Archive for 2008
Written by astoner on 07 January 2008
I finally got the bulk of the materials needed to build the heat grabber. The large 4ft x 8ft sheets of rigid insulation were the most challenging, but they did successfully fit in our minivan, with no kids. The one thing I am missing yet is the glazing, or the glass to cover the front. I haven’t found a good source for the reinforced fiberglass, and some of the stuff that the local box stores carry would double the price of the entire project. I’m thinking of just trying some of the plastic that is used for weatherizing windows from the outside, I’m just not sure how translucent it will be.
I’m not sure when I’ll have the opportunity to work on it though, hopefully later this week. We are supposed to be having near record warm this week which would be good for painting the box black, but I don’t think I’ll have it done before then.
Allen
Tags: heat grabber, Solar
Posted in renewable energy | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 04 January 2008
In the interest of keeping my topics driftless (random) I’m not going to post about worms today. One of my interests is photography and when I got a Nikon D80 last year I got even more interested in taking high quality pictures. This is a great camera. In the past year I’ve really been trying to improve my photography. I’ll be reviewing some of the books I’ve been using in a future post(s).
Getting more in to photography has also involved getting more equipment, or more realistically, wanting to get more equipment. Additional lighting and backdrops could easily cost more than the camera, if everything was bought commercially.
That’s where the internet comes in, and a good site for DIY projects related to photography is, what else, but DIYPhotography.net. The one project I’ve tried so far is making a backdrop. The directions can be found here and they are very easy to follow and well illustrated with photos.
The photo is my first attempt at my own backdrop and I am very pleased with the outcome. Now all I need to do it get some models in front of it.
I usually try to involve my boys in my projects as long as it can be done safely. So I had each of the boys rubber band up one of their new white t-shirts that they got for Christmas and threw them in the dye as well. Now they each have a blue tie-dyed that they made themselves.
It was a great evening project and I think I’m hooked! I’m already planning the next colors that I’m hoping to do!
Allen
Tags: DIY, Photography
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 02 January 2008
After setting up my four worm experiment and telling my family about it, they informed me that Shrek the Third has a bonus feature that talks about being green, not like Shrek, but Earth friendly green, by making a small worm bin out of a soda bottle. I haven’t actually seen the bonus feature, but thought it was great that it got my two boys interested in setting up their own worm bins. We didn’t have any empty soda bottles around so I helped them setup bins using some old snack good containers.
Each boy setup their own bin with my help. We tried to layer the different materials so they can see how the worms mix up the layers. The layers from bottom to top were card board, composted alpaca manure, grapefruit peel, shredded office paper, more card board, fiber egg carton and finally some more shredded paper on the top. All were nicely soaked before putting in the container. I also set up an bin for myself using the same container, but instead of the grapefruit used some chicken feed. I didn’t want to use the chicken feed in the boys as I’m not sure how the worms will do with it.
Then came the fun part, searching the existing bin for that specific worm! Actually I wasn’t too particular but the boys were, they had to be just the right ones, which usually meant the biggest they could find. This was actually an educational experience for me. We actually wound up dumping the entire bin/bucket out and sorting through it, hopefully the major disruption doesn’t set it back too far. I do think I finally found a worm cocoon and there were lots of young worms in the bin.
I did convince the boys to only include four worms in their bins, so now I have a total of four different four worm experiments going on. It will be interesting to see how these work in the smaller containers.
We did drill several holes at the top of the containers for air, but the bottom is still closed so hopefully not too much water accumulates there. I was a little disappointed to learn that the bonus feature on the Shrek movie didn’t talk about cover the 
outside of the container with anything. Worms like it dark so when using a clear container it should be covered for the comfort of the worms. Our containers worked nicely for wrapping a piece of newspaper around them to keep them dark. This will be nice because we’ll hopefully be able to monitor the progress of the bin some with a minimal amount of disturbance.
Allen
Tags: Vermicomposting, Worms
Posted in Vermicomposting | No Comments »
