The $12,000 we spent to convert our tub to a walk-in shower.
May I ask, what are the benefits of having a raised garden bed over growing the garden right in the ground? I used to have a vegetable garden for years in a certain spot that was perfect for it, but the tomatoes kept getting early blight. I tried solarizing the ground over one summer, but it didn’t help the following year. I’m wondering if I built a raised bed in the old garden spot if I could mitigate issues like early blight.
The advantage of raised beds filled with your own mixture of peat, vermiculite, and compost is that the soil is perfect for growing vegetables and requires no soil amendments, whereas, the soil in one’s back yard may be too sandy, clayey, acidic, etc. and likely requires lots of adjustments
That said, a raised bed by itself will not eliminate blight issues. The blights affecting your tomatoes or the powdery mildew fungus that’s killing your cucumbers and squash plants are primarily spread during watering and/or extreme humidity. The little spores ‘splash’ up onto the leaves and adhere. The best thing you can do to avoid this is to grow your tomatoes vertically tied to stakes or using a tomato cage. Carefully prune the lowest set of leaves. Get them up off the ground so the spores have less exposure to your plants’ leaves once the plant is well established. Growing vertically will improve air circulation as well. Best to water with a soaker hose, but hand watering (carefully pour a margarine bowl of water at the base of each plant) will also reduce splashing and the associated blight. The one way you don’t want to water is overhead with a spray nozzle. Hope that helps.
Besides a house, my biggest big-ticket item is my little trailer which was $9000 and I had to buy a new towing vehicle which was another $6000. I was supposed to go to Borneo but covid happened so I became one of the hordes who purchased a trailer. My cousins all have very nice trailers and go camping for most of the summer so I was able to join them. I absolutely love my little trailer!
When I was a young fellow, I worked as a machinist and I enjoyed the work. I then drifted into an entirely different industry and moved into the life of “IT Professional”
But I never stopped remembering how much I enjoyed clamping down a random chunk of metal on the Bridgeport mill and milling it into a useable part, or chucking a piece of steel on the lathe and crafting something useful from it.
Over the decades I remembered with fondness, and tried to fulfill that missing part in my life by getting into woodworking–it wasn’t the same.
When I hit 50, I decided I was going to set up a machine shop in my basement. Mill + lathe + tooling + assorted other tools (e.g. grinder and band saw) cost quite a bit, but the end result has brought me great joy.
I have spent hundreds of hours happily milling away at chunks of brass or steel and turning them into parts for steam engines. Here’s a finished one from a couple of years back.. This was one of the best big-ticket purchases I have ever made.
Thanks, good tips! I do use tomato cages and a soaker hose, but I admit I’m not great at pruning the lower leaves.
There have been many. Vacations and home improvements and on and on.
Recently though, It’s new living room furniture. Make no mistake, we still need carpet. But the other stuff was getting a bit long in the tooth. With that we also bought two Amish rocking chairs. Handcrafted and absolutely gorgeous.
My Wife and I play a lot of Chess and Cribbage. We have the rocking chairs set next to our old coffee table for playing the games. It’s perfect, and the rockers allow you to lean forward to scope out a board or cards on the table.
That is super cool. I totally get that, though for me it is woodworking.
I’ve been into woodworking off and on, in some form, most of my life. (I was always whittling as a kid, and it went up from there.) I dream of a really nice shop with all the tools. I don’t really have the time for it now, but maybe when I retire and the kids are grown up…
My long-gone '92 BMW 325. Damn that was a fun car to drive. Stick! Bought it used with ~25k miles and drove it for 14 years. Loved that car. BMW has since ruined the 3-series 
The kitchen remodel I had done just before covid-palooza. Got a gas cooktop with a 22k BTU wok burner in it. Love cooking in there. Probably added $100k to my house value, easy.
That’s incredible. Even in 1990, the 286 was obsolete (the 486 was already out).
The release of the 286 is closer to the invention of the integrated circuit than it is to 2010.
Wow. You should get a medal or something.
Another ‘big’ purchase at the time back in '75 was a used 1974 VW Sirocco. Long story very short, a buddy and I high-powed the engine. Headers, free flowing intake manifold, high compression pistons, duel carbs It was an absolute blast to drive.
A 120hp go cart is what we made.
One cheap fix - if there are stables or riding barns near you, ask if you can get some composted horse manure. It turned the awful soil that was in my garden when I moved here to wonderful soil. I got mine from the barn where my daughter rode. Technically free, though owning a horse is far from free.
The horse manure we added to our garden brought in a bunch of new weed species we didn’t have before. I mean, the garden was full of weeds before, and it’s full of weeds now, but still. You may want to age it or something before dumping it in your yard.
Me too!
A vacation to Madeira, Portugal with my father. His grandparents were all from there. My dad was supposed to go with his father as a kid but he chickened out (I think he was afraid of flying) so his brother went instead. None of them ever went back.
Fast forward six decades and I invite him and my cousin to go on an all expenses paid trip so he could finally see it. My cousin (and my Dad’s best living friend) still owns their mutual grandparents’ house. My cousin has renovated it over the years, and what do you know, it sleeps three couples comfortably. It’s in a beautiful little village not far from the city (nothing on Madeira is too far from Funchal). My cousin knows all the best little hidden gems. We have the trip of a lifetime. We drank wine made from grapes on the family homestead and lots of other great local wines too. My cousin knows one of the big winemakers on the island, so we got a special tour and tasting. We toasted the sunset over the water every night from the house’s veranda.
The trip was bittersweet, though, for a lot of reasons. By then, my dad’s grandparents were, of course all dead, as were both of his parents so my dad was reflecting on a missed opportunity.
We got to see the house his other grandparents owned and talk with the distant cousin who still owns it but it was a complete wreck. My dad was recovering from a stroke, and frankly, wasn’t really working at rehabilitation, but he put in a real effort on this trip to walk and do things. He got stronger and stronger as the days and weeks went by. Unfortunately, when he got back to the US, he went right back to his easy chair and hasn’t really tried to move or recover since. He was also diagnosed with a neuro-muscular disorder that would make further recovery even harder. Instead, he’s chosen to just waste away. That trip was the last time I ever saw him looking remotely healthy and although he’s still around, I’m pretty sure I will never see him that happy or healthy again.
Yeah, fresh out of the butt horse manure is going to be full of the seeds of whatever that horse ate. We compost ours first. Doesn’t kill everything because we’re lazy composters but since it’s in a 10’ x 10’ bin, the middle gets plenty hot.
Great story, and a good illustration of why it’s said that spending on experiences is often more enriching than spending on things.
Sorry to hear about your dad kind of giving up on rehab since the trip-- I’m in a similar situation with my dad. He’s actually relatively healthy for his age, but he’s had some leg circulation issues (not diabetes-related). He’s supposed to do rehab and walk for exercise, but left to himself he will never get out of his easy chair unless he has to, and as a result he can only walk short distances using a walker. He’s much more frail than he should be.
Very cool!
I dug it from the center of the pile, and no weed problem. That was 20 years ago. My major “weeds” these days are volunteer tomatoes and butternut squash.
And I did specifically say composted. I’m sure not putting fresh horse manure in a bag!
Why not? Our friend Nick comes over once or twice a year with his utility trailer which he loads up with fresh horse manure. He has a greenhouse filled with orchids.