Vermicompost Sifter Project

Here is a quick little project to help sort out worm poop from bedding material.

cut 4 boards to 11 inches

Image 1 of 10

I emptied out about 1/6th of the left side of my worm bin and sifted out the good stuff from the bedding with this.  It worked well.  I might add two more boards so the device will not move in either direction off of the bucket.  The grand total cost of this project was zero.  I used scraps I had laying around!  There was cost in staples and glue, but I already had those materials on hand too.

I’m changing up my worm-poop-harvesting theory.  I used to do it the laziest possible way, which was just keep adding more wet newspaper until there was no room left, the entire worm bin was worm poop, then I’d start feeding the worms on the other side of the bin, which would encourage the worms to move next door, and I’d then start harvesting the poop by scooping it out.  There are some problems with this though:  who wants to live in a mountain of their own poop, there was always chunks of bedding left over, and the poop would sit idle for a long time, probably losing much of its nutrient value and life.  Now, I’m going to start harvesting when I notice a significant build up of poop, so the product will be fresher, and maybe the worms will live a better life.

Posted in Gardening, Projects | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Secrecy Feedback Loop

If you are a US Citizen, I urge you and plea with you to read The Secret Sharer – Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state?“. It is a little long, but explains something very clearly that I think we all need to be aware of: the recent history of warrantless wiretaps of Americans, including the storage of all email.  Not just the fact that it is happening, but what the reasons are, and our government’s actions and attitude of doing these things.  The interesting this is that the system was designed to protect our privacy, but the privacy components were removed along the way.  The story is also about the governments treatment of ‘whistle blowers’ that were trying to make things right (not infringe of American’s rights) and also to prevent the waste of billions of dollars due to bad management practices.  This article was recommended by Dan Carlin’s podcast, The Secrecy Feedback Loop, where he discusses the article at length.  (also worth a listen)  I’ll hold off on sharing my thoughts about this subject for now;  I’ll just say I’m very worried about the times we are living right now.  Please drop me a comment and let me know what your thoughts or feelings are after you read it.  (and please do take the time to read this one)

Posted in Interesting | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms

U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms – Larry Bell – The Bell Tells for You – Forbes

law-abiding citizens in America used guns in self-defense 2.5 million times during 1993 (about 6,850 times per day), and actually shot and killed 2 1/2 times as many criminals as police did (1,527 to 606). Those civilian self-defense shootings resulted in less than 1/5th as many incidents as police where an innocent person was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%)

In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, nearly half of all burglaries occur when residents are present. But in the U.S. where many households are armed, only about 13% happen when someone is home.


Posted in Guns, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How Bad Do Things Have To Get Before You Do Something?

via YouTube – How Bad Do Things Have To Get Before You Do Something?.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Garden Update: June 6, 2011

The main purpose of this post is to offer photographic proof that I’m not a 100% tomato growing failure.  I have a pretty good harvest of tomatoes, and I might get a few more weeks of growing season before the afterburners kick up the heat to broil.  Even some of the goofy hanging tomato plants are producing fruit.  For the first time, a sunflower in my garden has a bloom.  They usually get eaten pretty early on.  This past weekend, I harvested a load of green beans, some potatoes, and a few peppers.  I planted about 20 orka plants too, and I hope they make it.  (they were also all eaten when young and tender)

Tomato Harvest

Image 1 of 5

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Patriot Act and Bipartisanship

The Patriot Act and bipartisanship – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

So when they were out of power, the Democrats reviled the Patriot Act and constantly complained about fear-mongering tactics and exploitation of the Terrorist threat being used to stifle civil liberties and privacy concerns.  Now that they’re in power and a Democratic administration is arguing for extension of the Patriot Act, they use fear-mongering tactics and exploitation of the Terrorist threat to stifle civil liberties and privacy concerns

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

YouTube – Grocery Store Wars (2005)

 

via YouTube – Grocery Store Wars (2005).

Posted in Gardening, Humor | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Big Lie: 1 of 4

Our federal leaders are arguing about raising the debt ceiling now.  I personally have no doubts that it will be raised.  It has to be raised.  We are locked into an unsustainable money system that is dependent on growth and debt to work.  Regardless, here is some good food for thought:

Big Lie Number One:

Bush created all of these problems.  We are trying to solve them but it’s much worse than we thought and it will take years for our solutions to have an impact.

There are numerous facts available to disprove this. But two of the biggest and best are:

Fact 1

President Obama increased spending and the size of government more than all previous presidents (from George Washington through George Bush)

COMBINED.

President Obama created that problem and he should own it.

Fact 2

The number one, most important job of the House of Representatives every year is to create a federal budget. Under Nancy Pelosi (while Obama was in office) the House did not create a federal budget. They didn’t even try. They did, however, write endless blank checks for Obama to use on his wild spending spree.

The liberal congress created that problem and they should own it.

We are hitting the debt ceiling because they went nuts with the country’s credit card for the past 28 months.  It’s not someone else’s fault.  The problem was created quickly and it can be solved quickly by cutting spending and cutting up the credit card.  Raising the debt ceiling will only make it worse. PURE AND SIMPLE. Don’t buy it when they tell you it’s more complicated than that.

Other lies that we will be hearing are:

Big Lie 2

There’s no way to cut enough spending. So we must raise the debt ceiling.

Big Lie 3

We can haggle for some really great deals now that we have them over a barrel.

Big Lie 4

You just don’t understand all of the complicated details. Let us handle it.

We’re smart.

This info was received via email from the “Tea Party Patriots

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Vegetable Gardening 101

The most common questions about gardening come from people just starting out: What do I do?  How do I start?  Most any experienced gardener will tell you they never stop learning, so don’t wait until you think you ‘know it all’ to get started; try following some common guidelines, get started NOW, and learn as you go.

Read the article about getting started in vegetable gardening at the NTVG blog.

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

More Gardening Babble from Brian

Just wanted all my friends to know about a new place for vegetable gardening information, especially for people living near the DFW metroplex.  I’ve created a few blog posts there now, so put it in your RSS reader if you want to see the new articles.  The forum is ticking along nicely, and I’m surprised by how many lurkers there are throughout the day looking at all the material there.  I do wish more people would introduce themselves and participate and contribute, but I know you can’t expect folks to do that sort of thing unless they ‘get’ it and buy in to the world of online media and social networking.  Here is the address for the blog: http://northtexasvegetablegardeners.com/blog/ and for the forum: http://northtexasvegetablegardeners.com/forum/.  Please pass this info along to any other DFW gardeners you know of; the more participation we have, the more the group benefits.  Hope to see you over there soon!

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment