Month: May 2020

Returning Pro

I’m hoping the NFL hires Kaepernick on as a Director of Community Relations or Social Progress or something. I don’t follow football anymore … but he last played in 2016 or 2017. I’m sure he’s physically active, but he hasn’t been playing pro football for three years. He’s at a huge disadvantage coming back into the league now; and, external factors aside, he probably doesn’t command multi-year multi-million dollar contracts.
 
But the NFL obviously could use help ensuring the league is advocating for beneficial social changes instead of penalizing players for respectful protest (they’ve got a physical activity campaign for kids, so it’s not like they don’t engage in tangentially related causes). Kaepernick obviously has the bravery and conviction to speak up even if the topic isn’t wildly popular yet.

Books – Good and Not So Good

I got Anya a bunch of books to read during her remote learning experience. The school didn’t provide anything for the first few weeks, and I didn’t have much hope for the curriculum through the remainder of the year. While we have a number of books for younger kids, I’d been relying on library books. An approach which obviously wouldn’t work. And Anya does not seem to like eBooks — she’ll read them if she has to, but she’s not carrying her tablet for the Kindle app (my suspicion is that there are more fun options on the tablet. She’d rather watch Spirit on Netflix than read a book. But if she cannot watch more shows, reading and playing are great activities … so “read on your tablet” is a non-starter). So she’d keep reading when the library and school were no longer options, she needed her own library. Figured I’d keep track of the books Anya has been enjoying (and not enjoying). One thing I’ve noticed is that she’ll get immersed into a particular book or series for a time, then moves on to a new series. The first chapter books I read her were from the Magic Treehouse series — and she has a few of those books on her shelf. But they’re more nostalgic “ooh, I remember when you read me this” than current fav’s. I’ve color coded Anya’s Library so old favorites are grayed and current favs are purple.

She loved the Spirit series, but that was completely expected once I finally convinced her that chapter books aren’t boring. She’s loved the Ada Lace series (and is re-reading them repeatedly, plus anxiously awaiting the publication of another), the two Alien Math books,  as well as Chicken Squad (there are a bunch in the series, and I’d only purchased the one … just ordered two more for the summer). She loved the Mouse and the Motorcycle, and I didn’t even realize that was part of a series.

On the non-fiction side, she’s loved the programming books (especially the one with Python since both Scott and I program in Python) and Can You Crack The Code (she needed help to use the Arnold cipher on the last challenge, but she figured out the trick to turn the random set of words that made no sense into an actual message). And she loved the Kid’s Guide to Keeping Chickens (and has a few projects lined up for later this summer, when our chickens arrive).

She’s started the first book from the Genius Factor series, but hasn’t been sucked into it. It’s something she’ll finish reading eventually (halfway because I keep asking her how you do catch an invisible cat). Kind of surprisingly, since we do a lot of ‘homesteading stuff’, she hasn’t been into the Little House series. She hasn’t started the Time Twister series, although I think that’s one she’ll like once she picks it up. She didn’t like the Horse Diaries series, nor did she get into the history of Wild Horse Annie (she dressed up as Velma Bronn Johnston when they had a ‘dress up like a historic figure’ day at school).

Book Outlet has a referral – 10$ off your first order of 25$ or more (and I get a bonus 10$) — the books have a little black mark along one edge, but we’ve not had any damage or funky smells. And the prices are outstanding. I got another 20 books for just under 80$ so she’ll have plenty to read this summer.

More Progress: Raised Beds

We’ve got one raised bed completed — the soil raked out, blocks pretty much straightened (and all of the other blocks from the old garden beds have been transported to the new garden location, so we’re ready to get more raised beds started)

That means it’s time to get some plants in the ground — we brought the ten tomato plants and ten pepper plants that have been growing indoors since April 15th. I placed the tomato cages in the garden and set a pot inside each cage. Anya and I built the pepper cages (and then rebuilt the pepper cages because a few bent stakes + half a dozen in use to mark out the other bed locations mean I didn’t quite have enough to build squares … but we got ten triangles). Then it was time to dig. Anya was excited to use the gardening tools I got her a few years ago (and even let me keep my trowel in her bag).

85-90 degree days probably aren’t the best time to plant starter plants, but we had a couple five gallon buckets of water from the well and ensured the soil was nice and wet before planting. Lots of digging …

And still more digging … we have twenty plants outdoors.

Since it’s been so hot, I wanted to add some sort of mulch to keep the soil from drying out. About an inch down, it’s moist and cool … but the top inch is getting very dry. I told Anya about the first garden Scott and I had in Ohio — a friend of his ran a greenhouse, and the friend’s dad rented out plots of land for gardening. The guy’s dad told us to plant our tomatoes really deep because the stems would actually root out and make a stronger plant. Figure the stems would root out better if they weren’t in hot, dry soil!

We have grass clippings that I’ve been mixing with leaves from last year as I haul the leaves from the old garden beds (I threw a couple inch layer of leaves on top of the bed at the end of the season to act as a mulch until I was ready to plant again). But I’ve only got about half of our grass clippings incorporated, and the old garden is about 75% cleared of leaves. I’ve certainly got extra grass available. Now fresh grass can pull some nitrogen as it first decomposes — it’ll return that nitrogen eventually — and it gets hot as it decomposes. I’ve intentionally sprinkled a thin layer of grass mulch instead of heaping an inch or three of mulch around the plants. Now we’re ready to grow!

 

Notes on Meat Chickens

While we’ve got egg chickens on order, we’re thinking about meat chickens too … I’ve got a odd problem keeping both. Not sure (and I know you don’t really) how you explain to the egg chickens why some of their friends randomly disappear. Seems kind of unfair — even the meat chickens that are kept for breeding … but if we do decide to get meat chickens, I found these Bresse chickens from France.  https://www.bressefarms.com/store/p108/White_Bresse_Chicks_.html

Progress: New Raised Beds

We had a day-long break in the rain yesterday, so I put some work into rebuilding the raised beds. I transported all of the small blocks to the new garden area. There’s a pile of not-yet-composted material (and some clay soil) that will need to get hauled over to our new compost area … but that’s the last step.

I also got a tightly packed leaf layer along the bottom of the bed. Reading about building raised beds on existing lawn, people put down a layer of cardboard or newspaper to prevent the existing plants from invading the garden. It’ll rain all day today, and we’ll stomp it down again tomorrow. Then there’s a bunch of dirt to haul before I can get some plants out into the new garden space.

Oven Roasted Mushrooms

Oven Roasted Mushrooms

Recipe by LisaCourse: DinnerCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy
Prep time

20

minutes
Cooking time

30

minutes
Total time

50

minutes

Ingredients

  • Mushrooms

  • Olive oil

  • Salt / pepper

Method

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
  • While oven heats, clean mushrooms and slice
  • Toss mushrooms with olive oil (about a tablespoon per pound of mushroom) and a light sprinkling of salt and pepper
  • Change to convection at 400 degrees. Roast mushrooms for 10-15 minutes, stir and flip, and roast for another 10-15 minutes.
  • Season to taste with salt and pepper

Notes

  • Pan roasted mushrooms take a long time — there’s only so much space in a pan, and raw mushrooms are much larger than their cooked counterparts. Scott loves strogonoff, but it takes me HOURS to make it simply because two pounds of mushrooms take HOURS to cook. Using two large roasting pans, I was able to roast three pounds of mushrooms in under an hour (including washing, cutting, and cooking). By making the sauce and egg noodles while the mushrooms roast, I had strogonoff ready in about an hour (and that’s because I let the mushrooms simmer in the sauce for about fifteen minutes to absorb flavours).

Filtering HTML Drop-down

I’ve got a few drop-downs that I’ve added filtering on the drop-down – start typing and you’ll see the options that match your string. But I needed to mirror an application functionality where you select a category and are then presented with a list of options that fit the category.

Here’s the drop-down selector for the categories

    echo "      <div class=\"row\">\n";
    echo "          <div class=\"col-md-12 col-sm-12 col-lg-12 col-xs-12\">\n";
    echo "              <div class=\"row\">\n";
    echo "                  <div class=\"row\">\n";
    echo "                      <div class=\"col-md-2 col-sm-2 col-lg-2 col-xs-2 text-left\">\n";
    echo "                          <span><strong>Animal Category:</strong></span>\n";
    echo "                      </div>\n";
    echo "                      <div class=\"col-md-10 col-sm-10 col-lg-10 col-xs-10 text-left form-group\">\n";
    echo "                          <select name=\"strAnimalType\" id=\"strAnimalType\" readonly/> \n";
    echo "                              <option class=\"NoSelection\" value=\"-----\">-----</option>\n";
    echo "                              <option class=\"Feline\" value=\"201\">Feline</option>\n";
    echo "                              <option class=\"Canine\" value=\"202\">Canine</option>\n";
    echo "                              <option class=\"Equine\" value=\"203\">Equine</option>\n";
    echo "                              <option class=\"Other\" value=\"204\">Other</option>\n";
    echo "                          </select>\n";
    echo "                      </div>\n";
    echo "                  </div>\n";

And here’s the drop-down selector I want to filter based on category — there are a lot of options. The class for each option includes the category selectors that will include the option in the drop-down. 

    echo "      <div class=\"row\">\n";
    echo "          <div class=\"col-md-12 col-sm-12 col-lg-12 col-xs-12\">\n";
    echo "              <div class=\"row\">\n";
    echo "                  <div class=\"row\">\n";
    echo "                      <div class=\"col-md-2 col-sm-2 col-lg-2 col-xs-2 text-left\">\n";
    echo "                          <span><strong>Pet Breed:</strong></span>\n";
    echo "                      </div>\n";
    echo "                      <div class=\"col-md-10 col-sm-10 col-lg-10 col-xs-10 text-left form-group\">\n";
    echo "                          <select name=\"strPetBreed\" id=\"strPetBreed\" readonly/> \n";
    echo " <option value=\"-----\" class=\"selectors All\">-----</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"101\" class=\"selectors Feline\">Domestic Shorthair</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1275\" class=\"selectors Feline\">Flame Point Siamese</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1069\" class=\"selectors Equine\">Arabian</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1071\" class=\"selectors Equine\">Tennessee Walking Horse</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1072\" class=\"selectors Other\">Chicken</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1073\" class=\"selectors Other\">Snake</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1074\" class=\"selectors Canine\">Australian Shepherd</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1075\" class=\"selectors Feline\">Burmese</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1076\" class=\"selectors Canine\">Siberian Husky</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1077\" class=\"selectors Feline\">Sphinx</option>\n";
    echo " <option value=\"1078\" class=\"selectors Other\">Rabbit</option>\n";
    echo "                          </select>\n";
    echo "                      </div>\n";
    echo "                  </div>\n";
    echo "              </div>\n";
    echo "          </div>\n";
    echo "      </div>\n";

In the JavaScript, I’ve got a quick function that repopulates the rather long drop-down menu based on the selected category

// Filter strPetBreed options based on strAnimalCategory value
$(document).ready(function () {    
    var allOptions = $('#strPetBreedoption')
    $('#strAnimalCategory').change(function () {
        $('#strPetBreed option').remove()

        var classN = $('#strAnimalCategory option:selected').prop('class');
        var optsCat = allOptions.filter('.' + classN);
        $.each(optsCat, function (i, j) {
            $(j).appendTo('#strPetBreed');
        });

        var optsAll = allOptions.filter('.All');
        $.each(optsAll, function (i, j) {
            $(j).prependTo('#strPetBreed');
        });

    });
});

Since it’s possible there are options you’d want to always appear (in my case, it’s just the “—–” to indicate no selection has been made … but there could be real items that fall into each category too), I’ve got an “All” classification that will get popped onto the top of the list.

Blueberries In The Ground

We planted all 20 of the blueberry plants today. There are two rows running North to South.

We alternated the two varieties going down the rows (so you can walk along and get some of each). The Western row starts with Blueray, and the Eastern row starts with Hardy Blue on the North end. We’ve got a lot more rain coming, so there’s no need to water our new hops or blueberries.