houseplants

Winter is here sorta

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Every year I transplant a bunch of houseplants as gifts for the staff at work. I have taken over the breeze porch as my indoor garden area. I share the space with the dog kennels which actually works well for me as I have covered the roofs of all of the kennels with plywood to make more space to put out plants! I have been cloning my basic plants for a few years so I have decided to branch out and start to grow a more diverse selection. To that end I have started to buy seeds online and have been trying to get them started. I am using a heat mat and now I have a grow light and I am still having trouble. I bought some mini greenhouse and that has netted me two plants. So far I have managed to grow four plants from seed. The tallest plants are three inches and fairly spindly. The smallest one is the size of a pea. This is a problem for me as I have taken it on as a challenge. I am up there every couple of days now nurturing them. I usually just water 1-2 times a week under normal circumstances. The wife got me a new DeWalt shelf system for Christmas, the kind of present where I ordered it and it arrives after Christmas. So I will now have two four foot wide by four feet tall three high shelf system on each side of the door. This is good as my other shelf has 50% of it covered in planting paraphernalia. I may need a four foot wide grow light for the new one but I am going to hold off and see what I can do with my little grow light.

I have almost 15 plants started for the next year. I am trying some plants that require a frequent amount of water to grow. I am putting water absorbing crystals into the soil in an attempt to get the plant to have a continuous source of water and not my normal up and down watering quantity. I also got a better quality soil and have been mixing my own batches for the type of plant I am growing. My goal is to have 35 plants ready to go in a year. I have freed a variety of Jade plant that I have had for years and just recently discovered that it was a Jade plant. So now I will be trying to get it to grow another foot tall in the next couple of years. I don’t actually know what I am doing, I just keep trying different things until something works.

Our daughter and paramour got us the perfect farm gift for Christmas, they got us a cast iron boot scraper! I put it out in the yard near the back gate so we can scrape our boots off before we go into the gravel area of the back garden. So far we have not had a chance to use it as it is now freezing most of the time but its potential usefulness cannot be diminished by its lack of participation. We have great hopes for the future.

The cows are now needing fed about every ten days. The second feeder we brought home from the neighbors is a little small for a full big bale to drop in. Mr Rainman broke open a big bale last time and forked it into the feeder with the tractor. I decided to one up man ship him and opted to try and get the bale into the feeder from the top. The problem is the bale is at the top weight capacity of the Kubota tractor. I got the bale directly next to the feeder head on and then dropped the three point box of horseshoes onto the ground then I started to make the front end lift of the tractor to bounce. Every time the weight bounced upwards I got the bale a few inches higher. I kept doing this until I was level with the top of the feeder and was able to dump it inside the old feeder. I had three of the tractor tires on the ground by the time I dumped the bale. If the bale had weighed another 20# I don’t believe I could have done it for fear of tipping the tractor forward. I made sure to take a picture so that prowess with the little Kubota could be immortalized.

Annmarie had me go out and swap out bee food. We are feeding concentrated sugar syrup to supplement the honey. We would like to harvest a bunch of honey in the spring. It was warm enough for the bees to move around and even fly out of the hive box. They are still pretty dang calm when it is this cold outside.

The table saw is now covered on the old house back porch and is ready to ride out the winter weather. I have covered the grain cracker on the end of the porch with the same tarp. I still need to crack more grain. I have been saying this for the last six weeks but Monday night I used up the very last bit of cracked grain and will need to fill the feeders in a couple of days, my procrastination days are about to end.

I have been looking at various spray on insulation foams for the inside of the old house. I am only going to spray it on two walls in the old house for my craft room. What I really need to do is find an old external door with intact seals and a frame to install inside and on the back door. I don’t want to spend a fortune on doors and I need two to finish this space. But I am not installing door or windows until I lift the room up a couple more inches on the outer wall.

Rooms are always a work in progress

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Annmarie’s laser cutter died so we got another one, this one is upgraded and will do circular items and will cut thicker material and can etch into metal directly. It has a water cooled laser. We did not really compare any measurements so when it arrived we realized it was significantly larger than her old one. I had to build a table top to go onto the top of the old TV stand we are using as the base. We also had an old Victrola cabinet in there for the 3D printer but they both would not fit. Gingerman and I made them fit but it was not pretty and did not pass the quality inspection later done by Annmarie. We agreed that a shelf for the 3D printer would take up less space and I had kept an old table leaf that I was able to cut into a shelf. I used the leftover wood from the table top to cut the other three shelves out. We may put shelves under the 3D printer but I will wait until Annmarie requests those. She will need to use the space for a while before those will be used. I may but a narrow one directly under the printer so she can put her filament rolls on it. I will need to use book ends or build some so that they don’t roll off.

I had to run ductwork along two walls to accommodate the fumes. I decided that cutting another hole in the wall to the outside and moving the exhaust fan and power was not going to work for me. I might have to do this three more times and I did not five holes in the wall. I was able to use some low profile dryer venting and keep it fairly close to the wall. I taped all the joints so the exhaust fumes stay inside the duct. This laser has a really good exhaust fan so between it and the one on the outside of the office the fumes will get moved right out and the longer path should not be much of an issue. There is a lot of push/pull action happening in regard to the exhaust.

My plants on the breeze porch are doing very well. When I got this plant it was six inches high. The only thing I seem to be having trouble with is starting the new African violets. I have always had trouble with it but this year I have not been successful. I ordered some root stimulator and hopefully that will solve my problems. I am starting to root new plants so I can get them ready for Christmas. I usually take at least 30 plants into work as presents for the ER staff. I have a couple of new plants so I wanted to offer a little more variety. I add a few plants every year to the collection. I have enough room for another six African violets and was hoping to fill it up this year. They tend to be fairly expensive when buying them at the store.

Upstairs bathroom might get finished

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I keep focusing on the upstairs bathroom. I want to get it 100% complete. I had purchased a special Kreg Tool jig to allow me to drill holes on an angle and screw boards end to end. It’s a quick and dirty way to join pieces, much faster than any type of glued joinery. Since we are covering the panels with fabric, it was merely a requirement to build a sturdy frame. The Kreg jig worked like a charm. I even did very well cutting all my pieces the same size. I had the whole thing assembled and then tried to clamp them up in place to drill the pilot holes so I could then install the magnets. Nope, I did not do something right. Turns out I used the wrong inner pieces on two different squares. I had to take them apart, thank goodness for screws, and put the proper pieces back together.

Once I had them all clamped in place then I drilled through each one with a 1/8” drill so that I could line up the magnet on the panels with the face of the closet. I used a 1/2” Forstner drill to get a nice hole to glue the magnet into. I have magnets that will hold 20# and I am using at least four on every panel and six on the larger panels. They should stay in place without any trouble. The hardest part is getting the magnets lined up so they attract each other and not push away! I managed to line up the first panel but almost messed up the magnet direction twice. I decided that since every panel is unique and has holes drilled in different spots I needed to be more careful in my magnet application. I only did one panel and am going to do one panel every night until I get them all finished. I cannot have 3-6 of them all drying at the same time and then try and put them back up on the wall. Our new electric stapler came this week so as soon as the spare staples come we will be ready to go if I can get them all set this week.

Annmarie went out and fed the bees today. They made it through the winter! I saw one fly out of the hive yesterday when it got over 50 degrees. She did not put on her bee suit and open it up. It is still not warm enough yet to expose them to the cold. We are going to get one more hive. We have no plans to go past two.

I have been trying to get one of my plants on the breeze porch to crawl across the ceiling. I built a trellis that hangs from the ceiling. It covers a space about four feet wide and five foot long. The plant has started to die, I think I am overwatering it. So I got a new pot for my large jade plant, about 2×3’ and am going to use my old jade pot for the crawling plant. That pot has a hole in the bottom and can drain all of the extra water. I hope that is the problem. The jade should be good in its new pot for another 5-7 years. I would like to get a five foot jade tree grown before I die. It is not easy and it takes a long time. I have been at it almost 10 years already. It might grow faster if I was nicer to it but I like my plants hardy. Plus I keep cutting it and trimming it to the shape I want. I am working on my staff Christmas presents already this year. I usually start splitting and repotting in Sept/October. I have 12 African violet starts going now. This batch is for me, I want to fill up my shelves again. Once I have the shelves full I will make a set for the staff. They are pretty slow growing so it will take a few months to get them up to any size.