Recently, my oldest son, now a thirty-something living in New York City, referenced “The Snowpants Rule.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What’s that?” he looked at me incredulously, “You made it up!”

“Remind me then.”

“When we were little kids and we’d want to go out and play in the snow, you’d tell us we couldn't go out unless we promised to stay out for at least as long as it took us to put on our snowpants in the first place. The Snowpants Rule.”

Here are 20 practical uses of Coke as a domestic cleaner:

At SolarFest, the summer music and energy extravaganza held in Middletown Springs each July, the Green Living Journal was right next to the booth for Freedom 4 Bikes of Bellows Falls, Vermont. The bikes were quite a show-stopper, as the shop proprietors would end their sales pitch by hopping on a bike and silently gliding into the distance, whetting the appetite for a test ride.

Here's our choice: utilize preventative measures for controlling fleas now, or, wait until those pesky, pointed headed little bloodsuckers drive us to the brink of frustration by setting off some kind of poisonous flea bomb in our homes.

Hoop houses are a great do-it-yourself project that can make it possible for you to garden all year long. They can also be used for storage, as a temporary garage, or even as a workshop. They are inexpensive, easy to construct and when completed they also: