I want to take some time and give a special thanks to the Make A Wish people for granting Arianna’s wish and getting her a special needs tandem bicycle. The presentation was held at Chuck E. Cheese and Arianna was surprised. Special thanks for Alycia (spelling I hope is right-if it was Alicya I hope this makes up for it) and Jose from Make A Wish and Jason from Freedom Concepts.
Hope everybody is having a great holiday.
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
July 02 2011
Arianna’s Wish Granted
My tomatoes and red peppers are starting to come in. It may not be profitable at this point to grow produce commerically for the volume that I am doing but it should be enough to keep the family in some food now and then. My strawberries are coming in and I am winning the fight against the bugs in my garden.
The love the strawberries,mint and lettuce. So far my heirloom tomatoes are doing well. My squash is slow moving and the cantalope is moving along slowly. I am looking forward to having the cantalope. Arianna has eaten the strawberries (I have had some and they are sweet). I suggest that everybody if they have the space (even if they don’t) grow some fruit and veggies.
Arianna received a citizenship award and I am happy for her. She was delighted when she was going to the stage and she heard yells and applause for her. She started laughing. It was hot but it was worth it.
Ah, back to having a cup of tea with lemon in it from my own tree. the lemons have been coming in not stop and there look to be more coming in. Nice.
Happy Solstice, gang and I hope you are healthy, happy, getting solvent and getting wisdom.
Jun 21 2011
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
June 21 2011 Veggies coming in
Ah, the new moon on June 02 2011. I have been waiting for weeks for it to hit so I can complete my planting for my lasagna gardening and farming. I have spent the last few weeks being profitable by planting a lasagna field (roughly ten feet by ten feet) in a sunny corner of my backyard.
The layering that I used was a cardboard box, some horse manure, some cuttings and dead leaves from my front lawn and the street for composty filling, some potting soil, another layer of manure and then some more soil. I am layering the top of the mulchy mess with both alfalfa straw (to build up the nitrates over the next six or so months) and straw hay (to keep the moisture in the soil as I water it).
I have acquired tomato plants, watermelon seeds, cantalope seeds, yams, and some other fine tenants who will provide nourishment and something to look at other than lawn in the back.
My planting will start tonight and I already am starting to get a small tomato on one of my plants. I am excited (what can I say, I excite easily with some things).
I will try and get some pictures up once I get everything into the ground and watered. The temperature has been hot but not hot enough to dry the land completely out and for that I have been grateful. My other garden is doing well. The spearmint I planted is doing well, the chocolate mint -not so much. My spinach and cauliflower are under attack from bugs and I think my strawberries are under both bug invasion at a possible gopher. For my gopher problems I need to put some meshy plastic or something like that under the earth and I forgot to do that over my new plantings. Ah well.
The strawberries, when I get to them before the critters, are pretty sweet and tasty.
The roses in the front of our yard are doing well as well as our trees wth the exception of the poor plum tree. The plum tree has been around for decades from what I understand (I met one of the guys in the neighborhood who remember planting it decades ago) and the few plums that are coming out are under assault my squirrels. The dogs wait patiently at the bottom of the tree having learnt the art of dog stalking. They sit like statues and wait for the squirrels to come down the tree or try to leap to the fence from a branch. A couple older ones have made it. A few babies ended up in Angels’ not-so-tender mercies and teeth.
The dogs have been pretty good about staying out of the garden after tons of yelling and chasing them away. They finally are getting the message. Prior to this Shiloh more than Angel would dig at the roots of the plants and veggies to try and get to them. Smart dogs.
I am in the midst of cleaning out the rest of my backyard from weeds and am trying to get a decent spot to put chickens. The self-sufficency seems to grow upon itself and compound. Er, I think that is a good thing or at least until I run out of energy completely.
If you also have any tax questions or issues please drop me a line or holler at me. Just cuz we are out of offical tax season doesn’t mean that you aren’t getting letters from the Fed or State or don’t have questions, right?
Stay happy and healthy gang!
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
June 02 New Moon Farming
Happy June 01 2011 Gang! I bought a bale of alfalfa for my lasagna garden that I am building up (and hopefully it will be a nice farm size plot one day). I will be going to get hay to cover it with tomorrow. The alfalfa will work great for breaking down and making nitrates naturally for the soil, the coverage to keep for evaporation sadly will be lacking.
That is why I need to get hay. The fun part was getting an entire bale of alfalfa cut up and it fit in my car. The Sonata smells nice with alfalfa. I am thinking of trying to make it into a cologne or after-shave…
Have a great day.
June 01 2011 way early AM
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Happy June 01 2011
If you are getting married, congrats! I hope you have been taking to heart some of the suggestions I have been posting recently (scan my last few posts if you are just landing here) and I just wanted to remind you that you and your spouse need to plan for your first year filing Married Filing Jointly (or Separately) together.
Most couples when they first get married might end up owing taxes because they didn’t plan accordingly. Remember that as of the end of the year – the very last day – Dec 31st, you and your beloved are considered as a couple. That means what is yours is hers and what is yours is his as well. That means that your income is considered combined for income tax purposes.
If you check out my post (look on the side of the page or go to the home page and look on the side there if you are viewing this as a single post) under one of my “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea” notes, you can see that you should both have changed your W4s from work to reflect that you need to have a little more money possibly withheld for taxes. What has happened in the past is that both couples change their withholdings from Single 1 to Married 4 or stuff like that and they both end up owing at the end of the year.
If you are in doubt, drop me a line or consult with your favorite tax pro. Have a great time as a couple and please make sure that you have your taxes covered so you don’t start planning for divorce several months later!
May 30 2011 Later In the Day
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Taxes and Your Wedding
Speaking of weddings and saving money, start thinking about making your own items to save money for your wedding. For example, for our centerpiece items for our wedding we made bride and groom teddy bears. We found from novelty items from a catalog that makes plush toys from cranes (you know the ones you throw a dollar into and the crane doesn’t close all the way so you can’t pick up the iPhone you want in it) and bought a bunch of baskets that were cheap. We filled the centerpieces with flowers, the bride and groom teddy bears and that saved a small fortune in getting things ready for the big event.
The plush bears were a total of maybe $30-40. The flowers we had donated from friends gardens and the baskets were .99 each from a dollar store. So we had 30 tables covered with gorgeous centerpieces for about $2 a table. Nice!
I hope you can do the same thing for your big event. Please keep me in mind for your tax and book needs. Remember that my new book on starting your sole prop is out!
Have a great day.
May 30 2011 Early AM
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Do It Yourself Wedding Tip To Save Money
Anytime you have a question that you want answered, explained or want planned out. In keeping in line with that, please remember that I am an Enrolled Agent and always looking for new clients and to help people everywhere.
Thanks!
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Similar to growing diamonds synthetically, I wonder what the energy requirements would be to make copper and other metals that we need and if it is worth the process and time (not to mention the cost) to try to make these. ure, mining is great – until everything gets mined out. Just curious if anybody else has any thoughts on this for the bigger picture looking decades down the line.
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Synthetic Minerals
For those of us who will be celebrating Memorial Day, please take a couple of minutes to honor the fallen and the ones who were injured in serving our country. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all our troops – whether active, inactive or already passed on.
Thanks for your service to our country.
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Speaking of Spring May 30 2011 – Thank you to our troops!
Not sure if it was mist or fog or a nice mini rain shower but when I woke up this morning I had some rain on the ground and it was covering my tomatoes, fruits and veggies in the backyard. It will save me from having to get out and water them and the lasagna soil that I have laid out to plant my veggies and fruits in. More at a later date.
May 29 2011
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Rain was most welcome May 29 2011