Author: Lisa

Porkbun DDNS API

I’ve been working on a script that updates our host names in Porkbun, but the script had a problem with the example.com type A records. Updating host.example.com worked fine, but example.com became example.com.example.com

Now, in a Bind zone, you just fully qualify the record by post-pending the implied root dot (i.e. instead of “example.com”, you use “example.com.”, but Porkbun didn’t understand a fully qualified record. You cannot say the name is null (or “”). You cannot say the name is “example.com” or “example.com.”

In what I hope is my final iteration of the script, I now identify cases where the name matches the zone and don’t include the name parameter in the JSON data. Otherwise I include the ‘name’ as the short hostname (i.e. the fully qualified hostname minus the zone name). This appears to be working properly, so (fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that) our ‘stuff’ won’t go offline next time our IP address changes.

2022 Seeds

We’ve saved seeds from the garden (and seeds from both ground cherries and hot peppers that we picked up at the farmers market) that will make up much of our garden this year. I purchased a bunch of flower seeds to expand the bee garden, and a few new vegetables. And I really hope to get asparagus established this year!

Seeds for Honeybees

Autumn Beauty Sunflower Seeds – XL Packet

Ballerina California Poppy Seed Mix – XL Packet

 Calendula-Balls-Orange-Wildflower-Seeds

Ball’s Orange Calendula Seeds – XL Packet
Asclepias-tuberosa

Butterfly Weed Seeds – 1/4 Oz

California Giants Zinnia Seed Mix – 1/4 Lb

Globe Annual Candytuft Seeds – XL Packet

Fairy Bouquet Snapdragon Seed Mix – XL Packet

 Chrysanthemum-maximum-dwarf

Dwarf Shasta Daisy Seeds – XL Packet

Swiss Giants Pansy Seed Mix – 1/4 Oz
Single-Mixed-China-Aster-Wildflower-Seeds

Single China Aster Seed Mix – XL Packet

Painted Daisy Seeds – XL Packet

Money Plant Seeds – XL Packet

Ice Plant Seed Mix – 1 Oz

McKana Giants Columbine Seed Mix – XL Packet

 Gaillardia-pulchella

Indian Blanket Seeds – XL Packet

Imperial Rocket Larkspur Seed Mix – 1 Oz

Imperial Pincushion Flower Seed Mix – XL Packet

Iceland Poppy Seeds – 1 Oz

Sparky French Marigold Seed Mix – XL Packet

 Asclepias-syriaca-01

Common Milkweed Seeds – 1 Oz
Seeds for Food
Sugar-Beet-Beet-Seeds

Sugar Beet Seeds

 Anise-Herb-Seeds

Anise Seeds
Chioggia-Beet-01

Chioggia Beet Seeds

 Easter-Egg-Radish-01

Easter Egg Radish Seeds

 French-Breakfast-Radish-01

French Breakfast Radish

 
Sparkler-White-Tip-Radish-Seeds-01

Sparkler White Tip Radish

White-Icicle-Radish-01

White Icicle Radish Seeds

 

  

Hickory King Corn
Pencil Cob Corn
Triticale Winter Rye Dundale Pea
Hull-less Barley Burbank Hull-less Barley Stalks of oats stock image. Image of ripe, harvest ...

Oats
Wheat on farm field stock image. Image of agriculture ...

Wheat

German Extra Hardy Garlic

 Chesnok Garlic

Music Garlic

Dutch Red Shallot

Dutch Red Shallot

 

Costco

We’d talked about joining Costco for years — a new store was built not too far from my office, and they had a membership promo. It was rather far away from our house; and, without checking it out first, hard to tell if it was a good deal. Especially without storage space for, say, a gallon of lemon juice. As we’ve been producing more at home — vegetables, meats — we’ve also gotten a lot of storage space. Loads of canning jars, chest freezers, vacuum sealer, shelves. So the idea of buying twenty pounds of apples is now appealing — can a bunch of apple sauce and apple butter 🙂

So, on Friday, we went out to Costco and got a membership. They’ve got a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, we were there about an hour before closing (why in the world would a company have limited hours on the weekend?!) and didn’t get to check out everything. Lots of electronics — a big TV that Scott would have loved to get. A couple of mesh WiFi systems. Fridges (not the one I want to get, unfortunately). And the expected huge containers of foods. Stuff I have a hard time finding in the grocery store too — they never have thick cut pork chops, so I end up getting a whole loin and cutting my own. But there were really nice 1″+ chops sitting right in a cooler. A tasty looking kale pesto. And a huge bag of frozen mango chunks (also a similarly huge bag of blueberries that I hope to not need in a year or two once our bushes start producing!). The coolest thing was that they’re loaded up with organic options (that are generally cheaper than the non-organic variety at the grocery store).

We also learned something about pickup trucks. They are great for hauling home the materials to build a chicken pasture fence. They’re great for hauling chest freezers. They are not great for bringing home groceries … I get why people have those tarp things that pull over the bed. We loaded all of the heavy (and low wind resistance) things into the truck bed, but ended up piling a bunch of lighter / breakable things in the cab with Anya.

Overall, the place seems like a score. And very much in line with my mom’s parents’ approach to living out in the country on a mountain. They’d not plan on going anywhere from October through April — stock up on food, get supplies for any winter projects, and just do their thing for six months. An approach that seems far more reasonable now that I’ve got my own couple hundred foot driveway curving up a mountainside.

Rechargeable batteries in the game camera

We tried using rechargeable batteries in our game cameras — eight batteries per camera, and we have three cameras … so it’d be nice not to throw out two dozen double-a batteries. The question, though, was how long they’d last. (Well, the first question is if they’d work at all … nuance of battery chemistry and electric production … the cheap rechargeable AA’s are lower voltage than throw away ones. But we quickly proved that the cameras would run on these batteries). We put the cameras out on October 3, and the cameras are still operational today. That’s over two weeks on a charge. We’ll see when the last videos record, but they’ve already proven to be functional for our purpose.

The first batteries to discharge stopped recording overnight 11/6 to 11/7 … 34 days on a charge. One set was still working, but we pulled them all to discharge / charge them.

Chest Freezers

We picked up two chest freezers — Whirlpool WZC3115DW — today. We had an adventure trying to get a chest freezer. They weren’t in stock over the summer, and the one we tried to order that included in-home delivery? They wanted to deliver to the bottom of the driveway! But we’re getting into Autumn now, and really needed the freezer space. I’ve got a partner account with an appliance company, and we were just about to order a set of freezers when I found a dented appliance store. For a chest freezer that’s going to sit in the furnace room, half price to have a couple of dents on the outside of the box? Score! And we’ve still got a pickup truck, so we were able to haul both of them home today. I need to wash the things down tomorrow, and then we’ll plug them in and make sure everything works.

Pickled Peppers (not a peck)

We picked up some sweet and hot Hungarian peppers at the farm market — some of the hot peppers, I stuffed and baked. But the rest I added to what’s quickly becoming the normal pickling recipe — 1c water, 1c vinegar, 2T salt, 1/4c maple syrup. These were super tasty, and I stored a lot of seeds to grow lots of peppers next year. Hopefully we’ll be able to pickle a peck next time!