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As my readers know, I moved into a new house last winter, and this past spring began the process of Planting a New Lawn. I have tried to document my progress on this blog (see previous posts), so I thought I should continue by posting a fall update.

During the spring, I had a decent amount of seed wash away from heavy rains, which also created some lovely ruts in the yard. The summer saw a bumper crop of foxtail and other weeds sprouting up. I pretty much gave up on the yard work in July and decided to wait until fall to work on it more.

My goal this fall was to get more grass out there so that when the annual weeds started to die off the grass could take over. If you read recommendations on overseeding a yard, you will generally see that the "experts" recommend killing all vegetation and starting from scratch if you have more than 50% weeds in your yard. I wasn't exactly sure of my grass-to-weed ratio, but there were a LOT of weeds. The recommendation to start from scratch has some merit, especially if you are doing a small area, but everyone I talked to thought it was crazy to kill what I already had. Based on this, and my personal sentiment of not wanting to purposely destroy my hard work from the spring, I decided that I would try to renovate rather than restart.

The best time for fall renovation for cool season grasses is the last two weeks in August through the first two weeks in September. I started a little later than I would have liked, but still had my seed down by Sept 17th. Here's the process I used:


1. Purchase a Tractor
The first thing I did was to purchase a lawn tractor. I had been planning to do this, but just hadn't gotten to it. Mowing the 1 acre yard with a push mower was getting tiresome, and I knew the tractor would be handy during renovation. I ended up with a 23 HP Husqvarna with 48" Mower Deck:


2. Fill Ruts
The next step in my plan was to get some dirt and fill the ruts that were created this past spring. I found a place with reasonable prices and had a dump truck load of top soil delivered to my house. This stuff was much blacker dirt compared to the clay my yard is made up of.

I also purchased an Agri-Fab 8 cu ft Poly Dump Cart to help me haul the dirt around to my various ruts:


This part of the process was not difficult, just labor intensive. Fill the cart, unload the cart, smooth, and repeat. Unfortunately, a few days of rain interrupted my plans, and in order for me to get my seed down by mid-September, I had to cut my rut-filling short. So I have some left over dirt and some left over ruts for next spring.

3. Cut The Grass Short
I was able to use my new tractor to cut the current grass pretty short. Some places I even hit dirt which didn't make me feel too good about using the new tractor.

4. Core Aerate
In order for grass seed to grow, they have to be in contact with dirt. If you were overseeding a small area, you might just be able to rake the top of the soil to loosen it up. With a large area of clay, that wasn't happening. Instead, I decided to core aerate. This is the process of pulling plugs of dirt up out of your yard. It's supposedly one of the best things you can do for your grass as it relieves compressed soil (especially clay) and allows air, nutrients, and water to reach the roots. For overseeding, it helps because it creates holes of exposed dirt and deposits dirt cores on top thus creating pretty good soil contact for the seeds.

To do this large area, I purchased a Brinly 40" Pull Behind Core Aerator:


I also purchased 4 cinder blocks to place in the weight tray. I attempted aerating 2 days after a decent rain shower and the thing worked flawlessly. It pulled 2-3" plugs out of the dirt. The only problem was that some of the plugs were slightly muddy and stuck to the tractor wheels on subsequent passes. I tried to make about 3-4 passes in different directions, but in some areas, it was only possible to go one direction and the additional passes seemed to just be hitting the already existing holes.

5. Seed and Fertilize
I purchased another 100lb of Kentucky Bluegrass and 50lb of Perennial Ryegrass. This is higher than the suggested overseeding rate, but I wanted to lay it on kind of thick. I also purchased four 32lb bags of starter fertilizer and three 32lb bags of standard fertilizer (high N content). I used my broadcast spreader to spread all these materials over the lawn in several passes. I ended up only using 6 bags of fertilizer, and saved some seed to fill in bare areas later on.

6. Work the Seed In
To get even better seed-to-soil contact, I used a piece of chain link fence. I got a piece about 4' x 6' for free from someone throwing some away. I hooked it up behind the tractor with a couple chains, put my cinder blocks on top of it to weight it down, and pulled it over the yard several times. It had been a day since I had done my aerating so the cores I had pulled out were all dried by then. The chain link was pretty effective in pulverizing the cores. This helped cover the seed with a layer of loose dirt. The dragging also helped knock some of the seed down into the aerator holes where they seed got excellent soil contact.

7. Water
So far, I have found watering to be the worst part of yard work. For one, I feel like a heel for using all the water. Secondly, it is darn near impossible to cover an acre of ground. I did my best to get most areas of my yard wet at least once a day. Other than that, I had to hope for some light rains.

The Results
After about 10 days I was seeing sprouts, especially in the aerator holes. What's more, the sprouts were KBG sprouts not rye (based on the seed hull still attached). Also during this time, the water and fertilizer helped the existing grass start to grow and fill in. After a couple weeks, the existing grass had grown enough that I had to mow again. I tried not to damage any seedlings and think I did a pretty good job. The cool weather put the annual weeds into retreat so they didn't look nearly as bad. However, I did have clover start to pop up throughout the yard. At any rate, I think things started looking pretty good. Here are the pics from 10/05/2008, about 3 weeks after my overseeding.

Front yard:


Back yard:


Front yard closeup (this is one of the best spots in the yard):



So I'm pretty much done with my yard work for this year. Next spring, I'll be focusing on weed killing. I'll be putting down a pre-emergent to help prevent the annual weeds, and might spray for any broadleafs and clover that come up in the spring. Because of the pre-emergent, I won't be doing any overseeding in the spring. I will however, aerate and fertilize to keep the ground from compacting and help the existing grass spread. I'll make sure to post an update next spring.

Comments welcome!

I was recently in Las Vegas for a business trip, and in the evenings, my wife and I would spend time on the strip seeing the sights of Las Vegas. However, on Thursday, 10/16/2008, an incident occurred that I would like to bring up.

Just outside of the MGM Grand hotel, in front of the MGM lion statue, a couple asked if I would take their picture for them. The man started to show me how to use his camera when I noticed it was the exact same model that I had. I took their picture facing the New York New York hotel, with the Statue of Liberty in the background. I returned the camera and left.

Later at dinner, I noticed that my camera had the lens cap on. I thought I had put the lens cap in my pocket so I reached in there to see and I found another lens cap. Apparently, when I used the other guy's camera, I accidentally stole his lens cap! I must have mistakenly put it back on my camera.

I know it's a pretty cheap little piece of plastic, but I felt pretty bad about it. This couple, who seemed really nice, asks me to take their picture and I end up stealing their lens cap. Of course, we didn't see them the rest of our trip since there are literally thousands of people milling around there.

Anyway, I had no way to get it back to them, so I still have it. I thought I'd mention it here. It's kind of funny if you think about it, although I still feel bad about accidentally stealing it.

If you happen to know someone that was recently in Las Vegas and had their lens cap stolen, please forward them a link to this post. This also seems unlikely, but you never know.

I was recently lucky enough to be the target of a hopeful phone scammer (twice). Luckily, I have a brain and did not fall for his ridiculous scam. However, I thought I would mention it here so that people would be on the lookout.

The basis of this scam is that the scammer claims to be an employee working for the federal government, and that they would like to give you $5,000 because you have paid your taxes on time. Of course they need to verify your personal information for you to get the money. Now my phone calls didn't make it much farther than this because it was an obvious scam, but a few internet searches show that if you allow them to continue, they will eventually ask you for your bank routing number and bank account number so that they can have the funds deposited to your account.

Anytime someone asks for your personal information (especially account numbers, social security numbers, etc), it should immediately set off a red flag that this person is trying to scam you. Aside from the obvious clue that they wanted my personal information, they didn't even try to make the scam believable. For one, the scammer was rude on the phone, and obviously did not have a good handle on the English language. The scammer's heavy accent made some of his words hard to understand. Another obvious problem was that the scammer actually calls for someone else who used to have my phone number, and when told they have the wrong number, they offer the money to me.

For your amusement, I now include the paraphrased text (didn't record the actual conversation) from my calls. Here's the first call that came in early September.

Scammer: Is Jeff ****** available?

Me: You have the wrong number.

Scammer: Who is this?

Me: Excuse me? Who are you?

Scammer: My name is (couldn't understand) from (couldn't understand) and we've been trying to reach you at this number for a few months. First we need to update your contact information in our system. What is your name?

Me: I'm not going to give you my contact information.

Scammer: Sir, I am calling you to let you know that we'd like to give you $5,000 for (couldn't understand). We just need to first update your contact information.

Me: I'm not interested.

Scammer: You're not interested in $5,000?!

Me: I'm not interested in your scam. (I hang up)



About 3 weeks later, we get a repeat call. This time slightly different:

Scammer: Is Jeff ****** available?

Me: Jeff ****** does not have this number anymore. We have this number now.

Scammer: My name is (couldn't understand) from the federal government and I am calling you to let you know that we'd like to give you $5,000 because you paid your taxes on time. We just need to first update your contact information.

Me: If you work for the government, you should already have my contact information.

Scammer: We just need to verify that it is correct so we can get you your money.

Me: Is there a valid phone number that I can call you back at to verify that this is legitimate?

Scammer: We just need to validate your information to get you your $5,000.

Me: If the government really wanted to give me $5,000 they already have the appropriate contact information (I hang up).


I almost hope the guy tries again. I think I'll next pretend that I work for the IRS. I'd like to see how he explains his $5,000 for paying your taxes on time to an IRS employee.

Anyway, just watch out for this and any other scam.

KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE

ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT A LEGITIMATE COMPANY WILL NOT ASK YOU FOR PRIVATE OR PERSONAL DATA OVER THE PHONE OR EMAIL. NEVER GIVE OUT ACCOUNT NUMBERS OR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS. IF A DEAL SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT IS - PEOPLE DON'T JUST GIVE THINGS AWAY TO RANDOM PEOPLE.

If you're at all like me, then you like the convenience of having a cell phone, but you don’t use it enough to make a standard cell phone plan a cost-worthy option. Most cell phone plans are going to run you at least $30 per month ($360 per year), and when you use your phone only a few times per month, it's just not worth it.

Luckily, because of people like us, there is a whole market for pre-paid cell phones. These generally give you the convenience of not having a monthly plan while still keeping your costs relatively low. Unfortunately, when you start to look for a pre-paid cell phone, you will find that there are a multitude of options available, and if you're not careful it's easy to get overwhelmed.

Some of the big players in the pre-paid industry are Tracfone, Net10, Go Phone, and Boost Mobile, but nearly all of the major monthly plan companies (Alltel, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc) have added pre-paid plans to their product list. The difficulty is in choosing the plan.

For me, it all boils down to recurring costs. The purchase of the phone itself is a one time cost for me because I won't be constantly upgrading it to something "cooler". I just need my phone to be a phone. I don't want it to take pictures, play music, play games, access the web, etc. I already have gadgets that fit all those categories. Now, if you want the other features, knock yourself out. This will be something to look at when choosing a plan because some providers (like Tracfone) come with very simple phones, whereas others offer a wider variety of “cool” phones.

Assuming the cost of the phone is a one time expense, we can then compare the different plans that are out there based on service costs. As I see it, there are basically two different times of pre-paid plans out there:

1. You buy a certain number of minutes that have a certain expiration date on them.
2. You put a certain amount of money into an account which is used to pay for your minutes and service as you use them. This money usually has an expiration date as well.

Tracfone's plans are type one. You buy a card that comes with a certain number of minutes that lasts a certain number of days. At the end of the minutes or days (whichever is first), you must purchase and activate a new card to keep using the phone.

Type two plans, like Verizon's InPulse plan, will allow you to add money to an account which will expire in a set number of days. To my knowledge, if the money expires, it's just gone. The money in the account is automatically debited as you make calls. Most of these plans charge a set rate per minute. Sometimes different rates will apply for roaming, nights, and weekends. Some plans also charge a daily fee, while some plans charge a use fee just on the days the phone is used.

To help me decide which plan to go with, I created a spreadsheet that I could use to help find the lowest cost plan to fit my needs. The spreadsheet files are attached at the end of this post for your convenience. Simply fill in the yellow boxes on the Enter Data Here tab. This data is about your expected use for this phone. Based on that data, the spreadsheet will show you the lowest cost option from the plans I have added to the file. Switch to the Plan Comparisons sheet to see the analysis.

The lowest cost option for me ended up being Tracfone. As you will see in the spreadsheet, Tracfone has an option called the Double Minutes For Life (DMFL) card. If you get one of these and activate it, every minute card you activate after that will give you double minutes. It’s hard to beat the per-minute cost of a Tracfone with DMFL as you’ll see in the file.

You can normally purchase the DMFL card separately for about $50, but most of the time you can find a deal on the Tracfone site to get it free with the purchase of a phone. I ended up getting a phone, a 1 year / 400 min card, and a DMFL card for only $99 (the regular price for just the 1 year card).

One nice thing about Tracfone is that if you run out of service, but still have minutes, the minutes will carry over as long as you keep the service active by adding cards. And when you add a service card, the additional service is added to any remaining service you still have. So you could theoretically add three 1 Year cards at once and have service for 3 years. Also, check to see if the phone you are buying is part of their Single Rate plan. If so, there is no roaming at all. If you can't get a Single Rate phone because of your service area, then roaming calls are charged double minutes.

I'm now using my cell phone for occasional calls home when out running errands, but we've also decided to start using the cell phone for our long distance needs since it is now cheaper than pre-paid long distance cards (a topic for another post). Hope you’ve found this helpful.

These files are donated to the public domain so feel free to do with them whatever you wish.

PrePaidCellPhoneCostComparison.ods - OpenDocument Spreadsheet for OpenOffice.org. (14KB)
PrePaidCellPhoneCostComparison.xls - Excel Spreadsheet for MS Office. (76KB)


If you have anything to add, or other plans that you'd like to put in the comparison list, leave me a comment.

I just wanted to thank all of my readers for making August 2008 a statistical record for my blog. In August, this blog had 796 unique visitors. This is a puny amount compared to major sites, but it means to me that there are almost 800 people out there that have some interest in the things I have to say.

Leading the way during the month of August were the following articles:

Is This Hunging Of Fishing? - Information about Asian carp and a link to a video of fisherman/hunters bow hunting for them.

Gerber Viper Toilet Demonstration Video - Links to a demonstration video of the Gerber Viper toilet.

Gerber Allerton Toilet Review - My thoughts on the Gerber Allerton toilet after having used it for a few months.

Tax Reporting For Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) - My explanation of how to record your capital gains from ESPPs.

2008 Beijing Olympics TV Coverage Spreadsheet - This was my spreadsheet of NBC's 2008 Olympic coverage. Too bad it's not of much use anymore.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment on any articles that spark your interest.

Well the 2008 Summer Olympics have come to a close. And like millions of other people, I probably spent too much time watching them. But they only happen every few years, so it's no big deal if no house work gets done for those two weeks right?

Anyway, now that they've completed, I thought I'd share with you some of the complaints I have about how the Olympics were covered.

1. Taped Events Are OK

I really don't care if something is LIVE. I know that's a big catch word for television programming, but I could care less. I'd much rather see the taped version at a reasonable time of day. Case in point, was the men's basketball gold medal game which was shown live during the middle of the night. That's an event I would have been sure to watch, but because of the timing, and the fact that I DO have to sleep at some point, I wasn't able to watch it. Sure I could have recorded it and watched it another time, but then I would have been missing whatever was actually showing at that time, etc.

2. Too Much Beach Volleyball

Yes we kick butt at beach volleyball. We already knew that. But, I can see beach volleyball on network TV on many regular weekends during the summer so it's nothing special. I don't have a problem with them showing matches as it gets close to medal time, but they probably could have cut some more of the pool-play games.

3. Too Much Track, Not Enough Field

We got to sit through numerous heats for several of the track events, but when it came time for field events (shot put, javelin, high jump, etc), we were lucky if we got a "summary" compilation video. Many of the track races are pretty boring anyway - just people running at different speeds. Why not mix it up a bit and let us watch some of the more unique field events? Is it because we may not be dominant in that event? Regardless, they are fun and different to watch and I'm bummed I missed out on them.

4. Who The Heck Wants To See An Entire Marathon?

I mean, come on. They run for over an hour! If there was ever a time to do a "summary" compilation video of an event, this would be it. Yet both the men's and women's marathons were shown in their entirety.

5. Show Some Obscure Events

I would have liked to see more of the events that are not normally available on network TV. Things like equestrian, archery, Greco Roman wrestling, fencing, badminton, table tennis, etc. These things got a little bit of play, but usually not much to be worth sitting down to watch. The way I see it, part of the Olympics is to expose us to sports that are very popular in other countries. Too bad we didn't get to see much of them.

6. Did They Have Soccer This Year?

I didn't see any soccer matches on network TV. One of the most popular sports in the world and we didn't get to see any of it. At least show the gold medal match!

7. Not Everyone Has Cable Or High Speed Internet Access

I didn't actually check the listings, but I'd bet that there was a decent amount of good stuff shown on NBC's other networks or their web site. News flash, not everyone gets those channels or has a connection speed capable of streaming video. They would have been better off cutting out a lot of the pointless comments made by Bob Costas and showing more actual events on their main network.

8. Warn Us With Spoiler Alerts!

I don't know how many times I accidentally saw online, or heard on the radio the results of an event that hadn't even been broadcast yet! That REALLY irks me. One in particular was when Shawn Johnson won gold on the balance beam. Since I live in Iowa, I had to hear about the results well before it was televised. Really takes all the excitement out of it! At least warn us before you spoil it so we can divert our eyes and ears.

Summary

To sum up my complaints: More variety, more content, less pointless banter.


Regardless of these complaints, I still really enjoyed the Olympics and always have. I just wish they were shown a little bit differently.

I was annoyed with the probability of having to log on to a TV listings website each day to see which Olympic events would be shown. That takes too much time. I want something that is already right on my computer and only has Olympic coverage. I couldn't find any site online where I could just download a full schedule, so I made my own spreadsheet.

This information was gathered from the NBC Olympics site. This data is ONLY for what they plan to show on their main NBC network (not CNBC, online, etc). Specifically, this was for our local affiliate, KWWL, but it should be pretty much the same for other NBC affiliates. All times listed are Central time.

For some reason, the website I got this from often times had adjoining time slots (i.e. 6:30-7:30 and 7:30-8:30) with the same description. Seems like they could have just made it 6:30-8:30. I could have modified to file in this way, but that was more work than it was worth. Another thing to note is that there is often a replay of the prime time schedule in the middle of the night, so if you see a 1:00am time slot with the same description as the prime time slot, it is just a replay.

Hope these files are useful for someone else:

2008OlympicsSchedule.ods - Open Document Spreadsheet format for OpenOffice.org (20KB)
2008OlympicsSchedule.xls - MS Excel Spreadsheet (84KB)

I noticed recently that two of my most popular articles are related to toilets:

Gerber Allerton Toilet Review

And

Gerber Viper Toilet Demonstration Video

I realized that if so many people were interested in how these two toilets work, then there's likely other people interested in how other toilets perform. Therefore, I thought I'd share some of the research I used when choosing toilets for our new house.

Our decision was made on four factors Cost, Looks, Environmental Impact, and Performance.

Cost

There's a wide range of prices available to you out there from the cheapo toilet you can find at any hardware store to the ultra-expensive. As is the case with most products, there is somewhat of a relationship between cost and other elements such as looks and performance. I say somewhat because while the middle of the road toilets may perform much better than the bargain basement ones, the top of the line toilets may not perform that much better than the middle of the road toilets. The trick is finding the magic middle point, where you are maximizing your performance and looks while minimizing cost.

That said, some of the brands that tend to be higher priced, are Toto and Kohler. I'm not saying these aren't nice toilets, but I definitely think you can get a nice toilet for cheaper.

Looks

Another factor to consider is looks. I know it sounds silly because after all "it's just a toilet". But when you've spent umpteen hours picking out everything else for a new house to make it exactly the way you want it, you tend to take the same approach with the toilets.

Like price, there's quite a range of what's available. Most toilets will be your standard round or elongated bowl with relatively no frills. If you are totally into function over form, you can get toilets that look like they belong in a public restroom. On the other side of the scale, you can get toilets with such modern styling that you can barely tell what they are. For us, the choice was to pick something along the lines of a standard toilet, but with a little bit of detail to it.

Environmental Impact

Those of you who have read my blog in the past know I'm a bit of a greenie. I was appalled when I learned that toilets used to use 6-7 gallons of water per flush! These days, you can't really buy a toilet that uses that amount of water. The standard now is 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf), but it is not uncommon to see toilets that use even less. Some toilets offer two flushing options: a half flush for light duty, and a full 1.6 gallon flush for larger loads. There are also pressure assisted toilets which use compressed air to help flush with less water. This is similar to what you'd see on an airplane. The downside of these toilets is that they are pretty noisy.

Peformance

Last but not least, performance is a big player in deciding which toilet to buy. After all, what good is a toilet if it can't flush or is constantly needed to be plunged? To find out how certain toilets stacked up against each other, I hit the Internet. I happened to find a VERY informative website listing results from independent performance testing. Go to the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association website and click on their Maximum Performance Testing report. It'll tell you everything you've ever wanted to know about toilet testing and how each toilet fared.


Now you have all the information and decision points we used to decide upon the Gerber Allerton toilets. Hopefully this will be helpful to people searching for information on other toilets as well.

It's been roughly 2 months since I seeded my lawn from scratch, and I decided it was time to post some updated pictures.

The front yard:


The back yard:


These pictures were taken just after mowing. It was the third mowing I've done since seeding. I started mowing on my highest setting, but have since lowered the mower to the 3-3.5" range.

As you can see in the pictures, it doesn't look too bad. There are quite a few weeds and some thick-bladed grasses growing in there. They grow MUCH faster than the good grass so it doesn't look very good if it hasn't been cut in a while. Some of the patchier areas are filling in a little, which is helping. The combination of rain and mild temperatures have kept it green with very little watering.

I'm still mowing with just a push mower (not even self-propelled) and have yet to tackle the back hill. The weeds and bad grasses are getting pretty tall back there, but it will have to wait at least another week until I can get to it. Surprisingly, the back hill made it through our monsoons pretty well. There is good grass growing in several spots on the hill which will help prevent erosion and washing out when I overseed.

I probably won't have any more updates until the end of August when I start overseeding it. Right now, I'm just letting it survive the summer. Soon, I'll begin preparations for overseeding this fall.

It's been approximately 36 days since I seeded my lawn so I thought it was a good time to provide another update. Let's start right off with the pictures.

The front yard:


The back yard:


Closeup of a patch of the grass at 36 days.


As you can see, I'm doing fairly well considering the circumstances we've had as far as weather. Before seeding, I was concerned that we wouldn't get enough rain to keep the seeds viable, and with the seeded area being roughly 2 acres, I didn't have the time or resources to water it all. Turned out that we had just the opposite: too much rain! So much, in fact, that most local rivers set historic flood levels. That said, I was happy that some of my seed actually made it through all that rain. I did have most of the seed in the side yards wash away so now I'm mainly focusing on the front yard and the back yard.

These pictures were taken about 2 days after I mowed it for the first time. With my mower on it's highest setting, I knew I wouldn't be cutting most of the grass, but I wanted to cut down some of the weeds so they didn't take control of the yard. In the close up shot of the grass, you can see one of the fuller areas of the yard. You can see quite a bit of good Kentucky Bluegrass, but there is also quite a few undesirable grasses that cropped up. If anyone can identify them, leave me a comment.

In some areas of the yard I have seedlings that are quite skinny and don't seem to have grown much above 1" or so. I wonder if I didn't give them enough fertilizer to start with, or if too much fertilizer washed away in the rain.

Lately, I've been watering once daily to make sure that the grass I do have doesn't die this summer. Luckily, this summer has been very mild. We've only seen a few days that got into the upper 80's. Mostly we've been in the high 70's to low 80's.

The questions I need to get answered at this point are:

1. When should I taper off the watering?
2. Should I give it some more fertilizer now to stimulate growth and filling-in?
3. Can I over-seed some smaller areas now if I baby them with watering, etc?

I'll post back when I figure out what to do!