who is on top now

WHO IS ON TOP NOW
in the cellphone market verizon is starting to dominate
and gradually take over
i read that that may start affecting some of their personal
service that they have been famous for

att and sprint have been slipping some in their customer base

here at the country n we are in a rural area where the line
of cell phone towers seem to stop

when you live in a rural area you have trade offs
you have to decide what things are important to you
like
having to drive 30 miles to go anywhere like the grocery store
poor cell service poor tv coverage no dsl or cable
no one wants to come this far like plumbers electricians etc
vs
having your neighbors 1/2 mile away where you never hear
them except on a very quiet still day
visitors really want to come see you before they make that drive
an abundance of wild life
etc

recently my two brothers were here at the country n
where in the last few months we have noticed a lot more
dropped calls on our cell phones
and since we use a verizon card for our computer service
we really notice the speed when the bars drop down to 1
we never ever have 5 bar service here

the closest we get is if we go upstairs on our porch where
we can momentarily get 4glte service on our card
the computer just zips across the internet when we are up
there
sometimes
i cant imagine what the new google internet connection would
be like in austin when its all hooked up

my historian brother has sprint service and my rainwater brother
has att service
so we did an experiment while they were here to see who had
the best service
none of us did

no its not good since i cant hear you now

the nearest tower is three miles away on the highway
as you drive to our house the terrain gradually drops
as you are getting near the river
you can watch as the service drops down from a 5 near
the tower down to a 2-3 in our driveway
then it drops down again as you drive down to our house

we live in a bowl so the signal gets lost as you progress down
the sides of the bowl

so we called verizon
there was nothing they could do but they would allow us to
get out of our contract without penalties
so they put that on our account
guess well save that one for a rainy day since
verizon actually has more cell service here at the country n
than att and sprint proven by our brother experiment

our neighbor who has att called att who said yes you are in a
bowl and dont get good service
no new towers are planned in this area
but they told her
you can get a booster that will pick up the signal outside your
home and send it inside the house
they have to go outside by the barn next to their boat to get
the best reception

knowing what i know now thats because they have a more
direct sight of the nearest att tower

then att  told them what to buy and then offered
to pay for the $200 cell phone booster

it was the same one that i had found by researching the internet
to find how to boost our signal
but no help from verizon on that one

so sometimes being in second place makes a company want to
try harder
sure hope this is not a trend for verizon

the organicgreen doctor

is this homesteading

IS THIS HOMESTEADING
well not really
its quasi homesteading

in our garden we grow just enough that we consume
most of it and only a little is left over to save
especially after we give some of it away

i planned it that way so we would not become overwhelmed
by the production
like what almost happened when all our tomatoes came in this year
we were eating tomatoes for breakfast lunch supper and snacks
and still had left overs
so we put most up in the freezer to be used later for cooking

the rest of our veggies we can usually eat up as we go
except of course the potatoes onions and garlic which we store
when we harvest them in the late spring

here eg is our garlic chimes
i wove all our garlic together and have them hanging in our
bbq area
when we need garlic we just cut it off these woven garlic chimes
these will last us well into this time next year
its hard to use a hundred garlics in a year but we try anyway

here is a picture of my lunch sandwich i have every day
thats fresh tomatoes fresh squash fresh onions and usually
we will add cucumber and malabar spinach to it
what a delicious meal this is
it will be sad when this hot weather shuts down the cuke
squash and tomato production

this is an eggplant dish from mollies primi platti cookbook

the last two weeks or so we have been pretty much eating
a vegetarian diet by eating only out of our garden
since we are producing cukes beans tomatoes squash
okra bell peppers poblano peppers jalapeno peppers egg plant
malabar spinach arugula swiss chard pursalane and soon to be peas

yes this is best time of the year for our diet here at the country n
and our pocket book
garlic $2-3 a head
onion $2-4 a piece
tomatoes $3-5 a piece
eggplant $3-4 a piece
squash $3 a piece
lots of small tomatoes okra beans
all organic of course
the garlic is worth close to $300
the onions are worth close to $900
so yes this is the favorite time of the year here at the country n

oh this is a mother in law melon
i call it that because my mother in law comes to visit every
summer so i plant her a couple of cantaloupe plants just
for her

reminder if you want fall tomatoes
the next 2 weeks is when you plant them
some nurseries have them
you plant them mulch them well and put shade cloth over them
this protects them from the hot summer sun
keep them watered well this summer
for a good fall crop
if we have a warm fall late winter you can have tomatoes late
into december

you can also if you have an indeterminate tomato take the vine
and cut it off and bury part of it in the garden bed still attached to
the original stalk
when new roots have started then cut the vine away from the original
stalk
then care for this with watering mulching and shade cloth

yes i love this quasi homesteading here at the country n

the organicgreen doctor

the two best are

THE TWO BEST ARE
this is about the two best male athletes in the world
of course one of them is lebron james

imagine what he would be like if he had chosen football
as his sport of choice
apparently he was an unstoppable wide receiver
what kind of quarterback would he have been if he
had chosen to put the emphasis on that sport and that
position
can you imagine tackling him
think ben roethlisberger in a rg3 body
wow sure would have loved to see him play
or
what if he played defensive end
he would be the nemesis of all the qbs in the nfl

however he chose basketball and im sure glad
after watching him in the nba playoffs against the spurs
rebound
pass
shooting
point guard
defense
he did it all and did it better than the other players
he shut down tony parker the spurs point guard
it was almost unfair watching him guard parker

he is michael jordan magic johnson larrybird all rolled into one

the best male athlete in the world
lebron james


the second one i had barely heard of until this sunday
as he was on tv doing his sport
on discovery channel

ive been to the grand canyon and i cant imagine doing what he did
with the heat and the wind and the height he was above the river

granted he sounded like someone having a religious experience at
a old time revival meeting as he walked across the canyon on that
cable
either that or he sounded like someone in a bedroom

actually he apparently is very religious and this was a way he
calmed himself down

i know what i would have done
i wouldnt even have thought of doing that walking across that wire
never ever

as i watched him walk the wire with his shirt and pants legs whipping
in the wind i realized
he is a precision fine tuned athlete on lebron jamess level
there is no one better at what he does in the world or maybe ever

i do hope that he does not ever do this again
just take the money and run
youve got your wife and your kids
stop now please while you are ahead

im sorry but i can not ever watch you do this again
i cant take it

i watched every step and as you were doing it i said ill finish this
one but i will never ever do it again


his name is nik wallenda
he ranks with lebron james as the best in the world
except unlike lebron he needs to retire now

the organicgreen doctor