Cottage - June 2011

Up-North in June.Saw 4 deer by the lake back in the woods. Then saw a mother and 2 baby's while on a bike ride. While raking the beach. While in the woods. A largemouth bass i caught early in the day. Here's a bigger bass i caught later around 8pm. Digging up lilly pads to take home. ...

Italy Ideas

I'm looking for any tips, ideas, food, hints, places to go and what to see while in Italy.On September 26 i'll be going to Italy with Karrie and her mom and some of their friends. We are going for 10 days, 2 days spent flying, and coming back October 5th. Our hotel for the 8 days will be in Rome. Here are the places we are planning to visit. Most city's are +- 350 miles north of Rome and we plan to visit for only a day each: Rome - Trevi Fountain (5 minute walk from the hotel), St. Peters Basilica (30 minute walk from the hotel), Pantheon, Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps), Piazza Navona, The Sistine ChapelFlorence - Academia (Michaelangelo's...

Gutter Drainage Again

The first drain pipe in installed by the side of the garage works perfectly. 1st drain pipe The second one i made doesn't. 2nd drain pipeThere's 2 reasons why it doesn't work. First, all the soil in my backyard is clay, which doesn't let the water drain. Second, is that my backyard is basically flat, which also doesn't let the water drain.So i tried extending the pipe another 10 feet.Then instead of just backfilling the trench with clay i added, then compacted, logs and grass clippings. I then put the dirt back on top of that. I'll probably have to fix this again next year....

Penny Auctions

A while back i was all fired up about trying to figure out online penny auctions. Since then i sort of gave up, but i wrote down what my plan was.In case you don't know there are tons and tons of sites on the internet called "penny auctions." They are sort of a combination between an auction and ebay. The trick is that you have to pay for every time you bid. Quibids.com is just one of those sites. It's the site i decided to focus on.Here you pay 60 cents for every time you bid. At first glance it looks like an amazing deal. Tv's being sold for $50, two-hundred dollar gift cards being bought for $9. The...

Mailing Coconuts

While in the grocery store i saw coconuts on sale so i bought 3. I read somewhere and then i saw it was on Mythbusters, that you can send a coconut in the mail. Not in a box, but just by putting the address and a few stamps on it. I decided to mail them to Adam in Arizona, John in Colorado and Katie & John in Michigan.They each weighed over 2 pounds at first, but at home i drilled a small hole and emptied out the liquid. Then i used hot glue to fill the hole.I wrote their addresses on them then went to the post office. At that point, while waiting in line i realized how dumb this was, but the lady there said ya it's no problem....

Salsa and the Pressure Cooker

I borrowed a pressure cooker from someone at work because Karrie made lots of really good salsa. We did the first batch, 4 jars, but then figured that since we had the pressure cooker we should do more. So we made another pot.We had to look up online how to use the pressure cooker, how much water to add, how long to cook and at what pressure. We ended up doing 10 pounds of pressure, 15 minutes after it started boiling. Here's a video of what it looks like when you are at the correct pressure.The first batch was fine, all the jars sealed. The second batch had 3 jars that didn't seal properly so we re-pressure cooked them.Here's all the...

Lotus in the Sun

Well i know now what it takes to get them to grow. Abnormally warm Michigan weather. It's been very warm, it was even 90 degrees here for several days and the plants grew great.Add captionThe best thing about having them outside is that the pads don't dry up and turn brown. Growing them outside is definitely the way to go. High heat/humidity and lots of sun. The water in the buckets got up to 80 degrees. First though, let me go back. I originally learned about the American Lotus when working at the CE Power Plant in Monroe Michigan a year ago. It has a bay next to the plant, which is part of Lake Erie. The seeds...

Garden - June 2011

This is the 3rd year i've had a garden and the 2nd year with good soil. I planted more seeds then last year, i didn't space the rows out as much, so we'll see how it goes. 3 rows of cornpeanutssunflowers3 types of tomatoeslettucegourdssquash3 types of pumpkinscarrotspeppersI planted everything when it was 80, then it went down to 40 degrees at night and rained for a week. But i did mix in mulch and pearlite. Charlie on guard duty. Again this year his job is to kill any animal that try's to eat my corn. The corn and sunflowers are doing great, squirrels ate the peanuts and most of the potatoes thoug...