Posted on 06/01/2024 6:22:03 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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It was good but several bites in, I wish I’d have grown mushrooms this Spring. Almond Agaricus is a Portobello that loves the heat and the shade of tomatoes, peppers etc.
NOTE TO SELF; Buy some very light gray or even white t-shirts. Even medium brown, my lightest color, is hot in the sun.
Pollard; Good idea. Lite grey or light blue are good colors for gardeners. Cooler, and wasps and bees are less likely to see you as a threat since you are mostly the color of sky and clouds.
It's late Spring. It's warm. There's time. Just ordered an Almond Agaricus Garden Kit. With a little luck, I will have mushrooms in my salad in mid to late July.
Played with the linear actuator and got the wiring figured out to my needs. The position sensor can be wired and measured in four different combos. They don't give instructions on how to wire it because it's up to you, depending on what output you want. I want fully retraced to be the lower voltage and extended to be higher but it can be done opposite and it also can be measured from two different combos of three wires.
I have it so fully retracted, aka 0% extended, ends up at 1.4 vdc and fully/100% extended ends up at 7.6 vdc. That's with a 14 vdc supply. The measurement is taken through a potentiometer used as a sensor. A potentiometer is usually a knob you would use to turn up the volume or the speed of the blender etc.
7.60 - 1.40 = a 6.20 vdc range with 1.40 representing 0 so that 1.4 needs to be added to any in between reading.
3.10 is half the 6.20 range or 50% but needs the 1.40 base added. 3.10 + 1.40 = 4.50
Ran the actuator out half way based on using a tape measure and indeed, it reads 4.50 vdc
If half is of 6.2 is 3.10 vdc then half of that is 1.55 vdc + the 1.40 starting point is 2.95 vdc or 25% extended
75% extends ends up being 6.05 vdc.
Need to plug the numbers into a formula and that will give me a number to put in the controller that will do the calculation and display 3%, 27% or anything else from 0-100% extended. Slope Intercept (y=mx+b)
I figured out 25, 50 and 75% but the formula will give me all the in betweens.
I can name it in the display whatever I want so it will be Open instead of extended. 25% Open etc.
In the end, the position sensor will be getting a regulated 12 vdc supply which will change all the numbers above but that's where the formula comes in. I'll just subtract the retracted reading from the extended reading and the difference(6.2 vdc right now) gets plugged into the formula.
The wacky stuff comes when I set up the controllers to open a certain % based on tunnel temperature vs wind speed vs rain.
I'm gonna go plant some salad now and relax the brain. Watered the bed earlier to the point of moist and will hit it a little more after sowing seeds.
Arbico Organics has some good stuff. I’ve been using their braconid wasp larvae for fly control since we built this place.
I’m sure they’ve got other things that would be of benefit here. I just need to take some time to peruse the offerings.
My brother (& wife) put up bird feeders next to their patio. She is an interior designer so the feeders are the ‘cute’ type - look like little cottages. My brother has been amazed at the lengths he’s had to go to in order to keep the squirrels out of the feeders. Now, they congregate under the feeders for dropped seeds.
His squirrel numbers are increasing ... a neighbor told him about squirrels chewing wires on cars, etc. He is really ‘spooked’ about that & borrowed one of my squirrelinator traps last weekend. So far, he’s caught 2 & relocated them to a park 5 miles away. I told him he’s going to end up with more than the 4 he thinks he has, plus gray squirrels are territorial & as he removes squirrels, more will filter in & replace them.
Using the ‘squirrelinator’, I have trapped as many as 36 in a year under my bird feeders & over 60 in total. Best bait is a cracker smeared with peanut butter & sprinkled with sunflower seeds (black oil). I am sending him the picture you posted - he may laugh.
It was mostly warm and dry here in Central Missouri this past week. One squall passed through a few nights ago that dumped 2”-3” of rain and caused a lot of wind damage 20 miles north of us. We were just on the edge of it. Lots of wind here but no serious damage and only .3” rain.
Yesterday I picked up the load of posts and planks that I ordered from the sawmill a few weeks ago. Past times they’ve had the material bundled and banded so it could be picked up with a chainfall and set down on a trailer without a lot of effort. The mill is growing and as luck would have it the chainfall dock is out of commission for awhile so we hand-loaded 20 6”x6”x9’ white oak posts and 60 1.25”x6”x9’ planks. No way am I going to handle that stuff twice so it will stay on the trailer in the barn until I’m ready to use it. Not ideal but that’s how it’s going to be.
I expected to be down for the count today but instead I’m just a little sore. Seems that all of the PT time this spring is starting to pay off. We’ll see how today goes.
After the mill trip yesterday I laid out a plot in the new garden patch and got the sweet corn planted. Soaker hoses are down and the first watering is done. I’ve got a little extra soaker hose hanging out of the corn rows so this morning I’m going to put in a couple or three hills of zucchini.
Tomato plants are starting to take off and are due for pruning and fertilizer so I’ll get that done after the squash is planted. If I’m still mobile after that I might hang the last gate on the garden fence or I might do something else. We’ll see. lol
I’ve got a nice mess of bluegill caged up in the pond that are going to be guests of honor at a fish fry Tuesday evening so I need to make some time today for fun with the fillet knife.
And the house yard needs mowing again.
Whew!
The birds here haven’t been too interested in Mrs. Augie’s sunflower seed since the cicada hatch started so she stopped putting it out.
The birds didn’t mind but the squirrels are quite PO’d about having to make an honest living for a few days.
“I’ve got a nice mess of bluegill caged up in the pond that are going to be guests of honor at a fish fry Tuesday evening...”
LOL!
Beau just got back from his Canada trip. He brought back 8 tasty Walleye and four Lake Trout. He, of course, is sick of eating fish for now, so they’ll be in the freezer until he’s over it. ;)
I have a hard time getting to the point that I’m sick of eating fish. We’ve always eaten a decent amount but with Mrs. Augie’s AGS diagnosis we’re eating quite a bit more lately.
Hybrid striped bass fillets and tuna steaks are going into the smoker for supper today. I like to use BBQ rub to season fish that are going to be smoked. Sounds weird but it’s good.
“Somebody” did not water anything the 10 days I was gone. Grrrr. The gorgeous hydrangeas I transplanted spring before last, that are loaded with blooms, were in total ‘collapse’. I gave the 2 of them 15 gallons of water last night (measured in a 5 gallon bucket) & this morning, they have perked up, thank goodness.
This morning, so I didn’t have to carry a heavy bucket, I measured how long it took to fill a 5 gallon bucket - 2 minutes. All the plants in the beds mostly under the roof overhang, where they don’t get a lot of rain, got 5 gallons: boxwoods, lavender, & a couple of echinaceas. The large pots with hostas got watered as well. The hostas outside of the beds are going to be left for ‘somebody’ to water, if it even happens. They are blooming & the deer ate off most of the blooms last night & have started munching on the leaves. I will likely do a deep watering once a week, maybe twice when the temps are in the 90’s (like this coming week - may be 100 next Saturday). The hydrangeas may need watering more often.
The herb garden looks like it’s doing ok - I took my hose to the other house (now I’m wondering ‘why’ since I have nothing planted there!) so I will use mom’s house & give the herbs a good soaking. I will probably bring my hose back.
We may be taking a day trip this coming Wednesday to NC - mom has some old HS friends that have been trying to get together for a while. If that trip happens, I will be turning around Thursday evening for a trip to the other house to meet a furniture delivery truck on Friday, then cutting grass Sat/Sun. If we don’t go to NC this Wednesday, we’ll likely be going Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I am getting tired of the back/forth, but see no end to it until maybe this Fall. I did manage to stay 10 days this last trip & worked on that slab project, getting grass cut, etc.
The slab project is finished in that the 4 big ones are in place & I am happy with them, but I want to extend the ‘paving’ out to the side and I need options from this house to take to the other house, specifically paving stones (the kind you can buy at the store) I have used in my soon-to-be-abandoned garden. The double wash tub that I am using for a planter needs to go as well so I can figure out where I want it - it’s rusting badly & needs some paint. The original color is silver & I would like that again, but it will be in full sun at the back of the shop & I might need sunglasses to look at it ... maybe another color? I will be painting with Rustoleum (rust stopping primer, then paint). I did miss one dahlia tuber in the old bed last fall & it came up & has bloomed - really pretty, can’t wait to have some next year (my niece is saving me some Kelvin Floodlight (dinner plate) tubers from her plants this year. :-)
More progress! Yay! :)
So much for all those numbers I figured out. Looked at the module's manual and it tells you to use the 5 vdc reference voltage from the module. I was going to use a 12 vdc supply but I guess it's too sensitive to use an external supply.
Never could figure out how to plug in numbers to that formula but figured out I don't need to because the module will do that equation on it's own. I just needed to plug two numbers into the module, Slope and Offset. My own math got me close and then I just adjusted the numbers a little. Rounding 0.58 volts up to 0.60 was a bad idea and threw me off a little to the point of fully extended being 101% open.
Closed 
Open 
And half way extended(open) is 50% as it should be. No spaces allowed in the unit names(mph, psi vdc etc) so I couldn't do "% open" and no way to get the % sign right up against the value either so "100 %open" it is. "100% Open" would be nicer but it's good nuff.
Making the module think by adding logic will be the fun part. Scheduled Tasks are easy. Conditional Tasks not so much. Every command needs another command to stop the first one.
Me: Are you open less than 1% (closed)
Module: Yes
Me: Is it over 80 degrees?
Module: Yes
Me: Open
Module: Ok I shall now open all the way for ever and ever because I am a juggernaut.
Me: Are you open more than 99%
Module: (gets to 100%) Yes
Me: Stop opening
Then do all that again to close the window when the temp cools off. Basically the same thing but with a check for a temp lower than 65 or so and the 1% and 99% get reversed and 100% becomes 0%. Stopping it just de-energizes the relay which is needed because there's an open relay and close relay. If the open relay is energized, the close relay won't do anything and visa versa.
Geez, it's not that hot. Glanced at the web page that has all the modules' readings displayed and saw 196 Degrees. It was wind direction thankfully. Outdoor temp is 91.2 and humidity is 48% and puffs of 5 mph S-SW wind. Not bad in the shade.
All I have to do is tell a neighbor I have too many squirrels. He’ll come down and get some meals and I’d be rid of them. They don’t bother me much. I don’t have any bird feeders yet and I make sure to prop the hood open a foot or so on any vehicle that’s going to sit for more than a couple of days. We have pack rats here that will make a big old nest under the hood and chew wires and hoses off to use as building materials for it. They’ll steel a small wrench to decorate it with if I leave one out too.
James Madison’s home ‘Montpelier’ was being renovated some years ago. On the grounds were trails through a ‘Landmark Forest’ and our Appalachian Trail maintainer crew was asked to come & do some trail repair for them. After we finished, we were given free admission & a tour of the place, which was a nice thank you for our work.
During the house tour, the archeologists told us about finding pack rat nests in the walls of the house. The items in the nests were very interesting because depending on when the rats were taking items, some went back to the early years (house built by Madison’s father in 1760) prior to the Revolution, through the 1800’s, Civil War Era, & into the 1900’s when the Duponts owned the place. The pack rats preserved some historical items in their nests :-)
This Genetically Engineered Petunia Glows in the Dark and Could Be Yours for $29
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-genetically-engineered-petunia-glows-in-the-dark-and-could-be-yours-for-29/
Beau used his Cabela’s Points to buy a pellet grill/smoker. That’s where the BIG fish will end up; SMOKED!
We went to Cabela’s specifically to buy the grill and some other fishing supplies he needed. The bill came to $650.00 and we walked out of there for $15.00 after using his points!
Score! :)
Now that’s a big score. Congrats.
That’s the CC he puts all the household/farm expenses on each month - and pays it OFF each month, too.
I need to find a CC that rewards me in CHOCOLATE! :)
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