Swings and Chickens

July 19, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

In between birthday festivities, we managed to coordinate a few house projects. The first was the arrival of the chickens. Joanna and I covered the bottom of the chicken tractor with a metal fence to keep out raccoons and the like. Saturday Joanna rounded them up and brought them over, much to Emma's delight. Emma loves watching them and feeding them. This morning when Josh arrived to watch the kids, she immediately brought him over to show off the chickens. The chickens evidently had a pretty good move, as Emma found one egg from both of them yesterday. She fried one up and gobbled it up eagerly. I also managed to turn the all-wood Death Swing into a Padded Death Swing, affixing pipe insulation with pretty brass furniture nails. Sam and I did some Mythbuster-like tests where we swung it into each other without causing significant injury or discomfort.

Mushroom Farm

May 09, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

Joanna ordered mushroom spore laced dowels from the local farm cooperative.  Yesterday the kids and I got the dowels "planted."  First, Sam dug a trench behind the shed.  We lined it with plastic so that it would hold water, and set up the water spout to empty into it.  I drilled holes in logs and Sam and Emma pounded the dowels into the holes.  Finally we set up the logs in the trench.  With luck, mushrooms should appear in a few months, and the logs should last a few years.

Oh How My Garden Grows

April 28, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I took the day off work.  I'm generally caught up with my projects, mostly because I'm waiting for other people to do something before I can do my work.  It made for a good excuse to spend the day at home catching up with my endless list of errands and home projects.

I had breakfast with my mom, went to the library, got groceries, and visited Down to Earth.  It was at my last stop where I picked up string trellace and bamboo poles, the weather cooperating well enough to get everything set up.  The plants in the picture are peas, but I have pole beans coming up next to them.  I also found the bush beans and planted those today.  All-in-all, there should be quite a few things popping up in a couple months.  The lettuce, beets, and radishes are coming along nicely, and I have some tomatoes and squash at work that are perking up.

I also did some major cleaning and organizing this morning.  All the boxes and bags and wrapping paper went to the upstairs closet.  The art supplies moved into the hallway.  I had four big plastic bins into which all of Sam's flotsam and jetsam went, stored in the old sauna in the basement.  The two bedrooms on the main floor are looking surprisingly tidy.

As for me, I'm nursing a cup of tea and listening to Taylor Swift on Emma's picture frame (it plays movies too).  My list isn't complete, but I may give myself a couple hours to play video games and relax before heading over to Joanna's.  Tomorrow Alma comes, and the house should be made singularly clean and shiny.  It feels good to get everything ready for the future.

Seedlings

March 12, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

The seedlings are popping up quite nicely. We have nasturtiums, tosoi, squash, and calendula starting to peek out little green heads. I'm using these starter pellets that look like dirt sausages. It's funky, but seems to work pretty well.

It'll still be awhile before I can put anything in the ground. I have some lettuce and other greens growing at home, and I took those in due to frost worries. Now it's pouring rain so I'll keep them inside a little longer. Maybe by the end of the month the weather will cooperate.

I bought a couple soaker hoses for the beds, as well as bark-o-mulch to cover up the weed blocker. If there's a break from the rain sometime this weekend, I can hook everything up and make it look pretty.

The New Garden

March 03, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I'm working very hard to put in a garden this year. I've ordered four planter boxes, three cubic yards of soil, and have assorted seedlings sprouting away cheerfully. Yesterday afternoon after work, Emma helped me haul dirt, which we spread around. I'm not nearly finished yet, but it felt good to get started.

I also got some of the compost in there. I had this vision of opening up my compost barrel and beautiful black soil would drift out into my wheelbarrow. For starters, the wheelbarrow didn't fit. The compost was more like foul-smelling sludge with bits of twigs and dried leaves. Finally, I had to reach in and pry out they gooey mess, which was exactly as disgusting as it sounds. I hope the plants appreciate it.

Tomorrow night I hope to finish moving the dirt, and Joanna was going to send along some peat moss and vermiculite. I've also got to call the irrigation guy and put in a spigot to run soaker hoses off of. After that, I need to put down weed blocker and bark to make it all look pretty.

I'm excited to get some things growing in there. Hopefully within a couple weeks I can watch my little garden grow.

Computer Fiddling

February 14, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I continue to work on the computer situation here at the Miller household.  Yesterday Emma and I went to the computer recycling place and I had her pick out a computer case for herself.  Last night Sam helped me take all the guts out of the wood and brass case and put it into the new one.  So far, everything seems to be working properly.

I'm also taking Sam's old Brass Zeppelin computer case and putting in a wireless network card.  The plan is to put that one upstairs and hook it up to the cable box, as it has an old but functional TV tuner in it.  Eventually I'll take my current main computer, put it in the wood and brass case, and hook that up to the big TV in the living room.

In a way, that's the easy part.  More tricky will be getting all the heavy furniture moved around.  One step at a time, I suppose.

New and Improved

January 29, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I switched from DSL to Comcast last night. On the plus side, it's insanely fast in comparison to the old version. Sam was in awe of the speed at which videos played, and the overall cost should be less than what I was paying before. It's a little tricky to continue to host my web site, but hopefully it's mostly working now. There's a delay in pointing familyofadam.com to the right address, but hopefully most of the world will know where I am by the end of the day.

I have other assorted computer plans, from moving computers around to hooking a computer up to the living room TV. It would be cool if we could watch Mythbusters from the living room and not the cramped couch on the basement.

Alienware

January 13, 2010 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I bought Sam a new laptop so that he could move between houses and still feel like all his technology and gaming needs were being met.  I splurged a little, getting a high-end Alienware computer that's likely faster than my main computer.  It has a webcam, so we can Skype.  It also has a massive screen and keyboard, making it weigh a ton.  The laptop is very much a "boy" laptop, with glowing blue vents, flashing Alien symbols, and theoretically the keyboard lights up in cool ways.

At the moment, I'm installing Windows 7 and all the associated drivers and software.  Sam's priority was to get his new game installed along with Firefox.  That's my boy.