More Gardening!

Sunday night I got photobombed by a deer...never saw her till she moved after I took the photo:



Close up -- don't know what her deal is, I also have a family of six deer that occasionally come through.


Squash on the right, taters to the left. Only a few of my summer squash mounds germinated, but that's OK...I planted them like May 1st on the theory seed is (relatively) cheap, and whatever didn't survive I'd plant again once the soil conditions were less cool and damp. Figured what did germinate would have a good heads start. The re-planted mounds germinated last week.


Put up the T and U posts for the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.


And I got the cables up for the grape trellis this weekend, do want to put another 6' T post in the middle for better support. Now I have to start training the vines to it. Fishing line "scare wire" is up for the deer, I don't have severe deer pressure and that did well last year to protect the green beans and sunflowers.

Finally a garden update this year!

Finally got some pics this year!

My planting on some stuff (peas, onions) was much later then I wanted. Just finished planting my winter squash yesterday, so they're about on time (could've been a couple weeks sooner).

Weeded today -- the straw sure makes a big difference where it is.



Onions!


Red Cabbage and peas...gotta get the trellising setup. I don't expect a big pea crop this year...heat will be hear sooner then the plants will be big.


Broccoli bolted instead of making nice heads :(


I do have a pretty nice milkweed patch forming...I hope there are Monarch Butterflies taking advantage of it.


Hmmm...this corner of the fence needed cleaning up, and I was considering just spraying it -- but look at this, I got a nice wild grape vine growing. Thinking I'll clean this up and train that along the fence or maybe string a wire for it.


Beans will soon be climbing the fence...gotta get the deer scare wires up to keep them from grazing the outside.


Outside the perimeter:


I planted Zukes & Summer Squash *real* early (May 1st?)...so that a bunch of mounds didn't germinate didn't surprise me. Cheap enough to replant those.


Tater row -- using driveway flags to remember where the species break. I expect a nice harvest, this is last year's summer squash row. Trenched, seed spuds dropped in, then dirt, straw, dirt, and straw...I think they'll like that mix.


An Eggplant & Tomatoes & Peppers row.


Simple trellis made with T-posts for grapes. Bought two plants at Agway (one white, one purple); I can fit several more plants on this row eventually. For now I've planted some wildflowers. Really want to get some wood chips to deeply mulch this eventually.

I'll put up another tall T-post in the middle before I string the trellis wire.


'sparagus:


Working on re-building a couple beds. My raspberries failed badly the last two years (something must've infected them). I'm re-orienting them into the new rows, and the rows are wide enough so I can mow between. Would love to have a big enough free wood chip supply to fully mulch the paths.

Google Circle Back commercial...

Oh, if it was only this easy.

And after spending an hour in my car in a parking lot on a phone conference yesterday, when will we have video conference capability built into the cars?

Treadmill Desk

Been using this pretty steadily for about three weeks now.

I have to finish up some trim and staining, but I was holding off until I knew the design was stable. Probably have about 8 hours of time on it now -- figure I've done 30 minutes most mornings, one hour this morning.

2mph is a bit fast, and 30 minutes is about all the time I can do basic stuff before going to my regular desk.

I slowed down to 1.6mph today, and was able to occupy 60 minutes worth of time (and even took a phone call from mom) while on it -- it's slower enough I can concentrate a bit more and do some more advance work then I had been at the 2mph pace.

The top got a number (4? 5?) coats of polyurethane. The dish towel is rest my elbows on comfortably when typing. Almost wanting a wing now for it so I could fit a full-sized notebook to my right.


One of the screws went a bit errant, but it did the job. Counter sunk on the top, with the counter sinks filled with polyurethane to keep the surface even. Every place a "surface" met I placed a strip of rubber gasket material, which was held in place by superglue.


That includes between the wood arms and desk, between the desk and top of the treadmill, here between the arms and the uprights of the treadmill -- I think that's really helping a lot compared to just hard surface to hard surface. Plus it let the screws and bolts really bite down when tightened:


And between the metal "washer" and the treadmill uprights:

Check...mate

Old age and treachery wins against youth and good looks. Every time.

Dump Score!

Dump picking is taken as a God-given right in many a New England small town, and woo to the politician who should oppose it. The history books state that General Gage had set out to seize the powder stored at Concord, and if possible also arrest Hancock and Adams while he was at it. I think that's a cover story -- from the reaction of the citizenry, I'd say it was more likely he was trying to prevent the Yankees from picking in their dumps.

My town's dump even includes a couple sheds for books, household items, and whatever else folks think would be useful to someone else. And it's basic etiquette to leave useable or repairable items just outside of the metal dumpster -- the town worker will chuck them in at the end of the day or the next day if no one claims them.

Indeed yesterday I'm taking a five gallon pail of scrap metal to the metal dumpster, and neatly laying against the guard rail is some vinyl-coated chainlink fencing in good shape -- just add your own posts. But I didn't need that.

As I'm dumping my scrap my eyes widen up, "Why, what do we have here?!?!"

Go over to the scale house, consult if the town guys knew the story (they didn't), and ask to borrow their long hook, and I gaff out this:



Those puppies sell for about $1000 new.

Figure it would be worth the college try -- I'm betting it's just a gummed up carburetor.

As I didn't really need it, and have enough projects, I figured I'd give it to Eric as he likes projects to tinker with in the garage when his kids are being too rambunctious in the house, and they have a camper it would work well with.

I had to go into work at the data center that night, so I swing by to drop it off at his house.

While he has some brats grilling up, we throw the Honda on his workbench.

I note there's very little oil in it. Hmmmm....

We hook up the spark plug tester and pull -- no spark, but the low oil light is flashing too.

Fill with oil, put in some gas...second pull it starts up.

Voltage checks OK, we put a load on it, purrs like a kitten.

Sadly, I suspect someone simply ran it never checking the oil till the low oil shutoff kicked in, then threw it away.

More music...

One of those days...

1) Why is it, of the three supermarkets I regularly go to, the one with the worst "baking supplies" (flour, sugar, etc.) selection is the one that has about eight different types of yeast.  But the two bigger markets with much more selection and better prices...have maybe one, if you can find it.

2) Discovering the container for your four pound bag of sugar holds three pounds.  *sigh*

3) That the yogurt, which I brew up 2-3 times a month, failed this week.  All setup to take it from the pot into jars for the fridge, and find it's still liquid.  I must've screwed up one of my times yesterday when warming and cooling the milk.  First time since last spring I lost a batch.

4) Dog sitting Cooper.  Cold, wet dog nose on bare foot.  Yeeeeouweeee!

Not your usual love triangle...

Came across this neat graphic:
http://automaticromantic.com/weblog/2008/mar/28/seven-types-love/

Signs

While trying to find a full-length version of Paperman (see a few posts below), I came across Signs:

Downton Abbey...

This just tickles my funny bone tonight: And today, for the first time since the Blizzard, I was able to drive my Fusion up to the house and turn it around :)

Blizzard of '13

Blizzard of '13 Snowed from about noon on Friday 2/8 till noon on Saturday 2/9. 24", maybe 26"...real hard to tell with the drifting. Never a good sign when the wood stove chimney has developed snotsicles...

The garden tractor and plow...

The garden tractor and plow after 30 minutes:

At which point I decided I'll working from home until it melts. At least melts down to about 1' high so I can actually push the snow somewhere.

Adding some more pics...

We need more of this in the world...

Arrgghh! Those rat mouse bastards took the full six and a half minute version off the web! Here's the trailer for Paperman though:

Mooooo

January Picture Dump

4" of wet snow today...mower did great plowing it.

And it's time to catch on pics for the first half of January:

Built a mantle finally!

Unlike the perimeter bookshelf that I simply rested on top of the eye-screws lagged into the studs, I used my new router to make a groove for them to rest flush in:




I cut the eyes off the screws after lagging them in:




Decided it needed a piece of trim around the top. Nailing it down wasn't enough, so I set a bead of wood glue -- then realized the four clamps I had weren't enough!!! Had to run across the street to the hardware store and buy a mix-and-match from their economy tool table:


And with it stained...stonework this summer!


Made some stove-top chili slow-cooked overnight:


And while I've cut my wheat consumption at least in half since this fall...sometimes I splurge. Pancake time!


Who the heck was the engineer who designed this? Need to drill a hole to screw in the angle iron to reinforced the cantilevered part of the bookshelf. (Thank goodness I had a right angle adapter that was able to do the job).


Done! I will hide the angle iron some how...maybe just paint it to match the wall when I paint it?

Recipe Place Holder -- Chili

http://cleangreensimple.com/2011/02/slow-cooker-chili/

New Years Day stuff...

Starting off with Oscar resting up on New Years Eve in his new bed from Aunt Pat:



Picked up a Router (and yet more Red Oak boards) at Lowes between a gift card and my work Christmas bonus on New Years Eve to be ready for today's projects:


Needed the router to make grooves in the boards to accomodate the pot rack, plus I know I'll need it when I finally get to the point of building the custom desk I want :)


On the woodstove side I need to build a mantle, though I'm starting to get a good idea how I'll built it. It'll continue the red oak trim theme. Also need to some quarter-round to neaten up the wall/ceiling corner. (And that whole ceiling above the woodstove needs work.)

On the kitchen side, I need to move the counter & baker racks it sits on around so I can fix up the wall and window behind it and get that painted this winter (you can see the new color on the woodstove side):


This summer, since I can't do it during wood burning season, I'll get the backer board covered with a cultured stone similar to this:


And also hung up the sign: