Sprinklers, Blinds and Hops

Some updates:

• Sprinklers installed in the front yard. Hopefully the barren wasteland look will be a thing of the past. Still need to get the back half by the star pine.

• Replaced the blackout blinds in the dining room. Reused the bamboo blind as it fit perfectly across the two windows and only took slight modification to fit on the existing brackets.

• Fully harvested the Saaz hops. 18oz total which is pretty good for a first year plant. Cloned a start of it for a buddy at work. Also hope to clone more and get them on the perimeter fence.

• Mounted some mirrors in the 'greenhouse'. Belle has set up an office there because it has been so hot.

Bonus Material -- Details of Installing A Skylight on an old zero degree roof:

I had relatively no idea how to do this moving into the project and the instructions given by the manufacturer while helpful mainly focused on ehhh newer construction. There were some good takeaways but some gripes as well (why don't you just tell me what to cut my 2x4's to instead of giving the outside dimension?). Anyhow I first built the frame and verified the skylight fit. Then I investigated the roof, which turned out to be tongue and groove 3/4" redwood with a 3/8" particle board mat on top which the shingles were nailed to. I measured the spot to put the skylight and drilled 4 1/2" starter holes at each corner. I then went up to the roof and traced the inside diameter of the frame on the shingles. I then cut a massive hole in our roof. At this point I became very timid to step on the area between the hole and the edge of the roof, as the only support (at the time) was the grooves and the wall. I would recommend this to others as well, there is no need to risk it, so keep to the solid side. I then cut back the shingles about 3" around the entire hole and pulled it up so I could slip the underlayment and the flashing under it. The flashing kit that was built for the specific skylight while expensive was worth it as it fits extremely well and required no modification. Prior to attaching the flashing I screwed the frame to the roof from the inside of the house. Then screwed the flashing to the frame (keep this above the level of the seal). According to the manufacturer this is enough to completely seal the skylight, but with a 0 degree roof I felt I needed to do more. I took some spare torch down tar we had left over from the wet room and a blowtorch and proceeded to go to town on that. The easiest and safest way was to do it from the inside with my torso sticking out the top while standing on a ladder. Finally I cleaned up my saw cuts with a sander and added some metal we used on the egg carton. Also skylights cost more than I expected (~450 bucks on sale).

Beer 201

A little late for Easter, our first Easter Egger (my guess is Blinky) started dropping these bombs in the back of the coop.  The convenient nestbox complete with golf ball decor and external access was a little too "Irvine Company" for her taste, so now we tramp through chicken guano to retrieve her treasures.  Eggs have been getting slightly bigger by the day, but probably won't ever rival the uber brown grocery store version.  That said, the shells are way thicker and cooler colored and you've got peace of mind knowing where your food comes from.  Still waiting on potentially more easter eggs as well as the Maran dark brown eggs.  

MacGyver got a summons at work from The Loading Dock.  In a lucid moment, he had decided the 50lbs of grain and assorted equipment necessary for All Grain brewing was a bit much to ask the United States Postal Workers to lob over the padlocked gate.  Somehow it all fit in the Mini Cooper thanks to my limited legroom needs and his comfort driving with absolutely no rear view visibility.  The impetus for this project was 

1.  Consistently feed the chickens their favorite "mash" snack instead of conventional chicken feed

2.  Slightly cheaper materials (not that the inputs were that expensive to begin with)

3.  Increase MacGyver's beer snob cred (with minimal brewing of passe IPA) 

Now Ye Olde Stove looks not unlike a soccer sideline to me...  

Because I am not a beer snob, I will give you a very dumbed down version of what is going on here.  

Before:  we would make a limited amount of grain tea to give the beer an identity (i.e. wheat beer vs stout, etc.).  To the tea, we added some concentrated grain syrup and tons of water.  We'd boil this a while, add hops and other flair (i.e. coffee and smoked pepper for my Diableer).  Then we'd cool the kettle off in a sink bath, transfer the tea to a carboy, dump in yeast and airlock it.  

The new process cuts out the concentrated grain syrup step and creates lots more grain for the chickens.  It takes an hour or two longer (more if you are in 'set sail for fail' mode on your maiden voyage).  

Now:  boil oodles of water in giant stock pot that covers all 4 burners (manly!).  Use the spigot to siphon water into the thing resembling a Gatorade cooler while it is on the ground.  Clamber up the step ladder with said "cooler" of boiling hot water.  Route approx 4 gallons of water into lower "cooler" which is full of approx 15 lbs of grain (you have milled using a drill attachment).  Let it sit for an hour.  Cascade still warm water from top cooler into lower cooler using something that looks like a cross between a submerged PVC landmine and a sprinkler.  Cascade water from lower cooler into the giant stock pot (now on the ground and hopefully cooled off).  Boil this, add hops and other flair.  Cool with a copper heat transfer pipe (which was too big to fit in the concentrated brewing pot).  Runoff is routed into our laundry grey water surge tank to irrigate the avocado.  Transfer to a carboy, dump in yeast and airlock it.  Celebrate by scooping the spent grain in the lower cooler into every conceivable empty container you can find.  

Small photo updates.

Finished laying the pennies. Going to do the surface tomorrow.
Belle planted a lamb hass avocado tree:I painted my beer kegs with chalkboard paint to keep track of what is in which keg.

Fired up the gas lamp. (Belle has been busy stripping that wallpaper):

Botany 103: companion planting

The Great Bean Bakeoff

Raised bed #4.  During installation, MacGyver uncovered a massive decomposing palette.  This may have been to store treasures off the ground when house storage was no longer an option.  It also may explain why the pecan tree looked so sick/thirsty.  After spending an inordinate amount of time with  companion planting quick reference, I decided to plant all 6 heirloom bean varieties (bush & pole) from my apocalyptic readiness kit in conjunction with garlic, shallots, carnival carrots (multicolor), and zucchini which I received as gifts (thanks!).  This builds off lessons learned from raised bed #1:  different varieties of the same plant perform wildly differently (see: cherry tomatoes) and one trellis of peas doesn't yield enough to make a persistently harvestable full serving of veggies.  I've also heard horror stories about prolific zucchini, so I started a few of them in a potting tray to avoid an Audrey II type situation.  I tried to plant the purple podded beans towards the less-accessible side and center to streamline harvesting.  I used the companion plants to designate the boundaries.  We threw some chicken wire on top to keep the tunneling Klee Kai from messing up the plan.  

Bitter Greens & Beer

The mixed greens we planted in front of the spinach took on a life of their own.  We tried clear cutting them and juicing them, but the ones that were thriving were the super bitters.  No amount of banana, OJ, or chocolate protein powder was going to make that smoothie palatable.  I clear cut and composted most of it.  To fill the void, I started a couple basil plants from gift seeds.  Our last basil in molecule garden got decimated, so I want to plant the replacement where we can keep an eye on it.  Fortunately, basil plays nice with its future neighbors (pepper, lettuce, tomatoes, and spinach).  To free up space in the potting tray, I transplanted the 7 globe artichoke starts to be ground cover under the Reed avocado tree.  These guys are doubling as landscaping since they take a year to mature. 

MacGyver also ordered myriad hops varieties for Operation Home Brew.  Maybe they should grow up the house after it gets repainted.. or maybe the final fence when it's installed...  we're weighing our options and testing out how much sun these guys need with some planter prototyping.  

Finger Foods

Raised bed #3 is a petite triangle of snack food.  We started with edamame (which is finally sprouting). Strawberries are also starting to sprout.  The hope is they will be low-profile edible living mulch.  If this batch doesn't work out, we've got gifted seeds (w00t!).  We set the triangle up on the major thorough-fair between the gate and the backdoor right by the mega hose, so we can stay on top of it. 

misc Epic innovations

• Office Yacht desk converted to back porch work table (aka MacGyver's junk drawer)
• Upgraded front room theater keyboard and mouse to ones which are more responsive
• Sleeping bags in bed to minimize draft (now with bed buddy bed warmer)
• El cheapo paintbrushes for wood stain crevice application and paint stripping (better finish, less chemical burns)
• Lil victorian dog door concept (implementation was all MacG). 

Mini project madness

Yesterday felt highly productive despite no large project being worked on by either Belle or myself. Friday night saw the completion of both the wiring work in the front room, and the painting in the office. This meant that we could move the computer/projector into its more permanent home in the front room and allow the projector to return to its cabinet instead of sitting on the floor. The morning was spent moving furniture around and setting up the picture location on the wall.

Afterward we moved to the pond. The water tube had been floating in the middle of the pond for a while and with the empty corner baskets really kept it from looking finished. Last week I had built a new bamboo spigot so that got installed while Belle planted some new vines on the corner baskets. The pond looks better than it ever has, woot!
We then took a trip to the homebrew store and home depot for a couple more projects the main one being a kegorator for my homebrews. The setup uses a converted wine chiller with enough space for two corny kegs and the 5lb CO2 tank. We have a bruery orchard white clone in there now that used lavender from the garden. One of my goals for the garden is to grow 100% of the ingredients needed to make a good homebrew.


Finally I really wanted to install the lantern over the castle gate to give it a finished look. That became the third mini project of the day and it got popped in as well as the flood lights over the back door getting replaced. The lantern is on a motion sensor but I cant get the sensor to detect anything so I just switched it to test mode which is always on. The whole thing is on a timer switch in the back porch.