mobile oven

Scavenged some beefy wheels out of my junkyard today.  Gearing up for some renewed solar oven action.  The dormant beast hasn't done any cooking for over a year so it is well past time to start cleaning it up so it can go back into service.  It is a monster to move so I decided to make it a little more mobile by bolting some heavy duty casters to the base.  72,84,50,0,B

you can't without Christ...

Rabbit Saturday

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shade

Time for new shade cloth on the west side.  60,71,39,0,B

more stuff...

Next load ready for departure... 52,70,39,0,B

renewed

Just got my "I'm one of the good guys" renewal in the mail today.  50,63,34,0,B

future salad

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Monday Meme

This is only a 3rd world solution and barely that. A world class cyclist can only produce 100-200 watt/hour for a sustainable level, 500+ peak for very short bursts of 20 seconds to a few minutes depending on fitness level. This means if you cycled on your generator for a whopping two full hours at a nice 160 watt clip, you'd generate 0.32 kw/hour of electricity. You'd likely burn something like 1000 Calories in the process. I can imagine you'd spend at least a few dollars to eat enough food to replenish the 1000 Calories burned.  62,73,56, .05",B

the slow work of God

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.

 We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

 And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
will make of you tomorrow.

 Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

purged

8 bags trash...10 bags recyclables.  76,88,54,0,B

occupational therapy

Finished a small project today that has been on "the list" for a very long time.  The doors on one of my shipping containers never fully closed and latched since it arrived 7 years ago.  Somewhere along the line in its' long life the right door got tweaked out of square.  Broke out the ladder, generator, and grinder today to finally rectify the situation.  73,86,53,0,C

some new tools...

...now that I have a proper place for them.  

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a little farming

Planted 3 earthboxes today...mesclun, kale, chard.  72,80,49,0,B

east end shuffled

Early morning visit yesterday from my friends Pansy and Brian Cornett.  The first time they came out they brought their newest addition - their 3 month old son Wylie.  He still holds the record for the youngest Field Lab visitor.  It has been 4 years since then so Ben was my addition to TFL.

Finished up sorting all that stuff in the east end and loaded my new HUSKY tool cabinet.  Now after all these years I finally have a proper place to put all my tools.  72,80,45,0,C

Monday Meme

Two posts in a row from a classless democrat...then another even worse.  Scalia's corpse isn't even cold yet and the left on Facebook are on fire with senseless BS...  68,77,47,0,B

another pagan holiday

  The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

  While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.  To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

What does God have to say about observing pagan traditions, renamed or not?  “When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess … do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods … Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deuteronomy 12:29-32).  Though the practices of Lupercalia have been repackaged and dressed up in the form of Valentine’s Day, these verses indicate they remain just as detestable as they have always been in our Creator’s eyes. Instead of pagan days and practices, our focus should be on the festivals God has given us in the Bible, which point us toward His amazing and incomparable plan for all of humanity.

Johnstons

Unscheduled visit today from the Johnston family...they were lucky to find me home.  Nice to meet RaNay (I told her that's not how you spell it but she insisted), Cash (he attacked my roosters right back), Camden (he used to poop in his back yard just like I do today), and Corey (longtime blog follower and Field Lab stalker).   Ben always enjoys letting people grab a horn.  69,77,44,0,B

east end shuffle

The goal this weekend is to organize the east end of the greenhouse.  Picked up a few items at Home Depot to help put things in their place.  69,79,43,0,C

finally confident

Been almost 4 months since the last check in with my surgeon.  He was pleased to report no hardware movement.  Although I still use one crutch for most of my walking, I have been going crutchless on occasion the past month.  Dr. Merkle told me to keep pushing myself and to get past the psychological barrier in trusting the bones - they are fully healed.  For the first time through this whole ordeal I'm finally confident there will be no further problems with my leg.  62,76,40,0,C

livin' large tonight

first bath in 3 months...

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poodles

Nice surprise visit yesterday from my old friend and Spencertown neighbor Cathy Grier and her poodles Etta and Lily.  They are on an extended road trip looking for a new place to live.  Ben wanted to be friends but the dogs were far more interested in the rabbits.  57,68,36,0,C

Monday Meme

Liberals sure do love to use the "F" word...47,56,43,0,B

out of the hand of the wicked...

LISTEN

clean sweep

Been slowly picking away inside the greenhouse for the past month trying to clear it out.  Rick came out today to help with the final sweepdown on the first half.  Over the years, mice have managed to move 2 wheelbarrow loads of sand out from under the pavers.   51,64,32,0,C

Geococcyx californianus

Got another critter who has made TFL his home.  Now all I need is a pet coyote.  48,61,31,0,B

snowbirds

Been awhile since I've had some Canadian visitors.  A nice long chat with my new friends and "fellow airmen" Larry and AW.  Both of them served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and AW was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam war...and has been coming to the Big Bend since 1956 (3 years before I was born).  I invited him to try out my paramotor when he turns 90 next year.  46,59,29,0,B

javier and the bunnies

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groundhog day

Ben didn't come out of the barn til long after sunrise so he didn't see his shadow = early spring.

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Monday Meme(s)

Don't be a gun nut...spreading ridiculous rhetoric does not help the case for 2nd amendment rights in America.
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