Around Waynos house

[wayno]

I'm amending my soil as well, along with expanding. Were the grapes getting too much water and attention?

They were not producing for the effort I was putting into them, the grapes were small and few and far between, I suspect I did not know how to prune them properly(pruning too much/not enough/wrong), I likely only had 20 grapes to eat this year, and it has been the same for several years, they were growing up the surrounding trees, over the fence into the neighbor's yard, I can buy better tasting/more total grapes at Chucks for less than $5.00, when I planted them 24 years ago they produced lots of grapes for me and the birds to eat, not so much the last decade.

It also took a lot of time to weed that area under them, but the raspberries did not have weed issues, these 2 places/areas are places I do not ever rototill along with around the blueberry plants, but the blueberry plants are planted in sunken spots, so the base gets watered only, the surrounding areas stay dry and weeds do not grow so well, the raspberries and grapes got watered everywhere in their area as their roots are spread out, it was easy to rototill the unwanted raspberry plants under that grow in the garden area, their roots can grow several feet into areas I do not want them and have new plants start, they sort of spread like blackberries.

[wayno]

So I am going to try and grow Lettuce in the house this year as Lettuce is so expensive all of a sudden, I believe I can do this because Lettuce does not need bees to pollinate them to bear the product, it only needs bees to pollinate the flowers for the next generation, these plants are what I have started so far, I need to get them into a larger more lighted area very soon.



I also started on the X-mas lights yesterday, I made the tree and put the large multi-colored lights on so far, we shall see how much farther I go this year, not that motivated yet/right now.



I do not know how far you have gone with your garden Driven, if I had the room you have I would likely have raised beds that a dump truck would fit inside, then I would have a truck deliver/dump 3-way soil directly in the raised bed areas and all that would be needed was to spread it out, I would have one area dedicated to only strawberries, another to veggies that got rototilled under every fall and in the spring to get it ready for the new years planting, over the last 24 years I have brought in likely close to a 100 yards of 3-way soil now, I started with 40 yards, likely 20 trips 2 yards at a time over the first 2 years, a yard in the truck and a yard in the trailer, but it all had to be shoveled out a scoop at a time, you could either do what I mentioned above or have the soil brought in and dumped where you want it and then put railroad ties around the soil and level it out, this is what I would do if I had the room.

[DRIVEN]

I actually took out the 3 raised beds that I had. I'm at about 2000 square feet right now and I tilled everything under a few weeks ago. In the spring I'll do a little leveling and grading, then spread a bunch of manure and wood chips that have been aging under a tarp for 3 years, then till it all again. I've got some new layout ideas to try next year. It's always improving.

I'll be curious to see how your indoor lettuce turns out. My dad was talking about trying to grow under a light in his garage just yesterday.

[wayno]

Well I am going to try to grow lettuce, right now the plants are kinda spindly, they are growing fast and skinny, so skinny that the stock/leaves will not support their own weight, I might have to use 24 hour light so they do not stretch out for the light that is not there when it is dark/dim.

I am setting up a closet with an adjustable light but having second thoughts on that and considering making a pop out glass structure in the front of the house, if I take out a lower window the heat from the house can get in there, but lights being on after dark(till 11pm) would mess up the X-mas lights, but that would give the plants maximum natural light during the day, maybe I could make a cover for at night, or maybe lettuce does not need so much light as they do well early in the Spring, I will figure it out eventually.

[wayno]

Well I bought a LED grow light, it will likely never pay for itself with the cost of it, electricity, ect; but I believe that I will have fresh lettuce without having to sort thru what is at the store looking for good heads without rot in them that cost $5.99 or more for small heads



The plants were growing like crazy, but tall and spindly with the other smaller grow lights, this light will burn the leaves if it gets too close as, it appears anything closer than 12" is too close, I want the leaves to be larger, I am hoping this light will.

Right now I have Romaine type lettuce started, but I am considering trying the green leaf type that does not grow so tall also.

I am using the bathtub in the house bathroom right now, I have not used that tub in 20 years except when I put the hardwood floors in the master bedroom bathroom.

[wayno]

I bought some new appliances, here is what I have now, the Range was kinda expensive to me, but I have never bought one before, I wanted something with knobs for each device/burner/oven, it was easy to install, I had to make the counter hole/slot 1.75" wider, I forget the name brand right now, it has all sorts of oven modes, airfry, broil, etc.


Here is the Whirlpool dishwasher, it was not easy to install and did not come with certain parts that it should have come with, and it says they are not supplied in the installation manual, goofy water supply connection, a garden hose fitting, I made something up, it was not perfect, but the connection is over the drip tray.


I cannot even hear the dishwasher running, I opened the door a couple times and everything was wet, so I believe it was functioning properly, it has 2 ways to clean silverware, the normal removable bin on the side that you stand them up in, and the third level pull out tray that each piece lays on its side not touching anything except the tray it is on, there is only enough space/room/height for very short things, it takes way longer on auto mode to wash the dishes, over 2 hours and they did not appear to come out any cleaner than the 30 year old Maytag, but it says it is more efficient power wise and I suspect uses less water also, but it was very hot inside after it got to the drying mode, I think I will turn that heated drying off, I did not use the heat to dry with the Maytag either, the fan made a lot of noise so I would open the door and pull the trays out to let them dry.

[Taterhead]

Nice, they look great. I hate having to buy appliances. All of them are too expensive in my opinion.

[wayno]

Nice, they look great. I hate having to buy appliances. All of them are too expensive in my opinion.

Yea, they were not cheap, but I wanted knobs for controls, I had no interest in pushing buttons, very few models had knobs for the oven.

What I do not like is that they are all about the same size, a few inches deeper/wider than they built counters in the 70s, so either the range/stove sticks out farther than the counter front edge or you have to do a complete remodel, once everyone remodels then they will likely start making them not as deep again so you need another remodel, I had the room on the sides to cut my counters to make it fit widthwise, but it sticks out, the dishwasher barely fit widthwise, depth was not an issue.

[wayno]

It was 19 degrees in Vancouver WA at my house last night, I do not usually see anything under 25 degrees very often, of my 3 pond filters 2 froze up, I got another one going/functioning again, last night I put warmers over the faucet covers but forgot about the pond.

I took photos but forgot to put them on the laptop before coming here to the library to use their WIFI.

I got too close to a recently vaccinated person(customer) October 20, 2022 and had an allergic reaction, December 1, 2022 I got some antibiotics as I got infections that would not go away, sores for no reason that would not heal, my sinuses were raw and freaking out(blood when I blew my nose), my gum around a tooth that was very sore, the tooth did not hurt, just the gum, I went to the dentist and she said she thought the tooth was dying and it needed a root canal, I told her the tooth did not hurt, she said the infection was sweating thru the tooth to the gum, and then I asked if she could prescribe me some antibiotics and if things did not get better I would either have the tooth pulled or have a root canal done, she agreed and about a week later all is better, my sores have healed and there are no more new ones, the sores(back of my neck/head) and itching on my leg started in late October, the gum pain started in late November, the itching(like shingles but not shingles) also went away, this was the worst allergic reaction I have had to date because of the infections, I was lucky the gum started hurting as I had no idea why my sores would not heal.

[wayno]

These are the photos of what I did/do when it gets very cold outside, the front was a what I had situation.





We had very cold weather, and then the night before last it started raining and froze almost as fast it hit the ground, last night it warmed up to 33 degrees, here are the photos of it when frozen.

[Taterhead]

Glad you’re feeling better. It’s been pretty cold here the last few days also. This was the temperature night before last right before I went to bed about 10 pm.

[wayno]

Glad you’re feeling better. It’s been pretty cold here the last few days also. This was the temperature night before last right before I went to bed about 10 pm.

That looks like 17 degrees, 2 degrees colder than it got here.

I have things that need to be addressed when it goes below freezing, mostly I have to deal with the pond I have, my biological filter exit tubes are PVC and are right out in the open, the bottom half and the end of the tubes start freezing, sometimes the dripping on the end starts freezing making an icicle, and when it drips below it starts making a stalagmite when it is really cold, eventually they merge together which can happen overnight when really cold, but if it is cold enough the end of the tube freezes up and the water cannot get out anymore and the filter starts overflowing onto the ground, it can actually empty the pond, that is why my pond pump infeed is near the surface, so it can only get down so far before it starts sucking air, other times the water freezes on the infeed hose to the filters, that is not an issue as it does not empty the pond that does have fish in it.

I do not want the pond to freeze solid because that will likely kill the KOI I have so that is why I do not shut the motor off and remove it because the motor pump housing could break if frozen with water inside it, so I have to keep everything flowing in at least one of the filters so an open hole stays open in the surface of the water to let out all the bad gasses that get trapped if the surface completely freezes up.

So, I strap light bulbs to the exit tubes or a flood light pointed or touching the tubes, sometimes when really cold I put an aquarium heater in the tube, I do everything I can to keep the tubes above freezing so they keep flowing freely, if I have to, I will just take one of the infeed hoses to one of the filters and strap it to something that holds it in the air and let that keep the open hole in the surface of the pond, as long as the water is moving it will not freeze, around here it does not get really cold for an extended period of time, normally it raises above freezing during the day, but this time we had 2 nights/days it stayed below freezing, it was a fight to keep things flowing, I believe I had 10 old type bulbs that make heat strapped to tubes and pointed at my front faucet cover in the front, one in top of a box so the cats had a warm place to huddle up in, I cut a door in the side as an entrance into the box, I will only have one cat in the house and that one chose to be a house cat itself, it will not go out the door and runs back in if I throw it out the door, I do not want my house smelling like cats and that is what would happen if I let them all inside the house, I did forget to supply unfrozen water for to the cats to drink outside this time, but they all survived, maybe they licked the ice.

I had a fence area/section blow over also, I temporally fixed it by digging the wood out of the post hole in the cement, and then pounding the post back into the hole, and then putting the sections back in place, but I had to wait for everything to thaw out before doing that, the rotten wood in the post hole cement needs to be soft to dig it out, but the neighbors keep putting bark dust over the base which rots the wood at the surface.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and have a great and safe new year holiday.

[wayno]

I am guessing, but I believe that it is too warm to grow lettuce in my house, the edges of most the plants leaf's burn/shrivel and eventually the whole leaf dies, so I made a spot outside my kitchen window where it will stay below 65ish degrees, the reason I came to this conclusion was because I read some seed packages and it said this type of plant likes it cooler, at first I thought that the light was too close to the plants.



I will know more in a week or two.

[wayno]

In finally found the Comet others on the Cloud Nights forum have been talking about, it is actually moving pretty fast compared to other objects, the reason it was so hard to find was because of clouds and how dim it really is, even faint stars are brighter, and it is easier to see with averted vision, and what I mean by that is that it is easier to see if you're not looking right at it, that is how I actually found it, I was looking at the center of the field of view(FOV) while making search passes one FOV up and it came thru the edge of the FOV so I stopped to get a better look at whatever that was and when I put it in the center I could hardly see anything looking right at it, it almost completely disappeared, but when I looked at the edge of the FOV it jumped out at me, some other objects act like this also, but in the books it says to use averted vision to find/observe them, I have heard no one say/mention using averted vision for this object, they only ask if the smudge is the Comet, it is actually quite large, if a star is a dot, the Comet is like 50 to a 100 dots across with a slightly brighter center, it center is not star like.

Fact is the sky is so big that I was not looking for it in the correct area when looking at the sky chart someone else posted on its night-by-night location, this Comet has moved half way across the sky in 10 days, but when it first appeared it only moved a little bit because it was a long way away from Earth, now it is a lot closer and it is moving 5 times plus as far each night than it did 20 nights ago, it was very close to Mars last night while I thought it was way closer to the Big Dipper, but I got out my book with sky charts and I realized I was not even close to where I thought it was as 10 days ago it was close to the Big Dipper, normally the Moon is the only fast moving object in the sky from night to night.

Here is where it was Feb 5 in the highlighted square, notice it does not look like a star and it is much clearer because it is a photo which is maybe 10+ photos stacked on each other so you can see more.



Here is a photo of it, again I cannot see it like this in my telescope with my eye, what I see is not so detailed.

[wayno]

I have basically run out of firewood, I have 2 large rounds left, I had filled the woodshed with around 12 cords around 3 years ago, so I slightly use over 4 cord a year.

I just picked up 3/4 of a cord of green fir for $75.00 today, good for next year, I just need at least 4 more to get thru next year, I told the guy I would buy more if he had any left after today.

[wayno]

I hauled 3 loads of green fir firewood home over the last 3 days, it is basically 2.25 cords, it has cost me $230.00 so far, the guy actually loads it for me with his Kabota tractor, I try to load the bucket most the time so he does not have to get off the tractor, he dumps it in the bed and I stack it.

It works out to two 16' rows stacked 7 feet high, he has more to cut up and I am hoping to get as much as possible before it is all gone as I am not the only one interested in this wood, it is all blown down trees from the last wind storm.

I forgot to take photos of my loads of wood, the largest rounds are about 2' across, but it is green wood and they are heavy, I hurt my shoulder a month ago fixing my blown down fence, it has not healed, but it has not gotten worse either, I believe I tore the rotator cup that holds the joint together, eventually I can find a spot that it does not hurt so I can go to sleep.

[DRIVEN]

Rest up, that's what winter is for.

I'm jealous of your firewood. Fir is extremely expensive over here. I've seen prices over $400/cord. You have to drive quite aways north to even cut pine. Most everything around this area is scrubby Willow or Russian Olive.

[wayno]

Good firewood is expensive around here also, some want $300.00 or more a cord for fir, oak, and other such good burning types.

[Taterhead]

Good grief that seems like a lot. I only burn wood for occasions and outside fire pits. Otherwise it’s just gas heat. But if it’s $100 a cord and you go through 4 1/2 per winter you’re still making out better than here. Gas bill is about $225 a month during cold months (maybe 3 a year) and I’m sure it’s cold there longer than here.

[wayno]

It got to 24 degrees last night, I have drifting snow over a foot deep on my property, I forgot to load the photos I took, I had over 6" of snow before it even got to freezing, it started snowing at 9:30am at 35 degrees and by late afternoon it finally hit freezing and kept on dropping, at about midnight when I checked my filter piping that was when I realized it was over a foot deep between the house and pond.

The library is closed, but I have just enough signal to use the city WIFI in the library parking lot, they pushed all the snow in piles but it is not open, people are coming in and leaving though, one guy is parked on the entrance to the library sidewalk, that was covered with rock salt I believe.