08:46 – Barbara has been gone for four days, and Colin and I are continuing to make do. We finished re-watching Jericho again last night. I continue to be impressed by the tight writing. It ran for only 30 episodes from 2006 to 2008, but I’m surprised it made it on the air at all.
I’m still running bottle labels and making up reagents in preparation for making up more chemical bags when Barbara returns. We’re down to only six bottle of Barfoed reagent for biology kits, so I made up a gallon of the stuff yesterday. It’s basically a 0.33 molar solution of copper(II) acetate in 1% acetic acid, which at room temperature is very close to being saturated. Today, I’ll make up several other long shelf-life reagents that we’re short of.
We also have several large trash bags full of 2-liter Coke bottles. I’m sure Barbara will be happy to learn that I have plans for a bunch of those bottles. I’m going to cut off the tops and turn them into planting pots that we’ll use out on the deck.
The next time Al and Frances come up, he’s going to bring his roto-tiller along. I’d like to get a small garden area tilled, maybe 20×30 feet. I don’t intend to plant much if anything there this year, but I’d like to get it tilled up so that we can introduce soil amendments this year and allow them to break down and improve the soil in preparation for actual planting next spring.
I thought you bought Mel Bartholomew’s latest iteration of Square Foot Gardening earlier this year. I’m thinking about buying a copy of that book, but from watching a couple of Youtube videos, I thought that he was all about how to grow more with less effort by using raised beds. Where using a rototiller would be definitely be called a high effort task. I’m thinking of building a small raised bed this year, and adding a small raised bed every growing season.
@dave, I have added a raised bed roughly per year. I’m out of good spaces, so now I’m doing my fence mounted “window boxes.”
There are tons of youtubes about raised beds, and making them with low cost materials, or very high cost materials. I recommend looking on Craigslist for building materials, and modify your plans around what your spouse will allow and what is available cheap.
I have used square foot planting densities with mixed results. Carrots did well, beats did not. turnips did not. If you plant some leafy veg like collards or cabbage they really do need a lot of room. I’m surprised by how little I can fit in a bed with the recommended spacing.
In any case, get started!
nick
My last gardening experience was more than 40 years ago, so I’m going to try different techniques.
Six raised beds here, about to become nine. And a couple of dozen grow-bags, some of which I’ll get started filling today. We’ve done well with tomatoes and flowers so far; blueberries and grapes were a bust. Peppers were a bust, too, but I’m not done with trying those. And this season I’ll get cracking on root veggies and herbs. Live and learn.
Meanwhile I’ve been exchanging communications with our town zoning administrator concerning our putting a shed on the rear perimeter, installing a free-standing deck, and running an internet-based business from here. So far, so good; she’s supplied the info and attached a couple of forms for us to fill out, might cost us $35.
Mrs. OFD should be in the sky now and about to leave Kalifornia air space, and her ETA back here in Vermont is around 4:30 this afternoon. She’ll be home for a whole month, which is unusual, but knock on wood; her employer has called her in before due to whatever “emergency” or sudden need out there. I hope we can get a chit-ton of stuff done where it requires the two of us, but I also plan for us to have at least a bit of fun over the next four weeks.
@nick,
I’m trying to figure out where to put our beds. The obvious spot also prime swing set and play area. Or at least what I think would be prime swing set and play area. I want to encourage our daughter to spend more time playing outside and less time with electronic devices. We have an abundance of playgrounds in the area, but the are all a little too far away to be convenient. Also I have to figure out how to keep our dog out of the garden.
I compromised on the bed locations. I don’t get quite enough light at any of them. Giant play structure gets good light 🙂
My dog is too little to be interested in getting up into the beds. Too much work.
Setting up drip irrigation when you plant is a good idea, not super expensive, and makes the most of your water and time. That said, I don’t spend much time, just a few minutes a day pulling a weed here and there, and watering if needed.
@ofd, I have success growing peppers in containers. I only grow sweet varieties as that’s what I like. Tomatoes also grow well in containers.
If you are constrained for space, grow what you can in pots, and save the plot for the big stuff….
nick
Just eat the dog. If it’s good enough for Obama, it’s good enough for you.
Re internet based business and zoning….
In most places businesses are banned from residential areas, and the ban is widely ignored. It is mostly meant to keep out businesses that have drive up customers. If you don’t require state licensing, and don’t have customers coming to the door, or generate other nuisances, no one will be the wiser. (This may not be true for a FFL, those are some complicated rules.) Having a portion of your home dedicated to a business has some tax advantages too, but you have to follow the rules.
nick
“(This may not be true for a FFL, those are some complicated rules.) Having a portion of your home dedicated to a business has some tax advantages too, but you have to follow the rules.”
There won’t be any drive-up biz here; there’s my firearms stuff and then there’s wife’s jewelry thing, and 95% of either will be via the net. Until the net goes down, that is.
“…grow what you can in pots, and save the plot for the big stuff….”
Yeah, I’m gonna do the peppers and herbs in the small grow bags and the root veggies in the big ones and the raised beds. Tomatoes will be all over the place.
Having a portion of your home dedicated to a business has some tax advantages too, but you have to follow the rules.
Our biz has been out of the house for 20 years now. Since clients don’t come to us, it has never been an HOA/zoning problem. Most HOAs state no client at home biz is OK. As for the home office deduction, be advised if you sell your home and have taken depreciation with the office, that has to be reclaimed on the sale of the house when you do your taxes. That’s on a Schedule C. Just Inc. and deduct whatever for your 1120.
When it comes to the home office deduction, if you have $1000 in mortgage interest and you itemize, then don’t claim $1000 in mortgage interest on Schedule A and then deduct additional mortgage interest for your home office. My dad found out the IRS actually catches that.
Also the home office deduction used to be one of those things that said audit me to the IRS. Don’t know whether that is still true or not.
Our town zoning admin told me just now that as fah as she’s concerned, if we do our stuff via the net, we don’t gotta worry about zoning the house for biz purposes. I can see down the road, though, that we’ll have some minimal product inventory here, and I’ll talk to her again when that happens. Their main concern is we’re not gonna turn the house into a store or strip mall and have parking problems and all that chit.
I’ll figure out the tax angles when we get to our F2F meeting with a pro tax preparer up here, hopefully this next month.
IT recruiter is gonna send my paperwork off to the client, which is UV Med Center down in Burlap; previously I could not get the time of day from that place; their HR and PHB mangler peeps are all about the Goddess Diversity and the usual SJW and prog nonsense. So once they get a look at me and my bad attitude, that will be that. Just doing due diligence here.
I saw RBT’s recommendation of WalMart as a source for Augason Farms stuff over the Internet. It looks like if you want to by 3 cans of the same thing, Sam’s Club might be a little cheaper. Probably not worth buying a membership, and I’m not to the point of wanting three cans of any Augason Farms product, but I thought I’d share it in case someone else is interested.
Check carefully by item. Sam’s is often more expensive on AF stuff even if you are buying multiples of the same item.
Don’t know whether that is still true or not.
Yep, still a major audit flag.
Hahahaha…a major audit flag. After what the IRS has done to us that somehow does not scare me. Audit us until Hell freezes over. We’ve PAID and PAID and if you fummamuckers wanna seize the house and cars, too, go right ahead and fuck you very much. We’ll be seein’ ya…
And from The Revolution Eats Its Young Department:
http://bearingarms.com/jenn-j/2016/05/26/gavin-newsom-blasted-the-pink-pistols/?utm_source=badaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
It is SO enjoyable and amusing to see the lefty sons of bitches being hoisted with their own petards.
LOL!!!
Stirp club sign enrages residents.
Class of 2016!
“Class of 2016 if your looking for a career in dancing”
Yeah. “your” instead of “you’re.” How friggin’ difficult is the native language??? And it’s not even a complete friggin’ sentence.
Another laff; ‘children fresh outta high skool’ shouldn’t be takin’ they clothes off fo money…’ Hahaha. Why not? They’re old enuff to be drafted or enlisted into the armed forces, ain’t they? Old enuff to kill peeps in other countries with whom we have no particular quarrel but not old enuff to strip. Rank hypocrisy writ large. Not to mention all the times they been takin’ they clothes off since probably middle skool to have SEXUAL RELATIONS. Just like their parents before them.
Goodreads now has a “Deals” feature like Bookbub, in case you’re* interested.
*homage to Mr. OFD
Re deducting for a home office. Because there really wasn’t room in the house I bought a suitable travel trailer to use for my office. The trailer and any related expenses were written off with no trouble, including an audit in California.
Yep. I use my office for work. No tv, no radio, nothing but work. Our files are here, our reference library is here. My electronics stuff?? Used to make repairs on things I sell, so WORK. Sign cutter, giant color xerox, work.
Our tax situation has changed somewhat since I no longer bring in what I used to so I don’t know if we even go for the office deduction anymore, but we used to.
nick
We never took the home office deduction for my wife, fortunately. The supreme court ruled that unless you are generating the revenue at the office, you can’t deduct it. It was the case of an anesthesiologist (like my wife) who did all his billing and scheduling from the home office. Since he didn’t see patients there, it was disallowed.
Be very careful in taking that deduction. As others noted, it is a can of worms when you sell your house. The profit attributable to the office is taxable.
In other news, tuning around the bands on HF and shortwave. Lots of bands open at the moment. I’m getting good reception all the way up to 20mhz…
Take a spin around the dial on your SW tonight. You might actually hear something.
nick
Heck first time ever I’m getting Wwwv at 2.5mhz. noisy as hell but I can copy the tick tocks and hear the announce.
Vatican radio, in swahili, 9.660mhz 16000km loud as day…
n
new zealand on 15.720, tenarife in 14.x , all over china, good DX tonight.
n
Mafiasoft got me last night; twice…
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2459662/updategate-microsoft-reinstalls-piss-u-off-qwik-windows-10-virus-again
I was gonna comment on this, but have decided I’m at a loss for words:
“Why I decided to give up my life in London and become a goat in Switzerland: Jobless Brit lives among mountain animals and creates prosthetics so he is just like them
Thwaites said: ‘When I first had the idea a lot of people called me crazy, but I was fed up with my life anyway and I needed a break. I was jobless andI had a lot of personal problems, and I found everyday life so stressful.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3612748/Why-decided-life-London-goat-Switzerland.html
He lived with them for 3 days, and another 3 days alone. Got a uni grant and wrote a book. WTF
nick
When I first read Heinlein’s news headlines from the Crazy Years, I though they were ridiculous. Never happen. Now they seem so commonplace as to not be worth noticing.
What was it they used to say about truth being stranger than fiction?
“Mafiasoft got me last night; twice…”
Once I did this, no more nag icons or attempted B&E’s from Microslop:
http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html
“Now they seem so commonplace as to not be worth noticing.
And what has that old fossil wack job OFD been saying all along, for YEARS, about slippery slopes? It’s been deliberate and incremental, like the frog in the pot of wotta. Get us used to kinda wacky chit, then wackier chit, and so on. Eventually no one cares about anything and anything goes.
So now we live in a freak show.
And we better not only like it, we need to CELEBRATE it!
Or the freaks will sue us.
I keep telling you, it’s time for Mr. Pointy.
Been time, for a looooonnnng time….
One might spend a very profitable and enjoyable day of it on any modern college campus, tee-vee station, or newspaper.
Before moving on to government offices, where it would qualify as one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, you know, the one about the stables. Or maybe Sisyphus…
Well that fix might have worked
So, in short, if you’re thinking about not thinking about not upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10, remember that if you’ve thought about turning off GWX and then decided to, it may not be turned off because Microsoft has decided to turn it back on again, and if you’ve uninstalled it Microsoft’s decided to reinstall it even if you told it not to.
I’ve been so in the habit of just closing the box when it comes up I was not aware they decided to make X now equate to ‘Yes, that’s just fine”.
Anyway I’ve decided to live with in spite of their tactics.
@dkreck; didja try the link I had above yet? Incidentally, when I was dealing with this chit months ago I found that they’d put 10GB of files on my machine here unbeknownst to me. All gone now and no further worries.
Hey OFD, don’t count on it. Read what it says, the keep putting it back then make no mean yes. You can remove it but can lose a lot of setting in the process YMMV. It’s really not too bad and not that different from Win 7. Of course most of the users I support have Win 7 but this was going to change eventually.
Anyway I’m assimilated now.
I can’t believe so many people take this so calmly. This is an outrage, and just the latest in a long line of outrages by this company.
When I ran the gwx-stopper the one time, it blew away the nag icon, the nags themselves, and I personally deleted the 10GB of files the buggers left here on this Windows 8.1 machine. Maybe it won’t work the same way or permanently on a Windows 7 box, I dunno. Like you say, YMMV. I’ve had no more such nags or ghost directories and files.
“This is an outrage, and just the latest in a long line of outrages by this company.”
Agreed. My goal is to get us off Microslop completely, and we’re now down to this machine and wife’s laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate. I don’t think she needs Windows for work and she seems to realize that now, too. I’ve long since ditched FaceCrack, don’t use Twitter or any such social jackoff apps, and am about to drop Google and its email overboard, too. (I currently have one main email account now on fastmail, and three other more secure, in one case VERY secure, email accounts.) And I’m also about to dump Adobe completely and I won’t use Oracle products, either, including Virtual Box.
Small steps, one at a time, but I’m moving toward gray-man infrastructure for all our regular day to day stuff, and invisible man for anything else that might come up.
But hey, some folks are clearly happy with M$ or Apple and the value of the tools those companies sell to them outweighs other stuff that might concern someone else. And I’m not surprised, particularly, that there is not more outrage; peeps get used to all kinds of abuse, just like that frog in the pot of wotta, and if it’s more convenient to ignore it, thus mote it be.
What is this “Windows” of which you speak? My Linux box and I know not of it.
I use MS because I have to make a living. OTH this is being posted with a Chromebook. Now off to the tavern for Friday libations. Cheers!
As Mr. Ray says: “Use what works for you.”
That’s the thing, though. It sounds like this “Windows” thing ain’t workin’ too well. At best, it somewhat works, but at too high a price.
I am a lawyer in Las Vegas and I am charged with seeking the rightful heir to certain assets which were deposited many years ago with a security company here in Nevada by a man who died a few years ago. We have made extensive searches to find any living heirs, but with minimal success. A man with the name “Mr. SteveF” is named in the Will and Testament as being the only beneficiary of these assets. I believe that you may be the person entitled and are writing to enquire if you have any dead relatives or friends who may have named you as a beneficiary of these assets in their will and testament. If so please let us have their names and any other information so we can check if you are indeed the beneficiary. The amount of the assets is $150,000 and one large trunk, contents unknown. Please reply immediately!
I can tell that’s a scam because it didn’t have nearly enough typos. Also, it didn’t start with HELLO! You can tell the email out of the blue is real because real lawyers and finance ministers and widows of presidents are much too busy to bother with little details like spelling and punctuation and word usage.