many.

Most people know to pick their squash when it’s medium size. Any zucchini that gets overlooked, and it’s easy to do, may end up the size of a small baseball bat. I found the one pictured below, stuck under the stems of the plant last year. It was a monster!
big overgrown zucchini

Usually I just slice and boil the veggies, as it’s the easiest way to eat them. Fried zucchini is really good also. And of course there is everyone’s favorite – zucchini bread. In fact, if you search online, you’ll find a numerous variety of recipes that use the green squash as an ingredient.

Unfortunately the zucchini comes in at the time when summer gets hot. It’s the time of year when I do not want to heat up the kitchen by baking bread.

With all that squash ready to use, the only other way to keep it fresh to use for a later time, is to freeze it. This is the first time I’ve frozen my excess zucchini, but I don’t know why I haven’t done it before.

It’s so wonderful to pick fresh ingredients from the backyard, but if they are picked and then sit around for days, the vitamins deteriorate, and you might as well have bought them from the store. Preserving them fresh is most important, so pick, shred, package and freeze the zucchini as soon as you pick them.

Pick, shred, put in freezer bags (with date and label – it will keep for 8 months from what I’ve read), and store to use at a later time. Bake that bread on a cool day, or add to a batch of homemade soup. How simple is that?

Dilemma: Bugs, Birds, Bears, and Cats

grasshopper eating a sunflowerThis is my garden dilemma:  I have a grasshopper infestation.  I need a natural way to get rid of the bugs, as I am an organic gardener.

Attract birds that will eat them, is my first thought, but I have cats that go outside.  If I feed birds in summer it’s only the hummingbirds.  My cats would never be able to catch one of them.  In fact, neither of my cats are big hunters, but I imagine that birds get nervous when they look down and see cats in the yard, so they move on.

If the birds do end up eating the grasshoppers, they will be down near ground level.   The grasshoppers are feasting on the leaves of many of my garden plants.  If I put out feeders, I feel like I am inviting birds to their death, because of the cats.

Summer bird-feeding can also attract black bears in my area.   Continue reading “Dilemma: Bugs, Birds, Bears, and Cats”

Organic Control of Grasshoppers in the Garden

I’m trying to control a grasshopper infestation in the garden.

grasshopper control
Grasshopper Pests

I have millions of grasshoppers in my garden.  They are chewing up the leaves on my parsley, sunflowers, oregano and pretty much everything.  Now they are eating the flower buds off the coreopsis which seems to be a favorite of theirs.

As I walk along the edge of my small garden area, they jump away from me in a wave of moving leaves.  There are a lot of them.

I am an organic gardener, so I’ve been searching for natural ways to get them to leave, or die.  The organic product (Semaspore Bait) that kills them, is best used when they are young, so I don’t know if mine are young enough.  Even a small container is quite expensive, and since I don’t know if it will work at this time, I’m hesitant.  I’ll look for it at Agway.

A post at Home Guides has given me some advice for keeping the pests off my leaves naturally.  I know that garlic spray works well for insect control, but I don’t want my herbs to taste like garlic.  I might use it on plant leaves I won’t be eating.

I am going to try the molasses in jars approach.  By mixing molasses with water, the sweet drink attracts grasshoppers.  I have lots of little canning jars which may work for this experiment.  The idea is to attract the grasshoppers to the liquid and then they drown.  I have to bury jars in the dirt and fill them halfway with the mixture.  I hope it doesn’t attract beneficial bugs as well.  I’ll keep an eye on it.

Since I have molasses, and lots of canning jars, I plan to get started on that right away.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  I might combine that with the garlic spray approach and between the two, I may have some success.  There is no way I can kill them all within the short span of summer.  I’d love to have more birds, toads, frogs and even snakes around to chow down on the little critters.  I’ve seen some toads, and even a frog.  But my cats tend to keep everything away.  I only feed hummingbirds in summer because of the bears in my area.  The smell of sunflower seeds can bring bears into the yard, and I’ve had them destroy my feeders when left out in summer.

grasshoppers eating rhubarb
Eating Rhubarb Leaves

Summer Blue Flowers on the Hydrangea

This years Endless Summer blue flowers are not impressive.

blue hydrangea flowerFinally I have a picture of my blue flowers on the Endless Summer hydrangea plant. It’s nothing too impressive I’m afraid. I don’t think my hydrangeas are getting enough sun to flower abundantly.

In fact, none of my hydrangeas in the front yard are producing many flowers. Usually by July I can see big flowers, as you can see in this post from July, 2013.

This summer – it’s July 12th now – I have two, very small, light blue flowers, one on each side of the plant, near the bottom.

blue flowering hydrangea plant
July 2015- Endless Summer Hydrangea

I believe that the problem is that I have two large burning bush trees in the front that shade my gardens. The Burning Bush is suppose to be a bush, but this house was neglected before I bought it, and the bushes were allowed to grow huge. Although I cut them back when I moved in, they have since gotten out of control once again. It’s difficult for me to contain the thick stems as they can’t be cut easily. I’m considering taking drastic measures and using the chainsaw to cut them down. The thing is, I don’t use a chainsaw.

The blue flowers are pretty, but small. Lack of blooms usually means there is not enough sun. We also had a bad winter which I think has affected my perennials adversely also.

On the other hand, my propagated transplants of the Blushing Bride hydrangea are looking beautiful. One has two flowers on it, and both have gotten really large.