When living in a northern state such as that, every tip and trick and coupon that helps keep energy costs down is a big deal. And the demand for home insulation contractors is amazing; when we called around to try to arrange for some estimates on having more insulation put in the attic we were told that we would have to wait for six months!

I’ve been checking out some online flowers and getting some really good ideas from various Gardening sites. It amazing how many varieties of plants, flowers, shrubs, tree and bushes there is out there for people’s landscaping concepts. I’ve never been the best at making choices, but I’m taking my time, showing my ideas around and getting good feedback so far. I’m really looking forward to getting outside and getting my hands dirty instead of freezing cold as they have for many months now.

My step-mother moved down to Texas years ago. I remember the first couple of years we were constantly watching the news and worried each time any extreme weather would hit anywhere around the part of Texas that she was now making her home. It was terrifying to think that she had moved somewhere that she really adored only for her to get hurt, or have her home destroyed or even worse lose her life. Many times we were not able to get through to her land line or her cell phone or through email attempts and we would become frantic calling each other and driving each other crazy with worry until one of us would hear from her. Some times it would take several days and it was agony.

She would always have some pretty amazing stories after things settled down about how people would band together to help each other board up their properties to prepare for these storms. I’ll never forget the first time she told me that the first thing that they would do was throw all the lawn chairs, pool accessories and other outdoor furniture into their pools to keep them from blowing away and possibly causing more damage in the process or even worse, hurt someone while flying around in the high winds. I thought that was a pretty cool idea, something that I never would have thought of, but it certainly makes sense if you think about it. Another good business for down that way would be a pool supplies company what with all of the pools that they have to enjoy almost all year round down that part of the country.

Last spring when we went to the home and garden show we saw several displays using rain chains as part of the landscaping. My wife was especially pleased to see and enjoy the different garden chains rain that she saw – she especially liked the ones that looked like water was coming out of a watering can.

I liked the gutter rain chain and copper rain chain corner leaderhead that I saw. I thought that they were great solutions for a couple of the problem drainage areas we have on our roof. A very unique way to channel our precious rain water each and every time in rains.