Getting older sucks...

Several dozen vultures circling over my property... Either they found a really great thermal to climb, or the end of the world is nigh.

I've never seen this many congregate before, it's actually a pretty awesome sight.

#farm #nature #wildlife #birds

He just did it again...

This fuckin' guy... Fur like velcro, and he has to roll in leaves and grass clippings every damn day. He's lucky he's awesome enough to be worth it.

#dog #cute #dogstr

Helmet For My Pillow, by Robert Leckie.

The shit the Marines went through in the Pacific in WWII is unbelievable. Then to think that most of them came home after that insane experience and just went back to normal life, selling insurance, repairing refrigerators, driving taxis...

Let's talk about watering wands.

The one on the right is store-bought. It costs about $14, and after a season or two of moderate use, it will leak all over the place, and you will throw it away in a fit of unbridled rage. Its soft aluminum tube will bend if you raise your voice at it or use it in a strong breeze.

The one on the left is homemade from inexpensive plumbing parts. The aluminum rosette on the end costs about $5, the rest of the parts total another $5. It is sturdy and durable. If it doesn't get left out to freeze in the winter, it will last many years. It comes in infinite lengths and configurations, because you're making it yourself. If you make it using threaded connections, you can replace the valve if it ever wears out (but it won't wear out). Since both ends are garden hose connectors, it can also be used as an impromptu control valve between two hoses of you unscrew the rosette and attach another hose to that end (I do this when running a sprinkler, as it's easier to fine tune the flow with the ball valve on the wand).

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#garden #water #farm #diy #grownostr #tools

That's really cool. I've been seeing more reptiles every year since I bought this place (10 years ago). The little green anoles and pink geckos are almost an infestation. Frogs and toads everywhere, too. I think that's one of the most satisfying things about developing this homestead, watching the wildlife increase and diversify.

My dad passed away right before I bought the property, and he was a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan. For the past several years, we've had a growing resident population of cardinals. They're one of the most abundant birds on the property now, which makes me so happy.

Yet another neat ectothermic creature hanging out in my composting area. This one is a Texas spiny lizard, and he's copping a little bit of an attitude with that look.

#lizard #texas #garden #wildlife #reptile

Planted sunn hemp for the first time this summer as a cover crop in some garden beds. I knew it would grow tall, but I didn't expect the flowers to be such a beautiful shade of yellow! The photo doesn't do it justice, in person, in the sunlight, they're almost luminous.

#garden #flowers #bloomscrolling

Tiny adorable kittens are the trickiest trap in the book. They're irresistible, and trick you into loving them, allowing them to grow up and do all the a-hole things cats do. But by then, you're in too deep.

Good-looking cat, though. What's his name?

More than a year ago, we built some Johnson-Su bioreactor bins and filled them with wood chips. They've been cooking along quite nicely and breaking down into an awesome soil amendment. I was watering them last night and saw that they're full of wee tiny baby frogs! I counted at least a dozen of the little guys. Nobody told me that this was a possibility, so now I have to postpone harvesting from the bins until the wee tiny baby frogs are all grown up and moved out!

Unfortunately for the frogs, they live in a tough neighborhood. I've got snakes living in the leaf mold bins right next to the bioreactors. Good luck, wee tiny baby frogs!

#garden #snakes #frogs #farm #wildlife

What variety are those?

I had a tooth implant installed today, and the dental assistant told me to try to avoid touching the stitches with my tongue. This is an impossible request. 95% of my brain power all day has been devoted to trying to control my tongue, and it ain't working...

I set up a couple of large bins in the spring and filled them with leaves to make leaf mold compost. They've been breaking down all summer and are some beautiful compost now, but I found this guy making a home in one of them yesterday. Just a harmless green snake, but when you reach into a pile of leaves and feel slithering scales, your heart stops for just a second... He moved on up into the tree pretty quickly, and I harvested the compost much more carefully from then on.

#garden #snake #wildlife #farm

#flowers #bloomscrolling #garden

I've been considering getting one to play with. Is the fan very noisy?

Yesterday I was working in the front yard, cutting up some limbs that had fallen out of our pecan trees. Two of the neighbor kids ( are 4 and 6) came running over to "help". They enjoyed chopping up the smaller branches with loppers and then I taught them how to use a hand saw. Much fun.

While we were doing that, two older boys (age 10 or 11ish) from down the street showed up, carrying an old ironing board with a kayak seat strapped to it and wheels from a lawn mower. They are building a "go kart" and needed me to weld the front axle to the swivel caster they intend to use for a steering mechanism.

It's so heartening to see kids doing real things instead of just staring at screens. I didn't think kids tinkered around like that anymore. Maybe our society is finally leaving the paranoid safetyism of the past couple generations behind, and we're getting back to kids getting dirty and skinning their knees. I sure hope so.

#diy #grownostr #kids

I can't even begin to tally how many hours I of my youth that were spent on BBSes. I started out with a 300 baud modem on my Commodore 64, in 1985. Nothing was more frustrating than being 90% through an XMODEM download of some new game and someone in the house picked up a phone and kicked you off the connection!

Computing was so much more fun back in the day than it is today. Primitive, sure, but a much more interesting challenge. I think that's what I like about my recent forays into microcontroller programming and DIY automation stuff - it reminds me a lot of that golden age of home computing.

I couldn't agree more. I have had zero trouble with my Starlink in the year I've had it.

It's a little pricey, but worth it for how much better it is than other rural internet options.

It took me fifty years to suddenly realize that "critter" is just a colloquial version of the word "creature".

I'm smart, guys, I promise!

#language