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– “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau’s classic “Crusoe was cast away; Thoreau was self-cast away. Both found themselves sufficient. No prose writer has ever been more fortunate in subject than these two.”

Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. “Here is every kind of entertainment the short story can afford.”

“The Oxford Book of Verse” and “Modern American and British Poetry.”

James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Last of the Mohicans,” which “supplies us once and for all with our way of thinking of the American Indian.”

“The Prisoner of Zenda,” “surely one of the very best of our modern best-sellers.”

“The Jungle Book.” “I shall read it again as often as I can find a new child to listen to me.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Essays and Poems,” “the rapture of idealism either way you have it, in prose or in verse and in brief.”

How to Cure the Symptoms of a Summer Cold

When it comes to colds, treating things is a little complicated, because you generally need to treat each symptom separately. As your cold progresses from sore throat to runny nose and weepy eyes to cough to sneezing, you need to treat each of those symptoms.

But first, lets look at what you should be doing throughout your cold episode. The Mayo clinic has some suggestions about what actually works.

Stay hydrated with water, juice, warm lemon water with honey, clear broth.

You should sip warm liquids in general, according to the Mayo clinic. Chicken soup, warm apple juice and tea can all soothe you and ease congestion.

Don’t dehydrate yourself by drinking coffee, sodas (the ones with caffeine), and alcohol.

Rest so your body has the energy to deal with the infection.

Hydrate the air around you with a cool mist vaporizer or humidifier. This can be helpful for congestion — you might have noticed that when you take a shower or bath, or eat warm soup, or exercise, your congestion clears for a short time. NOTE: when using a machine like this, read the instructions provided by the manufacturer. The tools we use to improve our lives or do things for us can actually make them worse if we don’t sit down and take the time to learn how to use them properly. Machines are not always a quick fix — they’re tools that do jobs for us, and have their own cost to us. In this case, you need to clean the unit as instructed by the manufacturer; don’t blow dirty humid air into your environment. You need to clean the water in the unit daily as well. NOTE 2: The Mayo clinic does not recommend steam, because you risk burning yourself and it “hasn’t been shown to help.” However, the steam from a shower or sauna definitely clears my passages. I also have been able to get some relief from rewetting a facecloth with warm/hot water and putting it over my face and inhaling the steamy air.

NOW let’s look at some symptoms and how you can treat them. Over the course, you can expect (in order, generally) an unhealthy feeling, then fever, then headache, then blocked nose, then dry cough, then chest pain, then muscle pain, then fatigue/weakness, then exhaustion, then sneezing, then sore throat, then chest cough. The full course takes around 7-10 days, generally.

SORE THROAT: Gargle salt water. Dissolve 1/4 to 1/2 a teaspoon of salt into an 8-ounce glass of warm water. This can provide TEMPORARY relief. NOTE: kids under 6 aren’t likely to be able to gargle properly. Many adults also cannot gargle properly. It’s not weird.

You can also put other things in your mouth to ease a sore throat: lozenges (you can make these at home, which is fun and you will know every ingredient that goes into them–a recipe is at the bottom of the page). Hard candy can work. So can ice chips. CAUTION: kids under 4 might choke on hard objects in their throats. Ice melts relatively quickly in the body, but candies and lozenges don’t really melt quickly.

Irritated gums and teeth: Ice works for this, too, to a degree. Or a cool, icy smoothie filled with healthy nutrients, antioxidants, etc (for Smoothie recipes, see the bottom of the page). If any oral symptoms persist, you might also want to contact a Dentist in Woodbridge or a dentist closer to home for an expert opinion and some more oral relief strategies. Problems with your teeth and gums could indicate a wider overall health problem and a dentist could help to identify this.

STUFFY NOSE/THROAT: Saline nose drops/sprays can be purchased at the drug store without a prescription. Nasal sprays are fine for older children and adults, but little children can’t use them very well. For infants, saline drops can be put in their nose (several drops into a nostril). Then GENTLY suction the nostril with a bulb syringe by putting the tip of the syringe into the nostril (squeeze the syringe bulb BEFORE putting it in the nostril and hold it squeezed) about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch (6-12 mm) and slowly releasing the bulb, which will pull the saline out of the nose into the syringe.

SORE NOSE (from blowing it all the time): (These are not Mayo clinic suggestions) Obviously, dab your nose with SOFT (specially soft) tissue or cloth to reduce wear and tear on your sensitive facial organ. If your nose is dry and raw, you can apply cream moisturizer (a gentle face lotion or cream), vaseline, oil (like vitamin E oil). Use a pea-sized amount. Avoid steam, which clears your nasal passage but also dries out your skin, making it more easily irritated — the hotter the water, the more dry your skin will become.

PAIN: Infants under 6 months: ONLY acetaminophen. Older than that, you can use either acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Your doctor can tell you the correct dose (based on age and weight). Adults can also take Aspirin besides the other two pain-relievers.

COUGH: You can get medications over the counter, such as decongestants, antihistamines (they stop allergy symptoms). Over the counter medications have side effects, such as drowsiness and other things to be aware of. Look at the side effects for any drug you put in someone’s body. Also, many medications have multiple drugs in them, so they require a little study to understand. But since you will likely get at least 1 cold per year for your healthy lifetime, and so will those around you, it is worth learning a bit of knowledge about this.

YOU can use, but doctors haven’t decided whether it helps (IT WON’T HURT, though, if you want to try it):

Vitamin C, Echinacea

DON’T — USE:

Antibiotics: A cold is a virus — not bacteria!

Zinc: the current verdict on Zinc is not recommended

Young CHILDREN (under age 6) should NOT — USE:

Cough and Cold Medications — including Over the Counter — because these can lead to serious and even life-threatening side effects.

Sustainable Living? This Urban Homestead Produces 6,000lbs of Food Every Year!

Everyone loves the concept of being self-sufficient and being able to cultivate and grow one’s food. However, it is not that simple and easy to have a self-sustaining lifestyle, especially when there are instant and processed foods in every corner of the city. But an inspiring way of living that the Dervaes family is showing to people makes it interesting for others. At present, the family of four yields around 6,000lbs (approximately 2,720kg) of organic food a year on their 1/10 acre plot.

Their house is in Pasadena, California and it is a sweet dwelling for their three kids and all their cultivated vegetable and fruits plus their animals. Finding land for sustainable living can certainly be a challenge, but this family has managed just that. It even gets better.

They are able to save a big amount of money with their lifestyle and they get extra income from selling their crops to restaurants. That’s about $20,000 annually!

These 6,000 pounds of produced foods on only 1/10-acre of land every year, it’s undeniable that they are an incredible family!

The family is able to grow around four hundred types of fruits, berries, vegetables, and even herbs. This vegetarian family also takes good care of ducks, hens, small goats and little rabbits for eggs, dairy milk and compost.

This urban farmhouse does not just dwell merely on foods; they also do their best to conserve energy by making use of solar panels. Using solar panels is one way in which you can be energy savvy, and try to keep bills to a minimum. If purchasing solar panels is unattainable for you then you might like to try other ways to save money. These include trying out an energy comparison site to see if you could be better off elsewhere. The family does not have to worry about high energy consumption and they only spend around $12 for the whole year! And how about spending on gas? Deaves family brew theirs! They use biodiesel from used oil from restaurants. They use a processor that will turn used vegetable oil into biodiesel gas!

How all these things started?

In mid-1980’s, Jules Dervaes purchased a house and lot in Northwest Pasadena needed a lot of restoration. He was really desperate to live a simple country lifestyle that made him decide to start with growing their own vegatables. This did not make them satisfied so they thought to become more self-reliant and be able to create less impact to the environment.

Growing and Preserving Food

Hence, they grow their own food and also started to preserve food. Making their own bread, butter, cheese and yogurt also made them more self-sustaining.

Water Conservation

And for water conservation, they use low-flush toilets. If this is something you are not familiar with, it might be in your best interest to look at a site like https://toiletreviewer.com/best-dual-flush-toilets/. At least this way, you can understand how saving money through an everyday item like a toilet could make all the difference. You can also look into solar-powered shower, as they also reuse water. For conserve moisture for their plants, they make use of mulch and they use clay pot for plant irrigation. Imagine, this system made them conserve at least 50% of water!

Energy Conservation

The family uses energy-efficient appliances and for their lighting, they have olive oil lamps and home-produced beeswax candles. They also opted to have manual appliances such as toaster, blender, and a pedal-powered grinder. They are able to save big on their gas because they make use of brewed biodiesel. And if they can, they also use a bike or just commute.

Simple Living

With this modest country way of living, they are really mindful of whatever they consume, hence, they have learnt to reuse and recycle, spot for pre-loved items instead purchasing new ones and if possible they also use. Their cleansers, roll-ons, toothpastes and all other cleaning goods are all home-produced and made out of natural substances which makes them nontoxic. For their medicines, they make use of herbs, for their hair, they know how cut theirs and whatever DIY that they can do, they use it!

Aside from just living this life themselves, the family loves to teach people that urban homestead is sustainable. They are making a recording of their means and practices online for at least a decade now to show to people how they start this way of living. They have an updated blog, they also arrange events and even workshops for others to learn basic skills on how to have sustainable homestead.

It is really a fantastic and remarkable lifestyle. The Urban Homestead tells us that it is not just a fanciful model – it is actually a very manageable way of living even if you are in a very busy and highly modern city. You can start a few steps at a time.

10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Full Time RVing Across the Country

Almost all youngsters like those who are in their 20’s don’t have that much know-how about RVing.

Here are great information that you need to know before hitting the road!

1. You can settle with medium-sized Rig, big ones are not advisable.

Some people think of getting a big one like a truck camper and it seems to be an economical scheme. But it would be difficult to go around the city with a big vehicle.

2. Keep only necessary stuff with you.

It’s really stressful to store a lot of stuff that isn’t really necessary. It’s annoying to see a lot of clutter inside your cabinets, and some might be hanging on the floor as you have filled all cupboards and cabinets with various stuff that isn’t really necessary. Pack only what’s useful and enjoy a simple, clutter-free space.

3. Learning how to clean your RV will create a good setting for you.

Unwept flooring boards, dishes with piled sink, stinky bathroom tiles will make you stressed the whole day. Being able to organize your time and learning on how to make it orderly and clean is a must. It’s after all your little space and cleaning the whole area makes a great difference.

4. Don’t always rely on what Google Maps tells you. If it says it is just three hours and forty-five minutes away, then must be five hours.

Bear in mind that driving a n RV is really cannot be compared with driving a car. You can’t veer off through traffic and it will take time to get from one point to another point.

5. It’s a fact that there will be time that you need to have it repaired as one part of it can be broken.

No one can claim that an RV is perfect. Light bulbs have to be replaced and the sockets have to be inspected by an electrician. The kitchen sink might be leaking or the countertop tiles need to be replaced or all other things that may break as materials wear out.

6. Make time your best friend.

Time becomes your friend when you make time for everything. This is for RVing and it also applies to our life. Exploring things are you hit the road is an awesome adventure that you must not miss. Enjoy scenic lunch breaks and have a time of your life.

7. If there are RV reward points and discount programs, grab it!

Be aware of reward points and discount programs that companies offer. It will pay off and you’ll be glad that you are getting sliced prices even if it’s just 10-15%.

8. Stay alert with Walmarts policy.

You’ll be disappointed if you will be greeted with a policy that says ‘NO overnight staying please’.  Those who RVed before would advise you to just make Wal-Mart your parking lot and you’ll be able to stay overnight!

But to be safe and sure, seek the manager’s consent if night camping is allowed.

9. If you love Mexican Food, take not that aren’t around in many places.

Pack a lot of salsa and nachos for your enjoyable snacks. You might be disappointed while hitting the road and you’re so hungry but there are no Mexican Foods around the town.

10. It must be true that the people who are in RV Park are the people you can really rely on.

You can seek help on how to replace the hose from them and every time you need them, call for their help.

The ten great points must be some of things you should know before starting a full time RVing.

Is The Thermacell Mosquito Repellent Lantern A Must-Have For Campers?

It’s really annoying to keep on patting mosquitoes when you want to enjoy your camping dinner with friends. Great thanks to this repellent lantern — it’s time to bid goodbye to ineffective insecticides. Gone are days when you had to shell out a big amount in order to purchase bug sprays.

This powerful, effective lantern is a strong mosquito repellent. It is great for campers like you, especially if mosquitoes are repeatedly drawn in attacking you and disturbing your relaxing period.

Actually having an enjoyable camping beside a tranquil lake is almost everyone’s summer dream and perhaps it’s the same with many RVers.

Unhappily, annoying mosquitoes share the same fantasy. These insects would lay their eggs on standing water and even on moist soil to complete their life cycle. The fantasy of a lethargic dusk cocktail time with other RVers typically fails once mosquitoes start to smell human blood and make themselves comfortable to the get-together.

RVers usually dislike the idea of making use of chemical insect repellents or any other ‘natural’ bug spray but sometimes there is no other choice.

But with Thermacell Mosquito Repellent Lantern, campers and RVers can take benefit with an area of defense against leechlike pests!

This effective repellent lantern utilizes ‘allethrin’, a natural substance that will make annoying mosquitoes and flies run away. This natural substance ‘allethrin’ can be found in chrysanthemum flowers. These repellent lanterns make use of its artificial form to fight off bugs.

Every lantern has a small, replaceable repellent pad that’s drenched with allethrin. Once the lantern is switched on, it will start to bring heat to the repellent pad with its small, integrated butane holder. Within fifteen minutes, a 225 square foot defense zone protects the people surrounding it. Keeping close to the repellent lantern will make users more protected.

The company is pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of Defense tried the repellent lantern on groups after they have discovered that it was able to provide between eighty-seven percent and ninety-eight percent shield from piercing bugs in Korea, Costa Rica, and Turkey.

This effective Thermacell Mosquito Repellent Lantern releases three hundred lumens of LED light with the use of 4 D-cell batteries. Luckily, the batteries can last for about fifty hours of non-stop usage while each repellent pad can last for around 3 up to 4 hours and the butane holders can last up to nine to twelve hours.

1937 Hunt House Car With First Working RV Shower

Whenever you have to travel to work, you experience the tiredness that comes along with long periods of traveling to your office. Not having your own car is really difficult. A much-admired Hollywood cinematographer J. Roy Hunt also encountered the same problem. His career required him to be out of town for some weeks every now and then. Because of this experience, after several years, he made a decision to bring his home as he is travelling. He looked for many “Hunt Cars”. The first one that was built was in 1935 while the last one is in 1945. Possibly one of the most infamous is the 1937 Hunt House Car.

The 1937 Hunt house car utilized a 1937 Ford wagon framework. J. Roy Hunt was able to make use of an airplane production to create the modernized structure. He was able to take help from an auto-body center to make its construction. Hunt was successful in building around fifty 50 of these house cars for the next ten years, making it one of the fewest fabrication motorhomes that ever existed and thought by many people to be the first one that has a functioning shower. It even contained a vanishing urinal that folds towards the barrier to enable the shower to have an extra space (take a look at the video).

You can see the video below so that you can see more about the 1937 Hunt House Cars history, design, refurbishment. The video will only take nine minutes.

At present, the 1937 Hunt House Care is stored at the RV/MH Museum and Hall of Fame in Indiana. If ever you have the chance to see it in the museum, you will be glad to see a lot of other exceptional models of RV’s and even motorhomes. Definitely, it is worth visiting if ever you are just nearby.

Warning: WWI enemy-killing gas now being used on Strawberries

California harvests about 90% of the country’s strawberries and almost all of the crops produced are full of harmful chemicals.

Strawberry cultivators have been using chloropicrin, since it is advantageous for yield crops, however its application has increased in recent years as a substitute to methyl bromide. In the year 2008, the US EPA re-permitted chloropicrin as harmless in farming settings, declaring that treatments can bring benefits to both cultivators and consumers. But then it’s about time to be aware that chloropicrin, a chemical that several farmers inject into the soil for growing certain crops like strawberries, raspberries, almonds and some other harvests, has been associated to countless severe health diseases like cancer, respiratory impairment, nervous system damage, endocrine trouble, and many other ailments. It can even cause lachrymation, nausea, bronchitis, congestive heart failure, pulmonary edema; the lung damage can be deadly.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) categorizes chloropicrin, which has been applied as a soil fumigant since 1920, as a Class I poison. Chloropicrin is actually an irritant that resembles a tear gas that was produced as a chemical war agent for the period of World War I, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In World War I, armed forces used it as an agent of chemical feud; it would pierce gas masks and make fighters vomit, compelling them to take out their masks, this will make them more exposed to other more detrimental gases.

The pesticide is a powerful fumigant that kills insects, weeds and microbes. There is also study that shows that it brought cancer in rats and mice.

The EPA’s website states that the rats which received internal injections, medical tumours and respiratory metastases were confirmed to have cancer.  An increased frequency of lung tumors was recounted in mice exposed to top levels of methyl iodide by intraperitoneal dose.

Soil Science professional Margaret Reeves, PhD, a senior scientist with Pesticide Action Network, states that terms like methyl bromide, chloropicrin, and Telone , powerful fumigants, are all associated to cancer, hormone disorder, and developmental harms in children. Dr. Reeves also said that they have been waiting for so long for a response from California and federal officials to provide a clear roadmap to get rid of the application and use of these toxic chemicals in all agricultural production by the year 2020.

A Breakfast Cooked While You Sleep

Who would want to start the day off with a chore? It’s much more fun to munch something to fill in the stomach without much effort. It’s a breakfast cooked while you sleep! Thanks, it’s possible now!

Just look for a good jar. And then prepare the following base with these easy-to-grab ingredients:

1/3 cup of oats

1 tbsp of chia seeds

a quarter cup of milk

a quarter cup of yogurt

The toppings for each jar depend on your choice. You can have different toppings designated for each day to make it an interesting breakfast.

Here are simple combinations that will satiate your early hunger.

1. For a carrot surprise, just add two tablespoons of agave or nectar, three tablespoons of cinnamon or nutmeg, three tablespoons of grated carrot and top it with a half cup of ground walnuts.
2. For blueberry delight, add two tablespoons of blueberry jam with a tablespoon of vanilla essence, and to make it more delightful, you can top it with a few freshly picked berries.
3. For chocolate fantasy, combine the following – two tablespoons of agave or honey, a tablespoon of cocoa powder, a cup of chopped fresh strawberries and thinly grated dark chocolate as sprinklers.
4. For potassium-rich breakfast, have some bananas and chopped nuts. This will surely make your day! Just combine the following – two tablespoons of maple syrup, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, some sliced bananas and top with some chopped walnuts.
5. For nourishing and refreshing piña colada, a simple and an energizing morning starter, you just need a tablespoon of chopped bananas, two tablespoons of sliced walnuts, a cup of fresh pineapple and a tablespoon of coconut flour.

For all these healthy and delicious combinations, store your jar in the fridge overnight and you’ll be delighted each morning with their luscious taste.

What an easy way to start the day!