Jul 30: leaving early today
May 9: Project: halving the deck
Fact: We have a deck. Opinion: It's a good deck.
Fact: We have a back yard. Opinion: It's not so good.
Opinions, presented as facts in a pro/con list:
- Con: The deck is too big.
- Con: We don't use most of the deck.
- Pro: The deck railing blocks our view of our not so good back yard. (this one actually is a fact)
- Con: The deck railing blocks our view of our myriad bird feeders. (this one, too)
- Con: The deck feels like it is blocking us off from our backyard.
Computer generated result: reduce size of deck by 50% and remove back railing. This will make the deck flow into the back yard. This will make the back yard more inviting to humans. This will provide enough wood to build another, free-standing, non-close-in-ing deck just over there.This will provide plenty of room for sitting on deck and watching squirrels eat bird food. It will also continue to provide a location for the grill. It will also more or less approximate heaven on earth.
Factual Photos:
The deck from that one corner. Frame to hold upside-down tomatoes is lying in the foreground.
On the deck looking 'over there'
Unknown to the computer, we have already begun demolition of the deck. Since this picture was taken, it has rained almost continually, so no further work has been completed. Fact: the thing under the pretty blue tarp is my brother-in-law's massive roto-tiller.
Fact: We have a deck. Opinion: It's a good deck.
Fact: We have a back yard. Opinion: It's not so good.
Opinions, presented as facts in a pro/con list:
- Con: The deck is too big.
- Con: We don't use most of the deck.
- Pro: The deck railing blocks our view of our not so good back yard. (this one actually is a fact)
- Con: The deck railing blocks our view of our myriad bird feeders. (this one, too)
- Con: The deck feels like it is blocking us off from our backyard.
Computer generated result: reduce size of deck by 50% and remove back railing. This will make the deck flow into the back yard. This will make the back yard more inviting to humans. This will provide enough wood to build another, free-standing, non-close-in-ing deck just over there.This will provide plenty of room for sitting on deck and watching squirrels eat bird food. It will also continue to provide a location for the grill. It will also more or less approximate heaven on earth.
Factual Photos:
The deck from that one corner. Frame to hold upside-down tomatoes is lying in the foreground.
On the deck looking 'over there'
Unknown to the computer, we have already begun demolition of the deck. Since this picture was taken, it has rained almost continually, so no further work has been completed. Fact: the thing under the pretty blue tarp is my brother-in-law's massive roto-tiller.
May 7: Mysterious
I used to do an occasional blog series about photo-blogs that I liked. That, as with most of my actual blogging, died a quick, yet painful death. When I started getting into flickr, I thought that I'd continue the same idea, but featuring flickr users. That didn't happen either.
Maybe this post will be the beginning of a long-running, oft-updated series of blog posts. Maybe...but I wouldn't hold your breath.
Anyway, I saw the above photo today and thought I'd share it with you. He's got some other great macro stuff in his 'plants & things' set, so definitely click through and check it out.
I used to do an occasional blog series about photo-blogs that I liked. That, as with most of my actual blogging, died a quick, yet painful death. When I started getting into flickr, I thought that I'd continue the same idea, but featuring flickr users. That didn't happen either.
Maybe this post will be the beginning of a long-running, oft-updated series of blog posts. Maybe...but I wouldn't hold your breath.
Anyway, I saw the above photo today and thought I'd share it with you. He's got some other great macro stuff in his 'plants & things' set, so definitely click through and check it out.
May 5: No Holds Barred Pinewood Derby Car
I recently took part in a 'No Holds Barred Pinewood Derby' at my church. I had elaborate plans for a car that would use some sort of spring-loaded arm to knock the other car off of the track, but in the end I went with a simpler design. Actually, I forgot when it was going to be and rushed to just get something done. Luckily, almost everyone else was in the same boat.
As you can see, my car is the block of wood from the kit with a brick gorilla-glued to the top. I named it 'fast,' but also toyed with the idea of 'heavy' or 'rough.'
Side view showing off the fancy design work.
You know it's fast because the eye is watering.
I was doing pretty well, but then I decided to lubricate the wheels with a little oil that someone had brought. Some of it seeped onto the nails/axles which caused them to slip under the weight of the brick. By the end of each run, the wheels looked like this:
The wheels are supposed to be vertical...
I ran it one more time after the derby was over and one of the wheels came completely out causing a pretty horrific (for a pinewood derby) crash.
In the end, I was beat by the car with the monkey wrench duct-taped to the top and the car with the wind-up accelerator. I did win the following prestigious award, however:
I blew out the competition in this category.
Apr 6: Toadtopia: toad houses at the furiousCompound
So, I may have recently taken complete leave of my senses. I've posted here on the blog and over on Twitter/Facebook (my tweets are also my FB statuses) about several tree-hugging hippie projects that I have undertaken or intend to undertake, including a rain-water capturing system, a gray water reclamation project and turning my backyard hill into a meadow. The meadow is actually in progress--I've planted wildflowers and clover on the hill, but, annoyingly, nothing is growing so far. The clover apparently needs an inoculent that provides bacteria that it needs to grow or something. I read some reports online where people just threw the clover seed down and the clover did great. I'm going to get some inoculent and some more seed and give it another shot.
Anyway, the project that may signal the parting of me and my senses is my toad house project. Toads provide many benefits to the area they live in. Ok, they provide one main benefit, but it's a good one: they eat bugs. One toad can eat 100 mosquitoes a night and thousands of slugs and other harmful (and I assume, some non-harmful) bugs a year. Obviously, my main motivation is the mosquitoes.
It is very easy to attract toads to your yard. Mainly, they just need a nice cool place to call home and some water.
There are a ton of places online that will sell nice toad houses that look nice and are appropriate for placing amongst your flowers or other places where they'll be seen. My toad houses were going to be out of view under my deck, so they didn't need to be particularly fetching. I have a lot of spare bricks that used to be a border at the front of our house. So, I decided to use those to form several toad houses. Basically all I did was lay two bricks parallel to each other about 2 1/2 inches apart and then more bricks across the gap as a roof. Then, to make it extra homey, I piled dirt over the whole thing.
I made two toad compounds (Toadtopia East and Toadtopia West) on opposite sides of the deck. Each compound has three homes and a water fixture. For Toadtopia West, the water fixture is an old cake pan with some rocks in it. Toadtopia East's fixture is a little bigger. It's a garbage can lid, also with some rocks in it. Both the garbage lid and the cake pan are dug into the ground.
Now, I just needed to sit back and wait for the toads. Waiting sounded terrible, so I imported some toads from the pond at my sister's house. Don't worry, they're only a few minutes away and have the same kind of toads that live near me. We went over there yesterday and my niece Jennifer had caught ten toads for me. They were in a big metal wash basin and it was absolutely X-rated. There were four couples locked in what appeared to be a love-death-grip. They had produced (and were continuing to produce) a ton of toad eggs.
By the time the toad houses were ready, most of the couples had separated. I took a few of the toads one-by-one and put them near the entrances to Toadtopia West. Two of them claimed houses almost immediately while one hopped up on top. I put another one near there, but I didn't see if it went in the third house or just hopped away.
The second picture above shows the whole of Toadtopia West, including the cake pan pond. The third house opens to the right making it hard to see.
By this point, there were two couple still attached. So, I took the other two singles and placed them near Toadtopia East. They both claimed houses right away. Since the couples were in water, I decided to put them in the trash can lid pond with the water and eggs from the wash basin. They both sat there for a minute or two and then climbed out. One couple hopped away under the deck (well the bottom one hopped, the top one just hung on), but I grabbed the other couple and put them right at the entrance to the last house. They eventually climbed in and turned to look out (the third image below is toad-pornographic and may not be safe for work).
I recently took part in a 'No Holds Barred Pinewood Derby' at my church. I had elaborate plans for a car that would use some sort of spring-loaded arm to knock the other car off of the track, but in the end I went with a simpler design. Actually, I forgot when it was going to be and rushed to just get something done. Luckily, almost everyone else was in the same boat.
As you can see, my car is the block of wood from the kit with a brick gorilla-glued to the top. I named it 'fast,' but also toyed with the idea of 'heavy' or 'rough.'
I was doing pretty well, but then I decided to lubricate the wheels with a little oil that someone had brought. Some of it seeped onto the nails/axles which caused them to slip under the weight of the brick. By the end of each run, the wheels looked like this:
I ran it one more time after the derby was over and one of the wheels came completely out causing a pretty horrific (for a pinewood derby) crash.
In the end, I was beat by the car with the monkey wrench duct-taped to the top and the car with the wind-up accelerator. I did win the following prestigious award, however:
As you can see, my car is the block of wood from the kit with a brick gorilla-glued to the top. I named it 'fast,' but also toyed with the idea of 'heavy' or 'rough.'
Side view showing off the fancy design work.
You know it's fast because the eye is watering.
I was doing pretty well, but then I decided to lubricate the wheels with a little oil that someone had brought. Some of it seeped onto the nails/axles which caused them to slip under the weight of the brick. By the end of each run, the wheels looked like this:
The wheels are supposed to be vertical...
I ran it one more time after the derby was over and one of the wheels came completely out causing a pretty horrific (for a pinewood derby) crash.
In the end, I was beat by the car with the monkey wrench duct-taped to the top and the car with the wind-up accelerator. I did win the following prestigious award, however:
I blew out the competition in this category.
Apr 6: Toadtopia: toad houses at the furiousCompound
So, I may have recently taken complete leave of my senses. I've posted here on the blog and over on Twitter/Facebook (my tweets are also my FB statuses) about several tree-hugging hippie projects that I have undertaken or intend to undertake, including a rain-water capturing system, a gray water reclamation project and turning my backyard hill into a meadow. The meadow is actually in progress--I've planted wildflowers and clover on the hill, but, annoyingly, nothing is growing so far. The clover apparently needs an inoculent that provides bacteria that it needs to grow or something. I read some reports online where people just threw the clover seed down and the clover did great. I'm going to get some inoculent and some more seed and give it another shot.
Anyway, the project that may signal the parting of me and my senses is my toad house project. Toads provide many benefits to the area they live in. Ok, they provide one main benefit, but it's a good one: they eat bugs. One toad can eat 100 mosquitoes a night and thousands of slugs and other harmful (and I assume, some non-harmful) bugs a year. Obviously, my main motivation is the mosquitoes.
It is very easy to attract toads to your yard. Mainly, they just need a nice cool place to call home and some water.
There are a ton of places online that will sell nice toad houses that look nice and are appropriate for placing amongst your flowers or other places where they'll be seen. My toad houses were going to be out of view under my deck, so they didn't need to be particularly fetching. I have a lot of spare bricks that used to be a border at the front of our house. So, I decided to use those to form several toad houses. Basically all I did was lay two bricks parallel to each other about 2 1/2 inches apart and then more bricks across the gap as a roof. Then, to make it extra homey, I piled dirt over the whole thing.
I made two toad compounds (Toadtopia East and Toadtopia West) on opposite sides of the deck. Each compound has three homes and a water fixture. For Toadtopia West, the water fixture is an old cake pan with some rocks in it. Toadtopia East's fixture is a little bigger. It's a garbage can lid, also with some rocks in it. Both the garbage lid and the cake pan are dug into the ground.
Now, I just needed to sit back and wait for the toads. Waiting sounded terrible, so I imported some toads from the pond at my sister's house. Don't worry, they're only a few minutes away and have the same kind of toads that live near me. We went over there yesterday and my niece Jennifer had caught ten toads for me. They were in a big metal wash basin and it was absolutely X-rated. There were four couples locked in what appeared to be a love-death-grip. They had produced (and were continuing to produce) a ton of toad eggs.
By the time the toad houses were ready, most of the couples had separated. I took a few of the toads one-by-one and put them near the entrances to Toadtopia West. Two of them claimed houses almost immediately while one hopped up on top. I put another one near there, but I didn't see if it went in the third house or just hopped away.
The second picture above shows the whole of Toadtopia West, including the cake pan pond. The third house opens to the right making it hard to see.
By this point, there were two couple still attached. So, I took the other two singles and placed them near Toadtopia East. They both claimed houses right away. Since the couples were in water, I decided to put them in the trash can lid pond with the water and eggs from the wash basin. They both sat there for a minute or two and then climbed out. One couple hopped away under the deck (well the bottom one hopped, the top one just hung on), but I grabbed the other couple and put them right at the entrance to the last house. They eventually climbed in and turned to look out (the third image below is toad-pornographic and may not be safe for work).
So, I may have recently taken complete leave of my senses. I've posted here on the blog and over on Twitter/Facebook (my tweets are also my FB statuses) about several tree-hugging hippie projects that I have undertaken or intend to undertake, including a rain-water capturing system, a gray water reclamation project and turning my backyard hill into a meadow. The meadow is actually in progress--I've planted wildflowers and clover on the hill, but, annoyingly, nothing is growing so far. The clover apparently needs an inoculent that provides bacteria that it needs to grow or something. I read some reports online where people just threw the clover seed down and the clover did great. I'm going to get some inoculent and some more seed and give it another shot.
Anyway, the project that may signal the parting of me and my senses is my toad house project. Toads provide many benefits to the area they live in. Ok, they provide one main benefit, but it's a good one: they eat bugs. One toad can eat 100 mosquitoes a night and thousands of slugs and other harmful (and I assume, some non-harmful) bugs a year. Obviously, my main motivation is the mosquitoes.
It is very easy to attract toads to your yard. Mainly, they just need a nice cool place to call home and some water.
There are a ton of places online that will sell nice toad houses that look nice and are appropriate for placing amongst your flowers or other places where they'll be seen. My toad houses were going to be out of view under my deck, so they didn't need to be particularly fetching. I have a lot of spare bricks that used to be a border at the front of our house. So, I decided to use those to form several toad houses. Basically all I did was lay two bricks parallel to each other about 2 1/2 inches apart and then more bricks across the gap as a roof. Then, to make it extra homey, I piled dirt over the whole thing.
I made two toad compounds (Toadtopia East and Toadtopia West) on opposite sides of the deck. Each compound has three homes and a water fixture. For Toadtopia West, the water fixture is an old cake pan with some rocks in it. Toadtopia East's fixture is a little bigger. It's a garbage can lid, also with some rocks in it. Both the garbage lid and the cake pan are dug into the ground.
Now, I just needed to sit back and wait for the toads. Waiting sounded terrible, so I imported some toads from the pond at my sister's house. Don't worry, they're only a few minutes away and have the same kind of toads that live near me. We went over there yesterday and my niece Jennifer had caught ten toads for me. They were in a big metal wash basin and it was absolutely X-rated. There were four couples locked in what appeared to be a love-death-grip. They had produced (and were continuing to produce) a ton of toad eggs.
By the time the toad houses were ready, most of the couples had separated. I took a few of the toads one-by-one and put them near the entrances to Toadtopia West. Two of them claimed houses almost immediately while one hopped up on top. I put another one near there, but I didn't see if it went in the third house or just hopped away.
The second picture above shows the whole of Toadtopia West, including the cake pan pond. The third house opens to the right making it hard to see.
By this point, there were two couple still attached. So, I took the other two singles and placed them near Toadtopia East. They both claimed houses right away. Since the couples were in water, I decided to put them in the trash can lid pond with the water and eggs from the wash basin. They both sat there for a minute or two and then climbed out. One couple hopped away under the deck (well the bottom one hopped, the top one just hung on), but I grabbed the other couple and put them right at the entrance to the last house. They eventually climbed in and turned to look out (the third image below is toad-pornographic and may not be safe for work).
Anyway, the project that may signal the parting of me and my senses is my toad house project. Toads provide many benefits to the area they live in. Ok, they provide one main benefit, but it's a good one: they eat bugs. One toad can eat 100 mosquitoes a night and thousands of slugs and other harmful (and I assume, some non-harmful) bugs a year. Obviously, my main motivation is the mosquitoes.
It is very easy to attract toads to your yard. Mainly, they just need a nice cool place to call home and some water.
There are a ton of places online that will sell nice toad houses that look nice and are appropriate for placing amongst your flowers or other places where they'll be seen. My toad houses were going to be out of view under my deck, so they didn't need to be particularly fetching. I have a lot of spare bricks that used to be a border at the front of our house. So, I decided to use those to form several toad houses. Basically all I did was lay two bricks parallel to each other about 2 1/2 inches apart and then more bricks across the gap as a roof. Then, to make it extra homey, I piled dirt over the whole thing.
I made two toad compounds (Toadtopia East and Toadtopia West) on opposite sides of the deck. Each compound has three homes and a water fixture. For Toadtopia West, the water fixture is an old cake pan with some rocks in it. Toadtopia East's fixture is a little bigger. It's a garbage can lid, also with some rocks in it. Both the garbage lid and the cake pan are dug into the ground.
Now, I just needed to sit back and wait for the toads. Waiting sounded terrible, so I imported some toads from the pond at my sister's house. Don't worry, they're only a few minutes away and have the same kind of toads that live near me. We went over there yesterday and my niece Jennifer had caught ten toads for me. They were in a big metal wash basin and it was absolutely X-rated. There were four couples locked in what appeared to be a love-death-grip. They had produced (and were continuing to produce) a ton of toad eggs.
By the time the toad houses were ready, most of the couples had separated. I took a few of the toads one-by-one and put them near the entrances to Toadtopia West. Two of them claimed houses almost immediately while one hopped up on top. I put another one near there, but I didn't see if it went in the third house or just hopped away.
The second picture above shows the whole of Toadtopia West, including the cake pan pond. The third house opens to the right making it hard to see.
By this point, there were two couple still attached. So, I took the other two singles and placed them near Toadtopia East. They both claimed houses right away. Since the couples were in water, I decided to put them in the trash can lid pond with the water and eggs from the wash basin. They both sat there for a minute or two and then climbed out. One couple hopped away under the deck (well the bottom one hopped, the top one just hung on), but I grabbed the other couple and put them right at the entrance to the last house. They eventually climbed in and turned to look out (the third image below is toad-pornographic and may not be safe for work).
