Ta Da!

Greg called and asked me to bring him dinner at school. I thought it looked so good I wanted to take a picture.


Anyway, while we were on the phone he was standing outside looking at a trailer. He was quiet for a second and then burst out, "Hey! I know why that trailer looks so familiar! I designed it on Solid Works!"


Sometime last semester Greg had spent hours and hours working on his computer to design this trailer thing.


I'm not sure what it's for...But the school had hired him to design the solid model of it for them.


It was cool to actually see this big thing that he dreamed up in his mind. He designed every single little detail of this whole trailer. Wow, It's like magic!

Greg caught a fish!

It was too small so he threw it back. Then he remembered he didn't have a fishing license so he wasn't supposed to catch fish anyway. Oh well. He had fun anyway.


You can probably tell he was just out with his guy friends...thus the goofy pictures.


Greg thought it was funny that you can still see the worm on the hook in the picture. I think it's kind of gross with the blood dripping down the fish. It must be awful to get a hook stuck through your mouth. I feel like the fish is looking at the camera...creepy.

So Cute, but not really

Tonight when I got home from mutual, it was a little before dusk and I saw this dark little mass bouncing along on the pavement. It was heading out of the garden and towards the house, and I knew it had to be a mouse. I thought it was funny that it was so slow. I hopped out of the car and kind of stomped towards it, hoping to scare it away, back into the field. It was pretty tiny, so I thought it might be a new little baby mouse. It seemed disoriented, and instead of running away it ran towards my stomping feet. (Just like Gus on the Cinderella movie.) Surprised--I and jumped away trying not to squish it with my crocs. It would have been horrible to step on that little mouse!

(This isn't actually the mouse I saw, but it looks exactly like it. I didn't have the camera with me when I saw it.)


The mouse ran towards the storage units and hid in the corner where the door meets the ground. I got a handful of gravel and started throwing rocks in that area to scare it away from the door and hopefully towards the field again. It wouldn't budge. I had to actually hit it with the rocks to make it move. I felt bad, but if I bounced the rock off the wall right behind it, then the force of the rock would push it forward away from the wall.

After getting it about a foot away from the wall with the rocks, I decided to get the shovel and try to scoop it up. The mouse acted like it was drunk. It would fall on it's side and roll on it's back, and then get up and turn in a circle, and fall down again. It was really hard to scoop it up without just squishing it. I finally got it on the shovel, then walked out to the field and tossed it.

It was so sad. I think it's tail and maybe a leg got squished with the shovel, but I'm wondering if that mouse might have eaten some poison already. It might have been acting crazy because it was on it's way out of this life anyway.
Having mice around is a very bad thing, but seeing that little one up close, and when it was still alive made it really hard to keep hating mice. It just looked so cute and I wanted to hold it and pet it and feed it treats. Haha, I wanted to let it run around in colored tubes hooked up to a cage with a fun wheel where it could run, and a water dish.........Oh poor little mouse.

A Work in Progress

I worked in the garden some more today. It's not exactly the same idea I learned from my library video, but it's similar and does the some job.


I got some black stuff to cover the ground with also. It will help keep weeks out, keep the soil from eroding or crusting over when it's watered, and it helps the soil warm up faster. It was kind of tricking putting it down and cutting holes in the right places for it to go over things like the fire hydrant and the pipes sticking out of the ground. Hopefully you don't have a fire hydrant in the middle of your garden.

I left part of the garden uncovered and then planted onions, garlic, and carrots there. Next week I will plant all my little seedlings that I started in the house down in the garden. I've never done this before with the black stuff, but I assume it will work out to just cut slits/holes where I'm going to plant each plant. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm excited to get my 60 pepper plants in the ground! They are devoted to summer time salsa.



It doesn't show in this picture, but I went back with string and wrapped it between the ribs (like it showed in my previous post) to support the plastic. I made one panel of plastic with a long skinny board on each end and it worked really well to put over the top of those ribs and string. The wind blows so hard though that it's almost impossible to set up with one person. It's like a big sail, and then wind kept blowing it out of my hands. I'll have to wait until Greg can help me with that part.



This is to show how the pipes are staying in place. We got pvc pipe a little big bigger than the pipe that makes the ribs. We cut two foot sections, and then put a screw through it about 8 inches down from the edge. Then we pounded the two foot sections down into the ground with the screw closer to the top side. That way when we put the "rib pipe" into the "foundation pipe" the rib didn't fall all the way down. We wanted the ribs to stay tall enough to allow for the tomatillos to grow inside too. They will take about a quarter of the green house on the far left side, and then the pepper plants will take up the rest of the space on the right.
(You may notice how nicely the black cover fits with the pipe sticking out of the ground...I just wanted to point that out because it was hard to do and I'm proud of it. Heheh!)


It's exciting to see this all starting to come together and look like something. Sometimes I talk to the mail man and he comments on the garden (since the mail box is right next to it.) Last summer I would pick some tomatoes for him if I was there when he came. It's fun to share your vegetables from the garden in the summer. There's something special about being able to say, "I grew that tomato all by myself!"

Cool Garden Ideas

Building Raised Bed Gardens:
I got these ideas from an old video I got at the library. This is what I'm going to at the next place we live. My current garden space is kind of awkward and hard to work with.

Anyway, this is what you do. You're going to build a raised bed garden, and on each 4 foot board you will strap a piece of pvc pipe, about a foot long.


You'll make a long rectangle like this, and you can see the circles are where the pipes are. The bed should be 3 to 4 feet wide so you can reach to the middle without stepping in it. Since you won't be walking in your garden at all you won't have to worry about digging it so much. The soil should stay light a fluffy for the most part. This will save you a lot of work next year because you won't have to dig or till it all again.


Then you go get some flexible tubing. On the video it was black, and I think about 4-5 feet long. You just stick the tubing down in the pvc pipe on both sides of the garden box, so it looks like this. On the video he measured the top of the tube in the middle to be about two feet tall, so it shouldn't get in the way of most plants.


Then you get some string and nails. Put three nails on each end of the garden box on the outside. You tie a string to each nail and run it the length of the box, wrapping it around each tube so it stays in place.


Then you get some rolls of plastic. The plastic should be wide enough to stretch over the ribs (those tubes) and have a little overlap. I think that would be about 4 and a half feet if your ribs are every 4 feet. You can staple the end of the plastic to a piece of wood and put the plastic over the garden box. There should be a panel of plastic for each 4 foot section, and a panel to cover each end of the box.


This way you have your whole garden box covered, but if you want to go work in the garden you don't have to take it all apart. Just lift up that section of plastic.

Another thing you should do is make 4-6 inch slits in the plastic every 6 inches down the row. This will help your plants not get too overheated as the sun comes out and warms it all up.


This is great because your plants will be warmer and protected from frost in the beginning and end of the season. The guy on the video said you can plant a month and a half earlier than your neighbors, and keep plants growing a month and a half later than your neighbors. This means you will be the coolest neighbor on the block and your neighbors will all be jealous of your super cool garden.


The next cool thing is the trellis for your climbing plants. You build the same garden box with pvc pipes stuck to the boards.


Then you stick tall rigid pvc pipes down in the "board pipes."


This gives you the frame to hang netting. The guy on the video staple his netting to a piece of wood 4 feet long, and then stuck it to the tall pipes. I think he drilled holes at the top of the pipes, put a screw on both ends of the wood. Then he put the screw from the piece of wood through the pipe hole and used a butterfly nut to secure it. You can figure that part out though. It doesn't have to be exactly the way that guy did it.


The end result is that you have a nice long garden with a sturdy tall trellis for the whole length of the garden. Your tomatoes, cantaloupe, squash, and everything else will be perfectly happy growing there. Also, the netting he used has 7 inch squares so it's big enough to reach your hand through and pick the tomatoes.


I hope this has inspired all you people out in blog world, and I expect to see your gardens posted on your blogs soon too!

S.P.D.C. Part Two: Mars Rocks Robot

Do you remember the S.P.D.C. Post I did recently? Greg was on two design teams: The R.C. Baja Car (I showed in the first post) and the Mars Rocks Robot. He solid modeled both projects completely on his computer. Then he gave the files to the guys in the shop and they cut the parts out for him. Then he and another guy put it all together to make the robot.

So this is the robot! They named it "The Claw." The idea was to build a robot that someone could send into space and set it on mars. Then it would need to move around, crawl over obstacles, pick up rocks and carry them back to deposit them in a certain place.


Notice the claw that is out flat in front of the robot (above picture). It picks up rocks by opening up very wide, then drawing in the rock as it closes. This is helpful because you don't have to be perfectly positioned in front of the rock to grab it. Once you grab the rock, the claw lifts up and moves backwards, then drops the rock over the hopper in the middle section. (The hopper looks like a little cage) The hopper holds the rocks while the robot crawls over obstacles and makes it's way back to the target.


The whole thing was designed perfectly. Greg and his buddy tested the robot on a course they built and were able to complete the whole thing in about 2 minutes. They had four controls, and they each were in charge of two. One person had two controls to drive the robot around, and the other person had two controls to operate the claw. The day before the competition Greg found out that you can only use one driver. He stayed up all night (literally all night) working on the robot to re-wire and fix it up to use only two controls so he could drive the robot by himself. He came home at 7am to take a shower and say hi and went back to being in charge of everything at the conference.


So the big moment came and it was Greg's turn with the robot. It was nerve wracking as we all waited for the robot and the controls to sync (it was wireless controls). Everybody stood around and kind of giggled as Greg sat in the spotlight waiting for his robot to go. Finally the claw twitched, and they started the time! He pressed forward full throttle, then started to turn and that's when it was all over. The carpet was a twist that nobody thought of and it cause the tank tracks to come right off the robot.


The driver is not allowed to touch the robot for this competition, so it was pretty much over as soon as it started. Greg was able to drive the robot around a little, and by crashing into the side of the barrier cause the robot to turn enough to get to one rock. He picked up the first rock and put it in the hopper, but since he couldn't turn any more to put the rock on the target he just went back and put it back in it's place. At least he could show how the robot should have worked.


Seven schools came to compete. Only three robots were able to function on the carpet without loosing their tracks. Oddly every school thought to use tank tracks instead of wheels. When it was all over the course was open for people to play around with their robots. Greg was able to collect all the rocks and put them all exactly in the middle of the target since he could save the robot and put the tracks back on. Another robot came on the course too and everybody laughed at the mini battle bots combat. Greg tried to attack the other robot with the claw and pull it's wires out, and the other robot drove over the top of Greg's.

My little garden

I just wanted to show off my cute little garden. It's still in the house because it's too cold outside. The bigger plants are red and yellow bell peppers. In the square containers I have jalapeno, yellow jalapeno, serrano, and anaheim peppers growing. The other tray with circles that look empty are growing two types of tomatoes as well as tomatillos. These trays are pretty much devoted to salsa.


These are the cantaloupe plants. I started them about a month ago. I'm anxious to plant them outside as they are starting to get bigger and look for places to creep along. You can grow them on a trellis or let them spread out on the ground. I like watching the little "feelers" that grow and search for a hold. They find something and then curl up tight making cute little spirals.



I have another tray of circle containers that have acorn, yellow crooked neck, delicata, and buttercup squash. I just planted them last week though, so it would be a boring picture of plain soil. I'm sure you'll see the plants here in a few weeks. By then everybody will be living in the garden and hopefully growing well.

Finally!

I FINALLY finished the curtains for the front room! This project has taken FOR-EVER since we have 7 windows in this apartment. You may recall (from almost a year ago) that all the windows in our apartment were covered with nasty old broken blinds. I had thought for a moment about cleaning all the blinds for all the windows, but considering the state of them I decided quickly that it was not worth it. They had been poorly installed (before we lived here), and most of them broke and fell out of the window at one time or another when I pulled the string to open them. How annoying! This project has just dragged on because I lost excitement for it by the time I was working on the third window. The job got old too fast. Also, it's kind of hard to keep my sewing stuff out and messy around the house for very long.


Anyway, I hope I don't have to make that many curtains again for a very long time. Hopefully I'll get to pick out cute or pretty material and it will be for my own house instead of a rental. That will probably make it more fun and exciting.

Beautiful

I was having kind of a bad day--dealing with rude or angry customers. It started to rain very hard and the sky was so gray it almost felt like night time in the house. The dark shadows added to my dark mood and I just felt awful.
Greg called me from school and asked me to bring him dinner. I brought him some food, and then went home. Just as I was pulling up to our driveway the sun came out from behind the clouds and brightened the whole sky. The rain stopped just as I walked into the house. When I got upstairs I happened to look out the window and see the brightest most vibrant rainbow I've ever seen! It was beautiful! It was actually a double rainbow, the outer one a little fainter, but I could see both all the way from end to end.














(The pictures look kind of dark--the colors were actually a bit brighter.) It was a nice reminder that I really needed, that life isn't that bad. The things that go wrong or upset me can't really take away my eternal perspective and the joy that comes with it.

So I hope this rainbow brightens your day too!

I did it!

This picture represents a few hours of worry and about 15 minutes of very hard scary work.
Greg was supposed to cut the lock off for some people that lost the key for the lock on their storage unit. He was supposed to be home at 3pm from his canoe trip with the scouts, but at 5:15pm when the people showed up for their lock-cut appointment he still wasn't home! I was worried about what I should do, and also about what was making him so late.

I decided to suck it up and try to do what I've seen him do. These locks are incredibly strong, so you can't just chop them off with the regular lock cutters. You have to get the grinder out and grind/melt the lock off. This requires power, and of course there's nowhere to plug the grinder in outside. So that means you have to get the converter box and the car and park in front of the unit. Then you clip the converter box on to the car battery while it's running, plug in the grinder to the converter box and grind away!

It's scary because it's really loud and shoots lots of sparks all over the place. I wore leather gloves and tried to keep my face far away, but at the same time tried to see what I was doing. After about 15 minutes of serious grinding the lock fell apart. It was very hot and I couldn't even hold it with my thick leather gloves. I just left it on the ground and kicked it up to the office so I could trash it.

I did it all by myself!

(When Greg got home at 7pm, he told me a tale of woe...they capsized their canoes, and it was cold and windy and they got sunburned even though it was a cloudy day...but everybody was ok!)