just discovered that the circuit breakers on my PV array are 10A, not the 15A that I specced out when I ordered it

it's been in service for 5 years, so I guess 10A turns out to be sufficient. And at least the error was on the safe side.

still.. gonna have to remember to check orders better

Dropped by Bass Pro. Got 3 pair of free socks & a class action lawsuit.

(I only ever shopped here to tweak my mom.)

A summary of our experience over the past 4 years using one of those greenhouses in a box to store firewood.

https://archive.softwareheritage.org/add-forge/request/create/ is the url I meant to link to

last river swim of the summer today

softwareheratige.org can now archive entire git servers regularly. If you have one, go here to get it archived https://archive.softwareheritage.org/save/

If you created an imaginary version of your home directory as it will look in 2040, what would it look like?

First file I made for some reason was this one:

-rw-r--r-- 1 joey joey 1.0M Apr 11 2040 amazon-citizenship-card

The really dystopian part of this thought exercise is that borg will not back up that timestamp. It will set it to 2038. And they don't consider this a bug, "timestamps in the far future should not exist anyway"

Seeking a new backup program now, not even kidding.

Let's send an impactor into the comet, and in case that doesn't knock it off course, frankenstien together a big rocket out of mothballed shuttle engines and apollo parts.

river beach

Awesome reader and cover-crop experimenter Craig wrote in last month with his questions and comments about planting cover crops between young fruit trees in mid Ohio. He promised me pictures and a followup, both of showed up in my inbox last week.

Craig's first experiment involved "hand-tossed rye seeds on my apple beds" in early August to replace a mature buckwheat stand. He noted, "I'm loving how the action of re-seeding a new green manure crop after buckwheat accomplishes multiple tasks: plants the next cover, provides an opportunity to weed (easily and satisfyingly) what didn't get crowded out by the last round of growth, and creates a mulch on the soil surface."

This has been my experience too! My best stand of oats is coming up where I treated a buckwheat bed exactly the same way. Definitely recommend!

Again just like in my garden, Craig's oilseed radish cover crop (which he calls "torpedo radishes") came up very strongly. We both overseeded since it's tough to get anything to sprout atop dry late-summer soil, and we both ended up with a radish stand thicker than was really necessary. No real harm done other than a waste of seed, but our lesson has been learned!

Craig promised me a followup this spring, so I'll be sure to keep you posted. In the meantime, I thought I'd spill some beans of my own. I'm hoping to find time this winter to work on a cover-crop video course and/or workbook. Both are intended to simplify the brain power involved in including cover crops in your garden, either through lots of hands-on visuals (video course) or through charts and pages that walk you through the decision-making process (workbook). If I don't have time for both, does one of those sound a lot more fun than the other to you?

Finally, I'd be remiss if I ended this post without telling you that it's not too late to plant rye. If you have garden beds that are going to weeds and that you know you won't need until next June, why not get a cover crop established to improve your soil while you take the winter off?

wasp just landed on top of my laptop, deposited a drop of water, and flew away

this is just to say
that I found the half-eaten jar of sauerkraut
in the back of the dead fridge
where it has been ever since
I moved in here, 12 years ago

I threw it out
I did not examine it closely
it was not the least bit cold
maybe it was still good, who knows?

I guess you were saving it for later
and then the fridge died
and the door came off
and you started using its shelves
to store empty bell jars
and you covered it up with a pretty cloth
but the kraut was still good
so it stayed

also I ripped the fridge out of the wall
where you had built it in
between the kitchen and the utility closet
been meaning to do that for years

and then I saw that the fridge
was still hardwired in,
still energized at 24v DC
maybe still eating power for all I know

and you know,
the empty space
between the drywalls in stick frame houses
is intended to be a firewall,
so maybe leaving a rotting,
undead circuit in that space
for decades
was not the best idea

although, nowadays
everyone builds USB converter outlets
into walls without giving that
a seconds' thought

but I'm ranting now
just wanted to say,
I'll make some more kraut soon

After watching this talk by Josh Triplett I looked at a couple of things that use vfork, and found unsafe code everywhere I looked. Eep.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-LPC2022-io_uring_spawn

(The things I looked at were Haskell's process library and cvs.)

The mechanic left my car's lights on. Discovered after I had gone through all the prep with my 2 cats for a morning vet visit. argh

read a github blog post where they mentioned they store around 18.6 petabytes of data

interestingly, last time I ran the git-annex user survey (2018), respondants were storing around 1.3 petabytes with it

That was less than 300 users though.. It's not uncommon for these kinds of surveys to only measure 1/10th the usage or so. Makes me wonder how close the actual numbers are.

#sourdough baked in a toaster oven. First decent bake in a while, can't wait to get back to wood baking though.

We invited a couple of stray cats to join us a few months ago.

Daisy and her playful son Dandelion.

I decided they need a proper box to relax in and actually ordered a cat box.

The box it came in was also close to the right height and size.

Daisy says it might take several days to figure out which is her favorite.

My 19 year old car has officially become an old car -- I now know people at the garage and bring it in not to get one thing fixed but several that have accumulated.

Please hold out until I can get an EV...

deep fake the Queen

Banana bread with homegrown Meyer lemon glaze

this system is designed to be able to run a hot water heater and charge an electric car 20 or so miles on a sunny day

and to cover 100% of my other loads on even the most cloudy day. battery bank only needed for overnight loads

Designed an 11 kw #solar array that would cover my entire roof and upgrade my existing 1kw system.

Estimated price to DIY it is $10k. I'd get 30% back in tax rebates.

For comparison, non-DIY price for a 10kw grid tied system in my area is $33k..

This would be an offgrid array with some quirks and odd choices. so not directly comparable (eg, I'm not spending $10k on inverters), but still... wow.

purple++

As the summer garden season winds down, I'm filling gaps not needed for cool-season veggies with cover crops. And, in addition to my old standbys, I'm running a few experimental plantings this year.

My focus is trying to find at least one legume I heartily recommend in a no-till system. Summer-planted hairy vetch, unfortunately, is not it. The flowers are just starting to pop up and they're quite pretty, but the cover crop grew so slowly during its early life that the bed is more full of weeds than vetch.

I'm hoping experiment 2 and/or 3 will yield better results. I interseeded crimson clover amid half of my oats last month on the theory that a grain will cover the ground fast enough to deal with the weed issue while the legume will still be able to find its feet and add nitrogen to the soil. On a similar vein, I'll be planting a mixed bed of rye and hairy vetch next week.

Stay tuned for results in the spring!

As if this week needed more natural beauty...

--><-- this surprised at the ongoing failure of NASA's doomed from inception Artemis

Glimpse of me if I were a real hiker

Where did my hat-sized bowl of photo go? Maybe I should have another one...

Aaaaaahhhh

Finished my hike an hour ago. Roan Mtn at Carvers Gap, the Humps, and down the mountain to 19E. 15 miles and 3000 feet descended.

I would do this again.. But maybe in only 2 days not 3!

At the bottom of the switchbacks...

Breakfast of champions

Trail ahead. The contour lines stacking on top of one another and switchbacks look hairy

Sleeping tonight with my head in TN and my feet in NC

Arrived at doll flats after a grueling descent. Great spot to spend the night. 1500 feet descent tomorrow in only a mile or so

Submitted Big Hump after 1.5 hrs.

View where I have been and where I am going...

Coming up Big Hump

Feeling great

Summit of Little Hump Mtn. Big Hump ahead!

Little hump mtn

Morning coffee on the trail. (Instant ugggh)

Red curry tuna pouch on a tortilla in a mountain meadow: sublime!

And fiery!

Hiked 5.5 miles today. Camping in this meadow

The AT...

On The Roan... Round bald

got my sawn off toothbrush, sliver of soap, mask, and clove jar full of sunscreen all packed.. last minute hiking prep