A FaceBook memory from this morning. The pack 10 years ago. I think Ranger and Mindy would have loved Colorado. I don’t think they cared all that much for Florida. Mindy would have had me walking all over Aurora and probably the Front Range as well. She used to love her long walks.
Someone asked me why I hold myself accountable for making these daily posts, especially since it is possible that I am the only one that reads them. Sort of a rude question, but a valid one. I am not sure how many people read them, I have them open for comments, but that has yet to happen with the exception of some spammers, and those get deleted. Here’s the thing, I do have family out there, they are not part of my life right now for a variety of reasons, but I like to think that someday they, or their kids, may like to know a little more about me. The other thing is, that there is so much negativity on social media these days that my posts, that are really just about life, may offset some of that. Why don’t I post directly to Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, X (or any of the others)? It’s about advertising dollars. The social media platforms for years have made a ton of money from our intellectual property. It’s sort of the contract with them. They use your content, use your thoughts to stir up controversy that causes other people to click on like,dislike,love on your posts. Then they feed you advertisements. It’s in their algorithms. Well, if someone is going to use my content I want it to be linking to my site, where someday I may be able to get some advertising dollars directly on my own (not that I am holding my breath on that as Google has told me my site “lacks relevant content”). I do try and cross post to the other platforms, but my intellectual content stays on my sites.
Anyways, Good Morning! I think I am going to write today’s post in parts today. Started off the day as usual, got up a little late, it’s Sunday – I’m allowed, dogs out, in, and snacked. Res is still being picky about his snacks, I am not sure what’s up with that but I wish he’d stop. I really think he is just bored with everything. I think Angel Ranger is up there at the Rainbow Bridge making the case to take Res’s Greyhound Card away from him. It must pain him to see all of these missed snack opportunities. And, since Climber has to loose 9 pounds I can’t keep giving her Res’s leftovers.
Once Res and Climber had their food, I spent a few minutes doing some site maintenance on my WordPress block (this one), and I do need to go update the Learning Management System for work (Alpine Intel University) as I don’t like doing that one during the week. Too much risk for downtime when someone is actually going to be using it. Today some of the plug-ins had to be updated, then there was a security release to Moodle itself, and then there were some app upgrades for the Ubuntu back-end system. One of these days I probably need to do a distribution version update, but I try to avoid those like the plague….. the server is a VPS on Digital Ocean and I try to avoid the distribution updates until I really need to do them. The VPS that this site runs on is a little more forgiving, and I keep this one current more frequently.
Res got his walk, he did well. We did 3.5 miles, a little over 5K. He wanted to go further but he has a little soreness on his pads that I am watching.
Next is Climber’s walk. She did much better than yesterday in terms of pulling on my shoulder. She was actually pretty good. She did 3.48 miles, slightly less the Res, though I am not sure why. It could have been the walk back to a trash can that I had to do with Res. We did make a stop along the way so that I could submit a report of a water leak along Buckley.
After a good breakfast/lunch/brunch I went over the to pool for an hour. I was planning on a 1 hour swim but was forced to take a 15 minute “safety break”. That is such bullshit, and it makes it impossible to get a good swim in, but I guess that is something I am going to have to keep in mind going forward. I am hoping they realize that the policy normally ignores those swimming laps. I am having a lot of problems preparing for my Mountain Swim if I can’t get an hour in the pool.
After I got back from my swim I decided it was time to get the hydroponic supplies out of storage and get an inventor of where I am at with supplies this year. I also wanted to build the double buckets we are going to try this year for our cucumbers and maybe some other vegetables. We were planning on adding some additional raised beds, but I just can’t see that happening based on our current water restrictions. I think the better idea will be to do most of our planting in hydroponics where I can control water use and chemicals (fertilizer, food, etc).
Take some 3 gallon square buckets, drill holes in the bottom of the top one, to allow fast drainage into the bottom bucket. Put a bulkhead type fitting into the bottom of the outside bucket, making sure it is low enough to let the other bucket sit inside of it, and then stack them.
I have to give credit on this idea to DIY Hydroponic Gadens by Tyler Baras. We have done hydroponics for about 10 years now and I ran across this book one day when I was traveling to Portland, Oregon and decided to stop at one of my old hangouts, Powell Books, and I came across this gem. Lot’s of new ideas and some that will be an improvement of things that I have done in the past. Lot’s of new experiments this year. We have 5 of these buckets built.
I still have to add the supply and return piping, but here is this years basic setup, minus the reservoir and the supply/return.
The buckets still need to be put up off the ground. I am going to use a 2×6 on cinder blocks for this. I have the 2×6 and all I need is the cinder blocks. Once that is done I have to run my return line across the bottom back to the patio, the resevior will sit on the patio itself at the base of the retaining wall so we have natural drainage. I am going to use PVC from the buckets, I will also be using a horizontal PVC pipe across the bottom of the rails at the edge of the ledge. We didn’t have good luck with the hoses last year and I think I want to make a change in that regard. I also think I am going to be putting some valves into the drain lines from everything so I can better control the level of the water around the roots.
Had a Salmon, Asperigus, and Shrimp for dinner this evening, and now we are having a relaxing evening with both dogs sleeping off their day.
See you tomorrow!
