Gardening? Gardening!

Trent at The Simple Dollar has a post up about gardening as a way to save gobs of cash. I agree wholeheartedly, coming from a family of inveterate gardeners. My grandmother once had every square inch of her property planted, even the old wrecked tractor. I try to carry on the tradition, but with less work involved. Besides, it's a way for the Cat & I to spend some time together out in the sun.

Trent's on about tomatoes-- and I would recommend:

--Companion Planting--

This is not about taking a pot of fennel to the Singles Bar to find a mate. Rather, certain plants work well together. Others don't. And planting certain plants in groups-- the kinds of groups you might find out in nature-- they become more resistant to pests & disease. I even think they taste better.

A standard companion planting, or "guild:"

1. Tomatoes mmm
2. Asparagus mmmm
3. Basil mmmmmmm

Keep them away from potatoes & cabbage. They don't get along. Turf wars!

Maybe the most famous "guild" is the Three Sisters, which the Native Americans knew & loved:

1. Corn (which is tall)
2. Beans (which climb the corn & fix nitrogen)
3. Squash (which hangs out down below, filling in the space left over)

The main idea, then, is to fill in all the available spaces in your garden. Nature does this of her own accord when left alone, and it makes for a healthier system; humankind tends to put things in neat rows, which requires more land & labor, as it frees up space for weeds to come in, breaks up & leaches healthy soil, and allows weaker plants to thrive, thus inviting pests & disease.

There are a lot of great books on the topic, like and . But most importantly, try things out and watch your space. Then, as you learn what does and doesn't work in your soil, your climate, and your available light, you can make small changes to improve the system. Books are a good (nowadays, even necessary) place to start, but nothing-- absolutely nothing-- beats experience for gardening & farming.

And remember to design your pets into the system. Zooey has a nice sideline as a night watchcat, keeping the local squirrel population out of the proverbial larder.

(I also like to prep my plantings with some super-nutritious worm castings, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself... And disclosure: I have a very modest sideline as a permaculture designer, though I prefer the science of it to the hippie stuff it's picked up in America. I'm too much of a redneck to do my sun salutations.)

Inclement Markets

Winter storms and housing crises. Looking for a safe place for your earnings is a lot like trying to find the stray cat you've adopted during a rampaging snowstorm.

Zooey usually hangs out around her house, my one extravagance (fortunately not foreclosed). In storms like today, though, she's not in her reliable places. Today I went all through the woods and down by the stream to see if I could find her. Nothing. Just some deer tracks & scat, and some beautiful steam rising off the stream as it cut through the snow.

Meanwhile, inside my nest egg has been taking a hit. I don't have a whole lot-- some index funds, a few stocks I bought on a hunch, an IRA. The housing crisis caught me off-guard, before I could move anything out into bonds, my MMA, or even hide it under the mattress. (I understand better now why my great-grandfather, he of the Depression, didn't trust banks.)

But then I saw some nice clues:


Namely, the Fed's recent aggressive cuts, their plans to forestall foreclosures, and Congress' thankfully fast action on this anti-recession drug. I was never convinced that the housing crisis was going to be that cataclysmic, anyway. We're a lot more intertwined with the rest of the world now than we were in 2001, even, so the way our economy goes does not necessarily mean gloom for the earth. Also, markets usually do better in election years. I'm trying to wait this one out, and hoping to find a few bargains out in the financial woods.

But I am no economist. I am but a humble cat owner, thankful to have a roof over his cat in her timeshare.

Cat Skills Assessment

As many of you know, my cat Zooey has decided to help out monetarily. But she's become discouraged after her initial enthusiasm. It is hard to find work in this world, especially when you're a cat.

Yesterday she threw up all over the deck. I was worried-- stress is pretty bad, and now the deck is too. I could hear her up late last night. When I woke up I found this on the computer screen:


What an amazing cat! As an outdoor cat, she must have had a copy of the housekey made when I wasn't looking.

She had gone through my self-help books, and opened up Loral Langemeier's Millionaire Maker's Guide to Creating a Cash Machine for Lifeto a self-help skills assessment early in the book. So we sat down this morning and worked through it to give her some direction. This is a short version of it, so you can have an idea of what it's like:

1. List your job responsibilities:

• eating
• coyness
• sleeping
• stalking through lawn & forest as mistress of all i survey

2. List the tasks associated with these responsibilities:

• monitoring small animals
• climbing trees
• somber frolic
  

3. List the industries and markets you have experience in:

• pets
• hunting
• food service

4. List the tasks you do at home:

• tongue-bathing
• resting
  

5. List the activities you find you do in spare time

• rubbing face against lawn furniture
• marking territory
• leering at Mr MacMuffin through his living room window, especially at night when the terror sets in

6. List the tasks others ask you to help them w/

• pest control
• relationship problems
• money problems
• emotional problems
• family problems

7. List the tasks you're good at & may take for granted

• sharpening claws
• furniture control
• consulting.
  

That's her list. Honestly, I'm a little surprised at some of her answers, but she is an outdoor cat, after all. And the Cash Machine book is interesting-- I'll have my full review up tomorrow!

Seth Godin's Cat Builds No Wealth

Kind of cloudy and overcast today, so I was snooping around in Seth Godin's blog. (I reviewed his book Meatball Sundae yesterday.) I found this post, which has some cobwebs on it, but raised some issues pertinent to my CATpitalsm plan.

Briefly-- read the post, though, it has some good points. In sum, Godin destroys my hopes, my dreams, Zooey's plans for gold-dust litter and braised rat pate. He refuses to monetize his blog.

He outlines good reasons for not doing so. Among them, the fact that one of his favorite blogs changed from being a nice place to hang out and read good ideas, into the e-version of the Vegas Strip. Ads, blaring out, carnival barkers touting the dude's new book, his bloated resume (this is the blog Godin describes, not Godin himself-- his blog is elegant and clean, and ad-free), so forth, dogs & cats living together. Just awful.

So yeah, I can see his point. But-- he's also a bestselling author with fourteen-odd books out. (I don't mean his books are odd! It's just English, for pity's sake!) So he doesn't seem to need to monetize his blog-- it's a loss leader, serving as an ad for his books, his speaking, his consulting.

Zooey & I don't yet have a catsulting service together. Or a speaking/meowing tour. Perhaps we will, after doing Zooey's skills assessment. But until that day, we'll have some ads. Maybe when we're raking in more money than Mr MacMuffin ever DREAMED of we'll demonetize the blog. And the cat. But until then...

And I want to reassure you (and myself, shamefaced after reading the post) we never changed! We were all about the boodle from Day 1! Cat-Daddy, Zooey-Monetization, so never mind that we have ads! Don't forgive us, enjoy our catpitalist path! Imitate it! Golden Land of Opportunity! My cat makes money! Your cat can too!

Zooey Steps Out

Zooey and I hang out a lot on sunny afternoons, but it's the dead of winter. So we're thankful to get out in the sun on a chance afternoon like yesterday, away from the cavernous, frozen wasteland of our respective houses/timeshare.

Figure 3. RSS fed

I think this is the first really good picture I've taken of my cat. Cower before her awesome power!

And her marketing skill. Look at her: her poise speaks of confidence, her shaggy mane of customer-centered brand positioning. The light catching her speaks of a churning process, in which she innovates based on the hard work of competing companies/blogs/monetized pets, while her wildly oscillating tail says "my vet never gave me shots for viral marketing."

Soon after this photo was taken, she embarked on new waves of monetazion-strategization. Me, I went back inside for a cup of hot tea and more marketing books. Onward!

Our Freezing Poor Winter

Well, it's really dang cold right now. Zooey has abandoned her palatial digs up on the hill and come down to her timeshare where she can enjoy a more frequent bowl of delicious niblets and see me more than once a day. I'm glad, because it gets lonely down here, especially when we have about three hours of daylight and a constant howling wind.


Figure 2. Timeshare Warmth.

I had some marketing ideas-- a Zooey parade for charity, a CATpitalism car wash, but I think they'll wait until it thaws. Until then, look for more book reviews! I hit up the library yesterday for some marketing books. We are gonna build this brand, and at the core of CATpitalism is thinking about capitalism by reading and reviewing books.

(P.S. You will note that Zooey ate all of her positive thinking vittles. Yes!)

IMPOSTOR SYNDROME

I mentioned this a post yesterday, but I want to say some more. I think this is the single worst culprit in the business world. Heck, in any world.

I certainly know what it feels like, just like my cat. You don't belong. You don't have organically-grown catnip and an ionized air filter by your litterbox. Your cat litter's not imported Indonesian diatomaceous earth. You don't even have a litterbox! You have to do your business behind trees and shrubs. You don't get high-quality, mercury-free tunafish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You dumpster dive. You eat scraps and carrion and if you're lucky a squirrel.

And it affects you. You think differently, about the world around you, and even about yourself. You avoid those preening cats with shampooed coats and aromatic flea collars. When opportunity knocks, you're the only one home, but you figure she's not looking for you. You tell yourself that your kind of cat isn't invited. Rich cats, fat cats, sure. They get all the breaks! If you only had a break. Well, the break just walked away weeping because you convinced yourself not to open up to it!

You run up the tree and wait for a fireman who never comes. And the little old lady cries and cries below, but you can't tell her you love her. YOUR KIND OF PEOPLE DON'T DO THAT! No love, no hope. Only sorrow, fleas, and coccidiosis.
See what happens? You convince yourself you're not good enough. You look at people you envy-- rich people, successful people, people who got all the breaks-- and you resent them. You tell yourself they're scumbags for having what you want. And you say life is unfair, and then decide you can't get what they have. Why not? Because you don't want to resent yourself? What IS that?

Well, life is unfair sometimes. But other times it is fair. Don't let the unfair rob you of the fair.

How do you do this? Maybe tomorrow...

My Skittish Star

Well, just because someone asks to be monetized doesn't mean it comes easily!

I have been looking for Zooey all afternoon, because she'll need to be the face of our monetization empire. But she's turned camera shy!

I'm not surprised. Her childhood was a little troubled-- she arrived on my doorstep as a stray, and we slowly grew to trust each other. Now that she's going to become a wage-earner in our home, I can see why she's nervous. It's the Impostor Syndrome. She doesn't feel like she belongs, sometimes. I reassure her, but we can only take baby steps.

Wait! There she is! Zooey!


Let the monetization begin!

Where's Zooey? And Cat-Money Tips!

Zooey asked me to monetize her. But she hasn't been too helpful about it...

See, she was a stray who came into my life. I saw her and knew I had a new best friend, but I also knew things wouldn't be all cuddly like with Dane's Mr. MacMuffin. He's a housecat, but Zooey needs her freedom. She's not a swinger, she's just an outside cat.

I got a house for her, and she has a little timeshare on the deck, picture below.


Figure 1. Cat timeshare.

I hear you shouldn't get timeshares in non-cat life, though. They tend not to be good deals. We're all about good deals!

Anyway, I'd like to talk about some of these monetization options with her, but she's been gone all day. That's not unusual-- I won't put out a xeroxed "Have You Seen Me?" sign for a week yet, and she'll be back by night I'm sure. I'll just hang out and wait.

Meanwhile, let me list some tips for frugal cat-living.

1. Get nice things for your cats, but don't spoil them. Mr. MacMuffin I think has had his life shortened by Dane's untrammeled love. The cat weighs 25 pounds. I'm serious! It's like an ottoman with a head and a tail. I think it cuddles up with him because it can't move away.
2. Pick one gift and make it the nicest gift. Mine is Zooey's house, which was custom-built. (The timeshare was on sale for a couple of bucks.) But that means I don't have to worry about getting a lot of other gifts she won't appreciate. (By the way, I don't mean "the nicest gift you can afford.")
   
3. Don't sweat the food. I mean, I'm no gourmet either. Besides, I think the cat has side-streams of food, but I don't want to think about it.
4. Most important gift: LOVE. Best way to express it: take true care of your cat! Which is more important, Love and companionship or a bunch of expensive junk? A gold-leaf collar or a vet checkup to prevent feline diabetes? Seriously, make sure you love your cat for a long time by getting regular health checkups and ensuring it has a healthy, active lifestyle. This is especially important for housecats, because we don't want them to turn in Mr. MacMuffin, all full of stuffin.

How My Cat Became a CATpitalist

My cat Zooey and I were sitting on the deck talking. Zooey looks at me and says:

"Cat-Daddy, I'm ready. Monetize me."

I look at Zooey and reply, "Huh? What are you talking about, Zooey?"

Zooey walks around my lawn chair and rubs up against its leg. Then she stares out from between the slats of the deck at a squirrel. "I want to contribute to the household. Monetize me!"

"But how? You're such a shy and temperamental cat, not like the neighbor's Mr. MacMuffin. That cat would be on TV if he knew how."

"I don't know. Try to figure something out." With that, Zooey ran off the deck into the yard and disappeared. As I sat there perplxed, I realized she could be right.

After all, cats are like children. Both come into your world, and love you even as you love them. Both are companions and friends. We expect children to grow up and provide for themselves, and take care of us when we grow old. We never expect our pets to do the same-- so I was touched that Zooey would offer to help out with the bills in such a way!

So THIS is the story of how I have started to monetize my cat! Together Zooey and I will try to make some money online, even as we get our offline accounts all in a row. Check back here as we share some of our successes (and failures-- though hopefully not too many) with you.

If we're lucky, we can ALL become CATpitalists!