Six weeks ago, Duke got mauled by another dog. He ended up with 40 staples and who knows how many internal stitches. We thought the little turd was gonna die.

Today, he's back to normal and even the scar is fading. Animals are tougher than people, y'all. This little guy is indestructible. The only lasting effect appears to be that his nipples are now crooked. That doesn't seem to be hurting his self-esteem.

Getting over the fear of working inside the breaker box is a major milestone in any DIY'ers life. It's like an amateur electrician's bar mitzvah.

Love the leg vise! Yeah, I've had to have benches on casters before for the same reason. Even locking casters want to slide around on smooth concrete. I ended up making some big blocks for each corner that I could slide under the lower crossmembers to elevate the bench just enough to get the wheels off the floor. That only works if your bench is light enough that you can lift each corner, though.

That bench looks like it's seen a few projects. I like the way well-used workbenches tell a story about all the projects they've been involved with.

Thanks! I've built myself several workbenches over the years, each one gets a little nicer than the last one. The first was just an old door with legs... It doesn't matter much what it looks like, as long as it's sturdy and flat. If you can manage that, you're doing pretty well.

It's June, ya'll, and the garden is poppin' off. Time to start getting stuff into jars!

#grownostr #garden

Those are bots someone has created to post their spam crap as replies to random posts. I don't know that there's anything you can do other than just block the accounts doing it.

I think this is going to be a growing problem for Nostr. Since anyone can create unlimited accounts instantly, it's ripe for abuse. Not sure how you could implement a decentralized spam blocking system that doesn't also create an avenue for censorship.

I'd like to see clients that let you block posts by keyword. So if someone is running a pump and dump scam with some new shitcoin and trying to promote it like this, you could just automatically block any post that has the name of the coin (like "zkSync", for example) in it, for example.

My mom had this huge rose bush growing in her backyard for years. After she passed, my dad took good care of it and was quite proud that the thing often grew as tall as the house and would have hundreds of blooms on it. It was a magnificent plant.

After Dad died, we sold the house and I took some cuttings from the rose and grew my own clone. For years, it languished in our backyard, clearly unhappy and struggling. I thought perhaps it just didn't like the move from Illinois to Texas. Last fall, I dug it up and moved it to the orchard where it gets more sun and has better soil, figuring it was time for the thing to either thrive or die. I'm happy to report that the plant isn't suicidal after all, and has come out of its long depression and appears ready to do some serious blooming.

I wish I knew what variety this thing is - anybody out there a rose specialist?

#grownostr #flowers #gardening

I need to get one of those electric canners. I have a big Presto pressure canner, so I tend to end up doing huge batches to justify the energy and time investment of using the thing. It would be nice to be able to pick up a smaller package of meat when it's on sale and just knock out a half dozen jars, instead of chopping up a whole brisket or doing up 20 pounds of chicken at a time. I kind of enjoy the job of processing and canning food, but sometimes the scale is overwhelming if you're trying to do a lot at once.

I was lucky growing up, my dad was really handy and had all kinds of tools I could use. Lots of kids nowadays have no access at all to anything like that, and parents who couldn't figure out how to hang a picture on the wall, never mind actually build anything.

I enjoy teaching the little ones this stuff, but it's pretty exhausting sometimes! I forget sometimes how much energy kids have.

His mom sent me a picture of him this afternoon with his little workbench all set up with a stick clamped in the vise, just going to town on it with a sanding block. All in all, a pretty satisfying project.

My neighbors have a kid who just turned 5 yesterday. He likes to come over to my house and "help" with projects. He really likes to work with woodworking tools, though at 5, there's still a lot of supervision necessary. He has a two-year-old little brother, so I think he really likes having something he can do that the little guy can't.

I built him his own workbench for his birthday yesterday. It was a big hit.

Toughest part was deciding how tall to build it. It's about an inch or two higher than ideal right now, but he'll grow faster than the bench will... 😉

#grownostr #woodworking

I grew up in Illinois and lived in NW Indiana for a few years as an adult. One of the things I miss most from the Midwest is those pork tenderloin sandwiches. So good!

Most people would advise you to use dried leaves. I've made it with fresh leaves before, and the salve works just as well, but fresh leaves can introduce moisture into the mix. If there's enough moisture, it can allow mold to grow or cause the oil to go rancid easier.

If you're only making a small amount you expect to use up quickly, fresh is probably OK. If you want it to be more stable for longer shelf life, go with dried. If you use a dehydrator to dry the leaves, use a fairly low temperature setting.

Thanks! He's getting stronger every day. We didn't think we'd ever see him again when we left him in the care of the vet that night, it was pretty bad.

He had no appetite and wasn't eating much until I thought to try one of the jars of beef stew meat I canned back in January. Chicken, wet dog food, cheese, he wasn't interested in any of the stuff that usually gets his attention. But he's eating that beef like a champ, and it's definitely helping him get his strength back. Prepping isn't just for the end of the world, ya'll...

This is Duke and his best cat friend, Bob. Bob is being comforting and Duke is wearing a toddler's shirt because exactly one week ago, Duke was attacked by a much bigger dog. We got him to the emergency vet as quickly as possible (a nerve-wracking 45 minute drive), but even so, the poor little guy spent several hours with some of his insides on the outside. He was a mess. Fortunately, the surgeon was able to reassemble him with all the parts put back in place (minus an inch or so of intestine).

This little bastard is tougher than a dollar-store steak, but take this advice: if you have pets and don't know where the nearest 24-hour emergency vet is, find out right now and make a note of it. Put their number and address in your phone. When your best friend is gushing blood or full of snake venom (that was our first visit to the emergency vet, about three years ago at 1 AM) isn't the time to be doing Google searches or looking up Yelp.

#dogstr #dogs #pets #grownostr

The cell being built at the bottom of the frame like that suggests that they planned it, either to replace an old queen that's wearing out, or to make a new one to swarm (emergency queen cells to replace a dead queen will be on the comb anywhere they can find brood of the right age to groom into a queen). If the colony was running out of room, then they are likely to have been planning to split the hive. Both of those together (crowded hive and pre-planned queen cell) tend to suggest swarming activity, especially in spring.

Soap solution is pretty effective on spider mites. You don't really need the oil, the soap itself is a good killer for bugs like mites and aphids. Make sure you spray the underside of the leaves thoroughly. And don't be tempted to add more soap. A stronger solution can burn plants that are sensitive to soap. Better to use a more dilute solution and spray several times, a few days apart.

This year, I've been experimenting with a citric acid solution for killing soft-bodied insects in the greenhouses. Whiteflies and aphids are my problem, not spider mites so much. The citric acid works well, and as a bonus is an excellent fungicide for things like powdery mildew. I just learned about it a few months ago, but the results so far have been promising.

Good luck! You seem to have the right attitude toward gardening. Every season will be different for your entire life. You'll learn something new every time you plant a garden. Unfortunately, most of the early lessons come from dead plants...

#gardening #pestcontrol #organic

It's great in stir fries. If you throw it in at the end, the leaf will wilt but the rib will retain a little crunch. Same for soups. Don't be afraid to add more than you think you should - it shrinks down a lot when cooked.

Or pair it raw with chopped up bok choy and mix up a sesame oil/rice vinegar dressing and make a sort of Asian-inspired take on cole slaw.

Pipe Frog would like to remind you not to glue any PVC pipes together until you check to make sure they're clear of any amphibians or reptiles.

#grownostr #frogs

The black dog in this photo is my boy Duke. The other fella is his best friend, Buddy. Buddy lives across the road from our farm. Every morning, Duke wakes up and has to go see Buddy. He runs out to the front gate and jumps up and down until I let him out, and runs over to Buddy's house.

I got tired of having to text or call them to let them know Duke was coming over (and cell phone coverage is terrible anyway), so I got a cheap wireless doorbell and they put it in their living room. I kept the transmitter, so I just hit the button and they know Duke's on his way over.

The most adorable thing is that Buddy has figured out what the doorbell sound (it's set to the sound of a rooster crowing) means. When I hit the button, I can hear him barking inside their house from a hundred yards away. When they open the door, he busts out and runs to meet Duke, both tails furiously wagging. Usually I don't see Duke again until I go get him to bring him home.

I use AntennaPod on Android almost exclusively. It has some Podcasting 2.0 features, like chapters and art, but no V4V features yet. I use Fountain if I want to send boosts, but listen to everything in AntennaPod. The last time I tried to use Fountain for listening I found way too many buggy and/or frustrating things, like it not responding to the Bluetooth controls in my truck and starting up at some random position in the show whenever I stopped and resumed listening later. The V4V features are great, but the rest of the experience was just terrible.