Accessible Gardening: #21 Practical Matters for Phsically Challenged Gardeners, 2 by Agavegirl1

Agavegirl1 wrote:
Hi gang! :D

My suggestion in regards to the Medicaid and MA is look before you leap. See if you can get a contributing author\'s job for ATP maybe :D or even a garden catalog, magazine or just a blog type of thing either for a local paper or even start your own. (You could get all those nice tax deductions too for having your own business...excuse me, I mean Ray can for HIS business. You\'re an employee.) If you can get a new gig, then by all means do as you please.

Like you I also joined DG for myself as it seemed a polished and well put together website that was navigable for the computer challenged such as myself. But now...
That\'s o.k. ATP has great plant files but I can\'t get into them. You have to know species and genus or at least how to spell them. Well, if I\'m trying to look something up then obviously I don\'t know these things and I use common names. So I have a hard time with their plant files too. LOL

I have to agree the articles aren\'t what they used to be and a lot of them are repetitive. For S.W. gardeners it is even more frustrating because we are such a specialized/niche type of gardening. We can\'t grow what the majority of the country can in their yards and vice-versa. The lack of articles even before the changes always left me feeling uninspired. Don\'t feel bad. The ones on ATP aren\'t that great either. Fabulous if you grow Iris or Lilies. If you grow cacti you\'re kind of S.O.L.

Jim and family,
Sounds like you have been real busy and the farm is starting to produce. Good job on the bumbly bees! They\'re precious and we sure do need them. I\'ve been real happy lately to see the little guys buzzing around the multitude of cacti and flowering shrub blooms.

Believe me I\'ve thought about all kinds of ways to make money but if I get caught I go to jail, whomever goes to jail, I have to pay all my money back and I won\'t be eligible again for SSDI. If I earn money from painting I have to report it. Thus they \'think\' I can work and will reduce my benefits accordingly or throw me off. Well golly gee if I sell 2 paintings a year for $1,500.00 then what. That isn\'t a month that\'s a year! (Down side to being an \'artist\' always an unpredictable market).
If I have my husband or friends sell them saying that the paintings are theirs fine BUT then how do I explain a constant stream of checks coming in from $400-$800 each all the time as \'gifts\' and going into my bank account? That\'s money laundering. That\'s also fraud.

Thought of a few other things but always the same conclusion: loss of SSDI in one form or another, fraud and having to make restitution. So I leave well enough alone. I have rotten luck. I know I would get caught. Now the once or twice job a year for cash or maybe a \'gift\' at X-Mas I could do. That still would not contribute much to my income.

Glad your back is feeling o.k. and seems to be healing. That\'s good news. Please don\'t over do it and set yourself back in this regards.

And yes...Latin names for cacti are absolutely tormentive to me in both spelling and pronunciation. I try to abandon them as much as possible and use common names. The other plant nerds may not appreciate my predilection for this but I don\'t care. I got a life too outside of plants and learning how to spell in Latin.

Great blooms! That aloe is looking real happy.
Here\'s some recent blooms from a prickly pear in a public area. I thought was outstanding. Here\'s a Trichocereus of mine in bloom too.
Oh...and a cartoon I drew poking fun at the nerds over a lengthy discussion that ensued on our thread in regards to plant I.D. for one of my cacti. The cartoon was my response.

Peace. Out.
TTC