So it seemed like a natural fit, we would use the space vacated by the decommissioned  playground to install our very first raised vegetable gardening bed.  And maybe our second.  As you can see from the picture, there’s still way too much room, but there’s no need for us to go crazy on our first time around.

We bought some pre-made component kits, and pieced them together, and in about an hour or two we had our raised beds.  Naturally, we rolled out some of that gardening cloth in the bottom to deter unwanted weeds, and then poured in what seemed like a ton of vegetable gardening soil, and were done for the day.

This certainly doesn’t seem to be the cheap way of growing vegetables, I could simply walk to the store and purchase a few for much less work and money.  But it’s an investment in the future, right?  Most of the cost is all in up front expenses, so in a few years, if I can stick with it, we’ll be in good shape.

It’s a bit late in the season to start my planting, so please excuse my tardiness, but better late than never.  Yesterday was decision day, time to commit and decide what would actually make it into the garden, with only mild hopes of being able to harvest much of anything this year.  So here’s what we went with… tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers, squash, melons, beets, carrots, herbs and lettuces.

Ideally, in a few months, I will be able to report on some progress with my gardening.  But more important, I would like to be able to include a few meals or recipes from the fruits of our labors.  I’m already dreaming of a killer tomato, basil and bread casserole that we’ve made a few times, but never with homemade ingredients.  Let the countdown begin.

The post Small Attempt At Self Sufficiency With Vegetable Gardening appeared first on Greg Fleischaker.

Well, I’m a little older now, and no closer to starting up my own restaurant any time soon, but I’d like to think that my culinary skills have grown a bit.  Certainly my talking about the subject has grown, and I think perhaps my family has grown tired of hearing me talk about food.

So instead of just talking about it, earlier this year I went ahead and set up a new blog at www.DinnerTimeTV.com to document my go-to recipes and techniques.  I want to reiterate, this is not cutting edge cuisine, but rather recipes that you could follow quite easily and probably be able to prepare on a normal day after getting home from work.

Most of the recipes that I show on this site can be started and finished, from beginning to end, in less than an hour.  I dont’ know about you, but that seems to be a doable amount of time for most people, especially if it means that you can avoid eating a bunch of fast food or processed garbage containing too many scary named chemicals.

So if you have some time, and a little inclination, go ahead and hop on over to my food blog and let me know what you think.  Seriously, leave me a comment, give me a Facebook share, or tweet…  whatever works for you.

The post Introducing DinnerTimeTV.com – Greg’s Food Blog appeared first on Greg Fleischaker.

I suppose you could try to tackle all three at the same time, but I think it would highly unlikely that you would be very successful.  I have found that the really slick movies with the extra graphics and crazy angles, from helicopters or speeding motorcycles, work best for really high end, one of a kind, luxury homes.  Homes that we don’t see too often here in KY.  For a run of the mill home, at the average price range of any city or community, my view is that the over the top video is just that, over the top!

And the idea of sticking your face all over a video, just like a bench stop ad?  Yeah, well, I’m not a huge fan of those ads to start with.  But for everyday real estate activity, I’m a huge fan of trying to make a video that shows up well in the search engines, both to show your clients, let them know you are working on their behalf, and also to help get the house sold!

The easiest way to achieve this end is to simply take the high quality pictures you have already taken for your new listing (right?) and assemble a video slide show using some software, such as Apple’s iMovie, or something along those lines.  You could also use a live action video camera, and capture your new real estate video that way, but make a choice and get a quick simple video together.  Then all that is left is uploading that video to YouTube, optimize the title and description, maybe write a beautiful blog post about your new listing, and voila!

Give your new video some love, share it on social media, tell your friends and family, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you see the movie making it’s way up the search engine rankings after a few days or weeks.  If this all sounds like too much work for you to undertake on your own, please give me a call, I’ll be happy to help out!

The post How To Make An Effective Real Estate Video appeared first on Greg Fleischaker.