Should You Use CafePress or Zazzle?

I started out with CafePress, and over the years I've made more money via CafePress. I have been on CafePress longer than Zazzle and have made more money because CafePress ALWAYS let you set your own commision (Zazzle only started doing it for the Christmas season 2007... CafePress had the option like 7 years ago.)

I esp love that Zazzle no longer only pays you just 10%. ugh! For years I've made next to nothing on Zazzle cause I couldn't set my own commision, but now I can set my own commision and I'm starting to make money now!

I love the new Zazzle Merch booth! Now I can create 10, 20, or 30 products at a time! No more creating one item at a time for me! (CafePress always had that option too. With CafePress you can create as many as 80 products all at once.)

Useing Zazzle's Merchbooth I created over 400 new products for my gallery this week alone! It used to be slow to create stuff, cause you could only create one item at a time, and for the longest time I only has 15 items in my gallaery cause I got so bored with the slow creation process, but since they added Merchbooth, now I have over 2,000 products in my gallery! I love it!

One problem I have had though, is on dial-up I could only load one picture at a time on Zazzle, because they use Java pop-ups to load images and they took over 20 minutes to load each picture. So for the first few years I used CafePress almost exclusivly, because it was so hard to load images to Zazzle's site. I got cable a little over a year ago, and since than I've had no problems loading images to Zazzle anymore, so if you have dial-up you might find CafePress a lot easier to use.

If you're just starting out I'd recommend you use CafePress first, because they are much more "user friendly" for the begginer. Zazzle has more steps and the instructions are not as clearly stated as CafePress' are. Once you've made a few shops on CafePess though, you should have no problems understanding Zazzle, because they are basicly the same.

It's to your advantage to have both, because while they both have t-shirts, cards, mugs and buttons, most of their other items do not overlap.

Zazzle has USPostal Service approved custom postage stamps and CafePress does not. Zazzle also has neck-ties, keyrings, and other items.

Plus CafePress has some pretty cool products that Zazzle doesn't have: ceramic tiles, jewlery boxes, dog shirts, clocks, pillows, etc.

I've found the quality of the items to be pretty much the same. I've bought T-shirts, buttons, mugs, mousepads, and totebags from both Zazzle and CafePress and both have super quality.

Shipping tends to be a lot faster with CafePress though. Usually I get orders from CafePress in less than 2 weeks, (3-4 days is average), but Zazzle I usually have to wait 2 or 3 weeks before I get the items.

The payout is basicly the same for each: Both require a minimum income of $25 before they well send you a check. Both mail out the pay checks at the end of each month. Both have a waiting period of 40 - 60 days after the order was made, to allow for returns, before they credit the money to your account. Both have the option to credit your pay towards your next order if you choose that option. Both pay you by sending a paper check in the mail.

CafePress only pays by check in the mail.

Starting January 2008, Zazzle now pays you via your PayPal account, if you have one. (Payments were just sent out last night btw, I just got my February payout of $44.36)

CafePress has a much better forum for members. The CafePress forum is pretty much the same as SquidU is for Squidoo, you go on and start threads and get advice from other members just like you would here for Squidoo.

But Zazzle's forum is more like Twitter or an YahooIM chat, and is really pointless to join, because it's just a single page with one sentance quotes flashing acrossed it everytime someone says anything, and so no post really makes any sence at all.

Zazzle has lots of promotion features, including giving you html codes for each of your products in both image or text (and the image code has three image size options). Plus they have a couple of differant style widgets that you can put on your blog or on MySpace that are updated live everytime you add a new product.

CafePress has only one promotional html code and it's a banner with a green star on it that goes to their homepage and not to your store or items.

So, as you can see, each has it's good points, and each has it's bad points. Both are good though, so I use them both.

Here are likes to one of each "style" of mine, so you can compare what they look like:

A Free CafePress Shop (layout can not be edited, they all look like this)

http://www.cafepress.com/GothSkullHearts

A paid CafePress shop ($54 a year) (layout can be edited like a blog or like MySpace profiles):

http://www.cafepress.com/copper_cockerel

A Free Zazzle Gallery (ALL Zazzle galleries are free, they don't have a paid account option) (the layou can be edited to what you want it to look like):

http://www.zazzle.com/eelkat*

(I love pink and orange layouts, I guess you can tell, cause my CafePress, my Zazzle, my LuLu, and my MySpace are all that same color combo. It's kind of my sig color.)

Well, that should help you out some.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Want to read more? Check out my Squidoo Lenses:


Need To Publish Your First Novel?
Ekography: EelKats Lensography
What Can You Do With Squidoo?
Save the Goldeneagle
Copper Cockeral
EKs Link Exchange Headquarters
Creating Character Profiles
How to Start a Publishing Company
Create Your Own Writers Retreat
Need to Kill Writer's Block? Kill a Character.
Narration for Writers
Doctor Who Gift & Video Showcase
NaNoWriMo: Reaching 50,000 useing EelKats 13 Step method
Conventional Writing Advice that Didnt Work for Her (or Me Either!)...
Why Was My Manuscript Rejected?
What if you could give a lie detector test to..
Etiole Swanzen
Harlequin books seeks real men for covers
EelKats Birthday Party Lensography
What do you look for in a book?
Accepting Your Writing Style
Whats On Your Toilet?




All donations to Star Log go to The Pidgie Fund. The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

Should You Sell Your Zazzle and CafePress products on Squidoo?

I'm an artist. I do watercolors, acrylics, pastles, crayons, colored pencil, felt-tip marker, and pen & ink drawings and paintings. Most of my art is of my pets both past and present: dogs, cats, roosters, birds, pony, fish, etc.

In addition to art I also do photography: my pets and my flower garden, and the beach mostly.

I've been doing this for over 25 years, so I have a huge collection of art and photos now, and it has always been my goal to sell my own art, but I also wanted to keep the originals. CafePress and Zazzle allow me to do that.

I've been on CafePress and Zazzle since 2004, and Prinfection about 8 months, and Squidoo 10 months. I have over 150 "free" shop on CafePress and one "premium" shop, plus 3 Zazzle galleries, for a grand total of more than 5,000 products for sale.

This ( http://www.squidoo.com/coppercockeral ) was my very first lens here on Squidoo. Since than I have created more than 200 other lenses and of those more than 30 of them totally devoted to my shops; here are examples of a couple of them:

http://www.squidoo.com/PediatricsTie
http://www.squidoo.com/Custom-Designed-Postage-Stamps
http://www.squidoo.com/Copper-Cockeral-Cards-and-Gifts-Our-Cats-and-Kittens-Line
http://www.squidoo.com/Copper-Cockeral-Cards-and-Gifts-Our-Rooster-Line


You can use them to get ideas for setting up some Squidoo Lenses about your own products.


In addition to lenses totally devoted to my shops, I also add modules selling my products, onto lenses that are of a related topic: say the topic is dogs, I add products featureing my dog paintings, for example).

Before Squidoo, I was earning between $20 - $70 per year from each CafePress and Zazzle. After I started creating Squidoo lenses featuring my products, my sales jumped, and now I'm earning $20 - $150 per month from each place. :) :) :)

So far I haven't sold a single item off Printfection though. :(


Squidoo has really boosted my CafePress and Zazzle sales, and I'd recomend anyone who has either a CafePress or Zazzle shop, to get on Squidoo and start making lenses about your products, because it really does work!

I have so much fun putting my art on CafePress and Zazzle and than putting those items on Squidoo, that when MonkeyBrain came out the first debate I started was this: http://www.squidoo.com/zazzlevscafepress

I love Zazzle and CafePress and Squidoo. I guess I don't have to tell you that they are my 3 fave sites and I spend more time on them than anyplace else on the Internet!




What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!




-------------




Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
*I Love Phookas!*
Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts
Custom Designed Postage Stamps
Gifts for Peacock Lovers
Framed Art for Childrens Rooms
Best Gifts for Cat Lovers
Best Gifts for Dog Lovers
Best Sci-Fi Video Showcase
Zazzle vs CafePress









What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Want to read more? Check out my Squidoo Lenses:


Need To Publish Your First Novel?
Ekography: EelKats Lensography
What Can You Do With Squidoo?
Save the Goldeneagle
Copper Cockeral
EKs Link Exchange Headquarters
Creating Character Profiles
How to Start a Publishing Company
Create Your Own Writers Retreat
Need to Kill Writer's Block? Kill a Character.
Narration for Writers
Doctor Who Gift & Video Showcase
NaNoWriMo: Reaching 50,000 useing EelKats 13 Step method
Conventional Writing Advice that Didnt Work for Her (or Me Either!)...
Why Was My Manuscript Rejected?
What if you could give a lie detector test to..
Etiole Swanzen
Harlequin books seeks real men for covers
EelKats Birthday Party Lensography
What do you look for in a book?
Accepting Your Writing Style
Whats On Your Toilet?




All donations to Star Log go to The Pidgie Fund. The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

Should You Have a Squidoo Lensography?

Today's topic of thought: Lensographies.

I have several of these.

I'll write 5 or 6 (or 20 or 30 in some cases) lenses on a single topic, and than I'll create a Lensography (lens index) lens where I link all of those lenses together.

The biggest advantage to this is I can create a series of lenses, say on the art of writing (which I did), and each lens featues a differant aspect of the art of writing: one talks about self-publishing, one talks about creating characters, one talks about ways around wtier's block, one talks about free writing contests, one talks about copyright laws, etc, etc, etc. In the end I created more than 30 lenses all focusing on the art of writing, and though they all are for authors and freelancers, each is totally differant and focuses on a differant area of the writing field.

Okay, so with 30+ lenses that means I have to now to SEO 30 times more than if I had created one lens right? That's where the Lensography comes in. I put links to all of my writing lenses, on one lens, and now all I have to do is focus on the SEO for that lens only, because once someone reaches that one lens, they now have a direct link to all of my other lenses on writing.

I do this two ways:

1) TOPIC LENSOGRAPHIES: I have a Lensography for each topic (series of lenses on that tpic). Currenlt I have a lens index for my Writing lenses, one for my Halloween lenses, one for my Party Planning lenses, and I'm building one for my Book and Movie Review lenses.

2.) PROFILE LENSOGRAPHIES: I have a personal Lensography (see here: http://www.squidoo.com/Ekography ) which is an idex of each and every one of my lenses. When I started this lens, I had less than 20 lenses, so it was quite small. Today I have 224 lenses and my Lensography lens is huge as a result, however, all I have to do now is to promote this one lens to bring traffic (readers) to all of my other lenses.


Now to answer your question, does it work? Yes! My lensography has never been below the 5,000 mark on the lensrank, and usually it stays in the top 700, sometimes it's gets near the top 100, but has yet to be in the top 100 list, though lenses I have featured at the top of my lensography HAVE gotten into the top 100 list, and looking at where the traffic to those came from (in the stats page) I find that it was my lesnography that drove a lot of the traffic to them.

I promote my lensography EVERYWHERE: on MySpace, on my 32 blogs, on FaceBook, on MyLot, in the sig links on my posts for each of the over 150 forums I reguraly post on, I even leave it on post-it notes in local public bathrooms! When I sign up for something and the site asks for my homepage, I always type in my lensography URL, because I consider that to be my homepage. As a result of all this, I have a constant and steady stream of traffic flowing into my lensography, and because my lensography links to all of my 224 lenses, I do nothing to promote any of my other lenses at all. I promote one lens and one lens only. This one: http://www.squidoo.com/Ekography and it sends it's heavy traffic flow out to all of my other lenses.

If you only have one or two lenses than, no, you don't need a lensography, but I tell everyone with more than ten lenses, to build one, because it's the best way there is to promote your other lenses.



I've got a series of lenses for writers (about 30 lenses so far) and another series for Halloween costumes (about 10 lenses so far), another series for parties -mostly birthdays- (about 60 lenses started, only 7 are published yet though), a series of seven lenses each one featuring a differant color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink) which I am currently expanding, a series of bios for characters from Don Rosa's Uncle Scrooge family tree, and my personal fave is the The Twighlight Manor Press series, which features lenses about anything to do with The Twighlight Manor Press (includes company profile lens, book review lenses, character profile lenses, and overview of products for sale lenses)


Right now I have 224 lenses, of them I think less than 30 of them are NOT a part of a series. I love doing lenses in topic series, and that's basicly my mode of creation.




What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Want to read more? Check out my Squidoo Lenses:


Need To Publish Your First Novel?
Ekography: EelKats Lensography
What Can You Do With Squidoo?
Save the Goldeneagle
Copper Cockeral
EKs Link Exchange Headquarters
Creating Character Profiles
How to Start a Publishing Company
Create Your Own Writers Retreat
Need to Kill Writer's Block? Kill a Character.
Narration for Writers
Doctor Who Gift & Video Showcase
NaNoWriMo: Reaching 50,000 useing EelKats 13 Step method
Conventional Writing Advice that Didnt Work for Her (or Me Either!)...
Why Was My Manuscript Rejected?
What if you could give a lie detector test to..
Etiole Swanzen
Harlequin books seeks real men for covers
EelKats Birthday Party Lensography
What do you look for in a book?
Accepting Your Writing Style
Whats On Your Toilet?




All donations to Star Log go to The Pidgie Fund. The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

More New Squido Lenses! Movies, Birthdays, Poodles, and Cameras

I just published some more of my lenses:

http://www.squidoo.com/TenBestFamilyFilms

http://www.squidoo.com/NikonPicturetown

http://www.squidoo.com/BirthdayPartiesPinkPoodles

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Want to read more? Check out my Squidoo Lenses:


Need To Publish Your First Novel?
Ekography: EelKats Lensography
What Can You Do With Squidoo?
Save the Goldeneagle
Copper Cockeral
EKs Link Exchange Headquarters
Creating Character Profiles
How to Start a Publishing Company
Create Your Own Writers Retreat
Need to Kill Writer's Block? Kill a Character.
Narration for Writers
Doctor Who Gift & Video Showcase
NaNoWriMo: Reaching 50,000 useing EelKats 13 Step method
Conventional Writing Advice that Didnt Work for Her (or Me Either!)...
Why Was My Manuscript Rejected?
What if you could give a lie detector test to..
Etiole Swanzen
Harlequin books seeks real men for covers
EelKats Birthday Party Lensography
What do you look for in a book?
Accepting Your Writing Style
Whats On Your Toilet?




All donations to Star Log go to The Pidgie Fund. The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

My New Squidoo Lenses: Birthday Parties, Mermaids, Ponies, and Pickles

I'm slowly getting my new lenses published. Here are the ones I published today:

http://www.squidoo.com/BirthdayPartiesMermaids

http://www.squidoo.com/BirthdayPartiesPonies

http://www.squidoo.com/SourPickle

I've still got about 40 more started that I haven't published yet. I'm doing a whole series of birthday party lenses, each with a differant party theme. I searched and found tons of differant theme ideas, so now I'm building a bunch of lenses to go with them.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Need To Publish Your First Novel?

Save the Goldeneagle



All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

My New Squidoo Lenses: Science Fiction, Roses, Faeries, and more...

here are my newest lenses, I'm still building them

http://www.squidoo.com/bestsci-fivideoshowcase

http://www.squidoo.com/ILoveRoses

http://www.squidoo.com/BirthdayPartiesFaeries

http://www.squidoo.com/BestDressedFaeries

http://www.squidoo.com/PediatricsTie

http://www.squidoo.com/BirthdayPartiesPonies

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Need To Publish Your First Novel?

Save the Goldeneagle



All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

cool website

Go to this cool website, wait for the page to load, and than watch what happens.

http://producten.hema.nl/

At first it looks like an online store, but it's not, it's a very funny sie, watch what happens to the products on the "storefront"!

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Need To Publish Your First Novel?

Save the Goldeneagle



All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

My Profile Updated... check it out!

My Lensography has just undergone some major changes and updates. I went through and moved everything around and pu everything in better order. You should be able to better navigate the site now. Check it out and let me know what you think. (I've added a comment box to it and non-members can leave comments as well, now.)

Here is the link to my profile page: http://www.squidoo.com/Ekography

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Need To Publish Your First Novel?

Save the Goldeneagle



All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

Squidoo, Cooking, Beds, and Gift Giving

I bought a book off ebay from one of my lenses, it was $3 and the next day after I won it, Squidoo said that I had earned .10c from items bought off my lens. From now on I'm going to buy all my eBay and Amazon stuff off Squidoo, cause it's like having a rebate.

here's some new lenses I just made today, still working on them:

http://www.squidoo.com/GivingGiftBaskets

http://www.squidoo.com/RomanticBeds

http://www.squidoo.com/Pierogi

http://www.squidoo.com/eggnog


I just started 15 more today, but they are still blank, it'll take me a while to get all the stuff on them, cause I started so many all at once.

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Need To Publish Your First Novel?

Save the Goldeneagle



All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

My New Squidoo Lenses: Colors, Toilets, Daleks, and more...

I just edited/updated some of my older lenses...

http://www.squidoo.com/What-can-you-do-with-squidoo

http://www.squidoo.com/TheDaleks

http://www.squidoo.com/WhatsOnYourToilet


Plus I'm making some new ones, they aren't finished yet, but here they are...

http://www.squidoo.com/ILovered

http://www.squidoo.com/ILoveorange

http://www.squidoo.com/ILoveyellow

http://www.squidoo.com/ILovegreen

http://www.squidoo.com/ILoveblue

http://www.squidoo.com/ILovePurple

http://www.squidoo.com/ILovePink


and these aren't mine, but I found them and added them to my favorites if you want to check them out:

http://www.squidoo.com/stuffed-cabbage

http://www.squidoo.com/polish-pierogi


plus this is the best group to join, (it's not one of mine); most of my Squidoo traffic comes from this one group. If you have enough lenses to make it into the top 10 lens-master list, you'll get huge ammounts of traffic to your lenses... I've been on their top 10 since they started; it was originally just for members who had won the Giant Squid award, but now they let anybody join. every time you make a new lens you have to post a comment to tell how many lenses you have and they update you name on the list

http://www.squidoo.com/groups/mostlenses

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Need To Publish Your First Novel?

Save the Goldeneagle



All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

Writing Tip of The Day

Quote: "Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear."
— Judy Blume

Happy birthday to author Judy Blume, who turns 70 today. Blume has written more than 25 books, which have been translated into 31 languages and have sold a total of some 80 million copies. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and Forever are among the novels that Blume has written, which have found their way to censorship lists in schools and libraries across America. Blume's place among the most censored artists has made her active in organizations that work to ensure free speech. She has edited a collection of short stories about censorship, called Places I Never Meant to Be.



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!


If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!


Need To Publish Your First Novel?

Save the Goldeneagle



All donations to Star Log go either to The Rabbit Hole Fund and/or The Pidgie Fund. The Rabbit Hole Fund is raising money to start a small retail clothen shop, while The Pidgie Fund buys food for pets in Southern Maine.

Harrasment Continues

My name is Wendy Allen.

I am writing to you on behalf of my father, Kenneth Ricker-Allen of Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

Our family is in desperate need of help. In the past two years we have tried without success to get help locally, but now the deadline is less than a week away and we do not know what to do or who to turn too for help.

Since this is a long and complicated ordeal, I well start at the beginning. First off, I should tell you that we are fighting the local government, the officials of the Town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, for the followingcharges:

Discrimination against a disabled senior.

A seniors rights being taken away from him.

Repeated harassment, and discriminatory attempts to force a low income family off their land, resulting in the year long hospitalization of already mentioned senior and resulting in his becoming disabled.

Threat of the destruction of property, including the threat of tearing down the home of aforementioned senior and his minor children and their pets.

Forcing the senior and his minor children out of their home and onto the streets where they lived for much of 2006 in a "tent" constructed out of shipping pallets and a tarp, where they lived in the elements of Maine's harsh winter, some days suffering at below zero temperatures.

The threat of having all our belongings destroyed.

The reason the town official Ken Shoup gave for this harassment was quote:"This is Old Orchard, you have to change you lifestyle."End quote. No other reason has been given.

Now, for our story and how this train of events came to be:

First off, our family has a long history with the Town of Old Orchard, due to the fact that our family settled this town more than 300 years ago. Our family has lived on the properties here in since 1657.

Originally there were several hundred acres on our land, both forest and farmland, but as the centuries went by the land was divided among relatives and passed on in increasingly smaller sections from one generation to the next. As the town grew and the land became more valuable, relatives sold out and moved away.

By the 1940's ours was the last to remain in the original family, a small lot less than an acre in size. Not only was it the last to remain in the original family, but it was also the last farm in Old Orchard Beach.

It should be noted that property in Old Orchard is valued in the millions due to it being one of the world's top rated award-winning beaches, and there in lies the root of our problem. Our farm has been accused of decreasing the property values. By the 1980's Old Orchard became known as the hang out for biker gangs, honky-tonks, and strip shops. Property values dropped as the family image of the town plummeted. In the 1990's, things changed once again, the gangs were driven out, the honky-tonks and bars shut down, and the strip shops became restaurants and art galleries.

Property taxes sky-rocketed to the second highest in the state as millionaire mansions and high rise condos reconstructed the sky-line, forever blocking out the view of the beach from the roads.Old Orchard beach town officials, spent millions putting in brick sidewalks, Victorian street lamps, and building a replica of the town hall that had stood here in the 1800's…. their campaign was to create a "historical town" to draw in high income tourists.

The campaign was wildly advertised, and well promoted… until the new town manager and his new staff showed their true colors, that is and their campaign turned to harassing long time locals off of their land.

Several families have been driven out already. Most unable and unwilling to fight the local government as the threats of propety destruction, and the removal of personal belongings (including pets) has scared most of the "offending families" into selling thier land and moving.

There are only a handful of families that have stood thier ground, but those too are leaving. Ours is one of the last to remain, still standing our round, and refusing to give in to the threats made by local police officers, local code enforcement officers, and the town manager himself.

In the past year they have changed (without legal and proper votes from the people) nearly every code on the book in an attempt to force these families off thier land.

Changes in code include such things as "banning the growing of vegetation", "painting your house", "owning more than one car per family", and other ridiculous town laws, that now prohibit such things as growing a garden.

It is like living in a strict gated community, only it is the entire town.

On the outskirts of the town, one finds the beautiful rolling acres of Ross Forest, once a candidate to become a national park, most of it now clear cut, and what little remains is soon to be sold for housing complexes, many already under construction.

Dividing the Ross Forest from the down town district, lay the remains of a few scattered farms, no longer in use. Except for one: ours. At one time a large full production poultry farm, today the home of pet farm animals, but still very much an active farm, small as it is.

The harassment of our family began in the fall of 2005 after an unknown person, wrote an editorial to the local newspapers, saying, "Four homes on Portland Avenue were distracting from the value of other properties in the town".

The writer continued saying that something should be done about it, that these four homes "should be torn down", and the families should be forced to move out of town to make way for the new generation.

Two of those four homes mentioned, as it turns out, were 144 Portland Ave and 146 Portland Ave.

At 144 Portland Avenue there lived (they have since taken our home) my elderly dad Kenneth Allen, myself, and my three brothers (all under 16 years of age). As you may guess, our dad was much, much older than our mother, explaining how a senior came to have young children.

In 1983, my dad's mother died and he inherited her house at 146 Portland Ave. The tiny 16 foot by 9-foot "house", which never had plumbing, etc. We turned into a shed, but even so, the town has continued to tax it as a house. Since October of 2001 (seven years ago) we have been applying for a permit to repair this building, and turn it into a greenhouse so we can extend our growing season, but the town STILL has that on a waiting list.

We continued to live in the old 700 square foot house, more of a cabin than a house or at least by the town's standards anyways.

My dad was a newspaper carrier for 21 years, our family income was under $20,000 a year, so we were never able to afford much, but we never noticed, because we were happy.

 Our family was living together, we had our pets with us, and we lived on our farm. That we lacked a "normal income" or a "normal lifestyle" (as the town officials now tell us) never occurred to us.

Than in spring of 2006, there came the letters from the town. One after another. Demands to "remove the junk and debris" or else.

As it turns out, what they were calling junk and debris, was as follows: Our car, which though they consider it "junk" still runs in spite of what it looks like, and we use it daily.

 Our fire wood (we have a woodstove for heat, cause we can't afford anything else.)

My dad's tools (he was a car mechanic in the 1970's, and still works on his own car and cars of relatives)

Our brooder (used for raising baby chickens each spring)

My dad's antique cast iron wood stove collection

Our garden (bean poles, pea fences, etc… they say we can't have a garden any more either)

Our washing machine (a 1947 wringer, which we use weekly)

Our farming equipment (tiller, ATV, etc…. all used on a regular basis)

In other words, what they are calling "trash", "junk", and "debris" are actually things we use every day, things we need in order to survive… without them we can not garden, if we can not garden we can not eat, because we can not afford to buy enough food to eat more than one meal a day per person, without the garden we well starve to death, without the farm equipment we can not garden, they are trying to kill us… and no this is not a figure of speech… as you shall soon come to understand.

My dad explained to the town that this stuff is not junk but our livelihood. The town responded by attaching a lean/fine on our property, for "refusal to comply with orders".

(They eventualy threw us out of our house and stole my grandmothers antiques, and took our house)

My dad made an attempt to move the items so that they could not be seen from the road, in an attempt to comply with the town's orders, hoping that if the items could not be seen from the road, that it would stop the harassment by the town… this was the biggest mistake he could have made, because as a result, a few days later on May 9, 2006, he went into a coma. May 9, 2006 started like any other day.

I woke up and went out to feed the chickens, work in the garden, and than help my dad move items out of view of the street. My dad had not yet gotten up. I had been in the yard barely 20 minutes when my 15 year old brother came running across the yard in a panic… something was wrong, I could see it on his face, and I ran to meet him… he told me that something was wrong with daddy… daddy had woken up and torn the wood stove out of the wall tearing with it all of the water pipes… and now the house was under water, while daddy was throwing everything from the toilet to the tables to shelves to files all over the house. By the time I arrived in the house there was 8 inches of water on the floor, and nothing left of anything… everything in the house was totally destroyed, there was not only nothing left on shelves, there were no longer any shelves. It looked like a tornado had gone through the house. The house was barely recognizable. My smaller brothers had run into the bedroom to hide, terrified at the event that was unfolding, while daddy was now in an attempt at tearing out the windows.

When I asked my dad what he was doing, he did not recognize me, he could not hear me, he could not see me… it was like he had turned into a blind man and was tearing at the walls in an attempt to see… I rushed to the neighbor who called an ambulance. The ambulance arrived, and talk of nervous breakdown and meningitis, were scatted around the conversations… the emergency team was in attempt of asking me what happened, when I was pulled away by a police officer named Jack Nichols, who proceeded to interrogate me about the condition of our house.

The wood stove was laying in pieces in the center of the dinning room, and this was his main focus… repeating the same question again and again: "How long has this been laying here?" he demanded. I told him, it had just happened, he accused me of lying, and repeated the question…. over and over again, and I kept explaining to him, that daddy had just done this, which was why we had called 911. Than he turned his questions to the piles of paper and mail that scattered the house… "What's all this clutter?" he yelled.

Again I explained that this had just happened, that it was stuff that had been on the shelves and table, but as before, he accused me of lying and repeated the question again and again, his voice growing more heated and temperamental each time.

Than in a menacing voice he turned on my three little brothers "Why aren't these children in school?". I explained that we home schooled, and we had approval from the town's superintendent.

Next he railed me out about how children can't live in "clutter and filth" like this… again I explained that this "clutter and filth" as he called it, had just happened moments ago, and it was because this had happened that we had called for his help. He responded by calling the Department of Human Services to take my brothers away, and than calling the town code enforcement officer to condemn the house on grounds of "clutter and filth".

While all this was happening the ambulance had taken my dad away, to where they had taken him I did not know, because Jack Nichols had not given me a chance to even know what had happened to my dad. More police, this time with cameras, stormed into the house, none of them would tell me what they were doing, why they were there, or what had happened to my dad. Meanwhile another police officer, Will Watson, stormed through the house "photgraphing evidance", and turn what was left of the house inside out and upside down. Him and the handful of officers who were with him (name