The Land I Love

When I turned 16, I started to drive and thought I was so cool. Instead of impressing girls, and buddies, I drove up and down roads all over Santa Rosa and Escambia counties, in northwest Florida, where I lived most of my life. I was fascinated with nature, the land, and wanted to see where the roads led to.

Around Milton, Florida, there is so much nature: state and national parks, and rural land. My love of the land originated from my dad, who took us camping in the mountains of southern California, where I lived the first 9 or 10 years of my life. It was there also, that I got into scouting, and more camping.

Then, we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico for two years before coming to northwest Florida. I hiKed and camped in the beautiful Sange de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, and the Sandia Mountains. I felt so happy on the land. The boy scouts was my passion.

When I discovered the bicycle, I rode everywhere including the many trails in the woods behind our home at 11 Shady Lane, Milton, Florida. I explored with my buddy Mark, Shane, Toby and others. I learned a lot about squirrels and other elements of nature.

When old enough to drive, I found another way to explore the land. Found it in Milton, Pensacola and elsewhere in Santa Rosa and Escambia Counties.

Twitter tip of the day

Real estate professionals can use Twiiter to micro-blog listings, homes for sales, market date for a community, and to promote their services, brand and company. Agents can also share homebuying and homeselling suggestions and information. Since the Internet is a garden of knowledge, real estate agents, mortgage professionals, home inspectors, title agents, home builders can use micro-blogging as a tool to distribute useful data and knowledge.

Micro-blogging demands short messages, so you are not losing readers by long accounts of how to do this or that. Micro-blogging delives your piece of knowledge block to a wide audience, which is what is wanted by business people.

Within a short amount of characteres allowed or accepted in micro-blogging, a property’s basic listing summary can be posted. Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging platform. It is simple and users enjoy that.

http://Twitter.com/KenFach

Termites hiding in your home

Here in Tallahassee, Florida, we have optimum conditions for wood destoying organisms, including termites. We have ideal moisture conditions which termites need.

Our subterranean termites are the largest termite type. They get their moisture from the soil and work their way up into the wood structure or wood objects in the home or around the home. They use flattened mud tunnels with a stable humidity content to reach into the home”s wood structure, which most homes have. I have yet to see a home not having a wood frame in this part of the country.

Our drywood termites get their moisture from the wood itself. Wood absorbs moisture from the air since the air has moisture. These termites do not come from the soil. They make tunnels in the wood above the ground, going with the grain of the wood, and leaving pellets, which the subterranean termites do not leave. You take a flashlight and put the pellets on the glass of the light and the pellets will appear red, indicating that the termites are the drywood type.

I recently wnt into someone’s attic and poked around with someone who is a termite expert. He tapped on wood studs with a screwdriver, found soft, hollow spots all over with trails filled with termite pellots. The attic and home was infested with termites. We did not see living termites, but had all the evidence we needed that termites are feasting on the wood. Parts of wood boards were eaten away. There may have been 15 termite colonies in that home. What a shame. The colony has its workers that have to go out looking for other wood in the structure. A colony of termites may have multiple pairs of kings and queens. Each king and queen pair leave the colony to make a new termite colony somewhere, either in the same building or elsewhere.

Besides finding pellets that appear red on the light of the fashlight, another way to identify if there are termites is by finding wings at an open light source. Only the kings and queens have wings, while the soldier and worker termites, the most numerous demographic do not. Look along window frames, and door entrances foe those termite wings. Another way to locate evidence of termite activity is by beating the baseboards along the interior walls with the head of a screwdriver. The hollow sound may be an indication of wood eaten out by termites. You then take the screwdriver and see if you can open up the hollow wood, or soft wood. You may see thousandas of tiny termite pellets falling out.

In the attic and on the walls, you need to look for darken spots or moisture spots. That is a good sign as well after further exloration.

These are ways of finding termites or evidence of termites. ThIs termite friend and expert took the time to educate me about termites, and how to find clues of their presence. So now, I feel like a termite detective. Here in humid Tallahassee, it is not a bad skill to have, finding termites. I have seen homes lost or badly damaged to termite activity in Tallahassee. This is where the expertise of pest control companies come in to play. I am willing to spend some money to have my home protected.

Growing up hiking

I am attracted to all the hiking opportunities that are available inside and near Tallahassee, Florida. There are trees and trails for everyone who likes being outdoors. The forests in our community make up for the lack of sea and mountain, although the sea is only about 45 minutes from Tallahassee, if driving.

My love of hiking started with my dad. When I was a child under 10 years of age, living in southern California, dad took me camping and hiking in Yosemite, Sequoia, Big Bear and other parks. I remember the rocky streams we crossed, and the narrow trails we hiked on through challenging terrain. I remember the rattlesnake we met on the trail and the deer.

Then, when living in Albuquerque, New Mexico for two years starting at 11 years of age, I experienced more hiking. Grandpa owned a mountain canyon, which he partly subdivided into home lots. One afternoon, grandpa offered to take me for an early morning hike the next morning through the back of the canyon and over a couple ridges.

The next morning I woke up, went to Grandpa, and without saying anything to him, he stated that he knew why I was there that early in the morning. He knew I was ready to hike up Echo Canyon with him. That is what we did. Grandpa always hiked and made an extensive list of all the flora and fauna he observed in his canyon. I am so grateful to have seen that list and the artifacts he collected.

I will always be grateful for my humble hiking beginnings.

Won’t you like to go on a hike with me?

The world in the crawl space

Many of us will never crawl underneath our home if there is crawl space there. Why not? Because it is scary, dirty, and just not what the typical homeowner desires to do. However, we really do not know the home without seeing it from beneath. There is a world of insects, spiders, and perhaps other critters living and moving down there, under our feet.

Now, I never lived in a home with crawl space, or maybe I did when growing up. I just don’t remember or perhaps, never observed. We see the home from particular angles of satisfaction. It never dawned on me to get underneath a home until recently.

Someone convinced me to crawl into the unknown darkness of a home’s crawl space to experience this view of a part of the property. I have always liked an adventure. I had my fear: fear of encountering a snake, ugly spiders, a rodent, a sharp object. This is Florida. I know we have snakes. However, I did it. I crawled and crawled, got very dirty, and had my flashlight. I had to move fallen insulation out of the way, and piles of board. I am alive to tell the tell. Not the particular kind of adventure I have had in the past: hiking across foreign lands, encountering military outposts, being subjected to interrogation when living in a South American country, and the canoe trips.

Underneath some of our homes, we can go on an adventure too.

A week of gratitude

This has been a week of gratitude. Dad always taught me to give gratitude every day for all the good that is around. Good is everywhere, I always believe this. Good is the victor, and dominates good’s opposite, the wrongs, the evils, the injustices, the harm, the “terror that flieth by day.” Yes, I can relate to the Creator’s all-powerful goodness. I am indeed grateful, and carry with me an attitude of gratitude. 

I have taught my young son, early on, to always wake up giving gratitude for things as simple as the color green, the trees, the flowers, the air we breath, the books available for our learning, the many advantages of technology, having a computer, having a comfortable home, plenty to eat, friends, opportunities to participate in new activities, and the list goes on. 

Throughout my life, I have found that people with good attitudes of overflowing gratitude are happy people, positive people, stable people. These are the kind of people that help to reinforce my harmony as well. Good attracts good. What goes around comes around, as the saying goes. A good attitude is reflected in so many good ways, and experiences we have. 

I can say that I am grateful for the following: 

Having always lived close to nature, with a green zone, with trees, and hiking trails, behind my home.
Having lived in other countries, and experiencing the foods, perspectives, friendships in those places.
Having become fluent in another language. In my case, Spanish.
Having worked in a variety of different occupations: computers, real estate, education, translation, social services, military, mortgages.
Having had healings from life threatening situations.
Having had adequate transportation, and never being without.
Having had loving, kind parents, who went way, way out of the way for me.
Having grown successful organic gardens.
Having had all the tomatos and peppers my family wanted, from my organic garden.
Having an appreciations for natural settings, forests, trees, photosynthesis, nature, seas, rivers.
Having met a woman, who is absolutely wonderful, talented, and always inpiring.
Having had class instruction in bible studies and metaphysics.
Having completed my master’s degree, after waiting many years.  
Having hiked across a part of Paraguay, South America.
Having hiked in many mountain area of New Mexico and Colorado.

Having been in boy scouts as a youth.
Having grown up in ranch style homes, which symbolize American architecture.

The list can go on and on, and my gratitude ranges from very minute to very complex. Gratitude is gratitude, and it does not matter how small, how silly appearing, how unimportant something may seem. Gratitude is always a thank you to the Creator for His work done, and done successfully.

From the end of Genesis 1 in the King James version of the Bible it reads, “And he saw everything that he had made, and behold it was good.”

It is all good. Live each day in His goodness. It is where evil seems to be. Good is divine Love’s presence.

I reach out today, looking for more opportunties to give gratitude!!! Will you join me? The Creator will hear each thought of gratitude, and then the blessing flow.

The spirit of twittering

On my Blackberry Curve, which I am very grateful to own, I often post on Twitter and other micro-blogging sites. I keep a record, almost, of my life’s activities on Twitter, leaving out what is so useless and ridiculous., but maybe including some of that as well.  I post what I feel would be helpful for many others. I post information from my experience and knowledge base. This includes information about mortgages, organic gardening, camping, nature, search engion optimization, interesting websites I have found, marketing tips online, micro-blogging ideas, blogging through WordPress, real estate experiences, interior decorating ideas, smartphones, and personal recollections. I can do it all in Twitter, up to 140 characters per tweet (Twitter post). I can also follow other people who twitter, and be followed. I can add and update my profile in Twitter.I can do it all, everything I need to do on my Blackberry Curve.

Thanks to Twitter, micro-blogging has become my lifestyle.

Join me on Twitter. My screenname is, KenFach.

Kenneth in Twitterverse.

Twitter Tip of the Day

Tweet your favorite websites or blogs. Links are attractive in a micro-blogging platform and if done right, can be a good way for people to know about what else is online. So many twitter posts, what is called tweets, have links to products, services, businesses, social networking sites, and personal blogs. Now you can jump right in and post your sites, or sites you think others should visit. I do this often. It is away to do something else with Twitter, and to be useful as well. I can promote a business establishment, say what is good or what appears to be bad with the business. I know I will have the eyes of many viewers.

Join me on Twitter. I am at http://twitter.com/growingupranch.

Tallahassee is high tech and tweets

I go on Twitter daily, and like to read what others here in Tallahassee are tweeting about. So many interesting tweets on all different topics. Twitter is a valuable networking resource, idea market, center of wisdom, a product information source, and so much more. Not everyone in Tallahassee is on Twitter, so I am missing the viewpoint on things from the rest of this community. More people in Tallahassee need to get on Twitter and tweet, share their tweets, and join in on this information highway of micro-blogging. It is fun, and a good sharing experience. I have met very informed people on a number of topics, and gained much knowledge as a result of the pool of tweets on Twitter.

Tallahassee is a good place to live. So many people are connected on line through the various social and business networking sites in cyberspace, and so many are tech savvy, and educated. We have top schools, including Florida State University. We have the renowned Magnate Laboratory, probably the top in the nation. We also have a new technology/research center in the Tallahassee area. How many times have I come across a Florida State University’s research online. Yes, research lives in the air of this community.

People with knowledge are attracted to others for sharing this knowledge and getting feedback, or as they say in the blogging universe, “comments.” On Twitter, you can read opinions, conclusions, links to, and ideas on research projects going on all over. People click the follow button to subscribe to each other’s micro-blogs on Twitter. I have hundreds of followers and I follow hundreds. It is a give and take, share, and share, follow and be followed system.

If you are not on Twitter, and tweeting, it is not too late to sign up for an account, create your profile so others can see who you are, and start following and posting. I hope to read your Tweets as I do my other Tallahassee twittterers.

You can find me on Twitter by going to http://Twitter.com/KenFach .

Twitter tip of the day

Twitter, and micro-blogging in general, is turning people into good, proficient writers. Since we are allowed up to 140 characters in our Twitter post, we have to get our message across using a minimal amount of words, yet say it in an attractive, convincing, and using good syntax.

Feel free to abbreviate when micro-blogging. People do this on Twitter, expect this, and accept this. Why? Because of the limited amount of writing space. 140 characters is not much, a sentence or two. I am surprised how much I can say in that brief amount of space. It has made me a better writer, and makes me work, and rework my posts getting as much into each post as I can, yet, expressing it attractively. Yes, our writing improves when there are space limitations, and we want to say what we want to say. We still can, but we have to get it across with fewer words. We filter out what is not necessary, and use language that will empower our ideas, our requests, our answers, our messages.

Now, one way you can learn what abbreviations are most common, useful, and easy to remember, is by taking time each day, and reading others’ posts, noting what abbreviations are used in them.

As readers of micro-blogging posts, we also become better readers, critical readers, and notice syntac and semantics in a way we did not before. I studied how to be a critical reader in my language and literature studies at Florida State University. I am trained how to interpret the context, message and symbols, which fill messages. We all become critical readers on the internet. We even have the option of commenting on others’ writings online. With Twitter, you can click reply beside someone’s post and then write you remarks, ideas, or suggestions. This is similar to the comment ability that readers of blogs have, if the blog creator allows for open commentary. I know I do.

Good day, and good evening blogging on Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, Jaiku, or any other micro-blogging platform.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KenFach.