stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

spiders again! in two ways...

the first way was going back over previously cleared territories and making sure there were no new residents. i found five, two of them were adolescents and three were tiny. they give themselves away so easily, i just look for either the bodies of bugs underneath them or a new web.

the second way was by feeding my worm farm and making sure things were ok in the buckets. a few buckets have enough small spiders in them that when i take the fine fabric mesh off the top the entire bucket top is one woven web cover which is full of hundreds to thousands of very tiny spiders. they do not get very big so that is the maximum size they will get (a few mm). the ultra tiny ones are mere specks (but they do not get out of the buckets through the fine fabric mesh because i'd know it). anyways, all the buckets were checked and topped off with food and bean pods for the creatures to feast upon. i was glad that i also finished up putting all the bean pods from shelling beans out in the buckets so they will easily be fully digested by mid-May.

i did not see a single fungus gnat, i did see a few earwigs and some other bugs i need to look up, also plenty of wood lice which i do not mind being in there at all as they will eat the bean pods too along with the worms. all together it's a functional ecosystem in a bucket and it's working out ok this year (much better than last year).

 

[flowerbug]

sometime you would think i'd get pictures of opening up a bucket and seeing all those spiders and how i keep them from all escaping. a few do try to run off but them being so small they don't get far very fast and also the web layer tends to peel right off and stay put when i take off the fabric cover so they aren't disturbed too much until i start putting things in the bucket or moving things around so i have room to put scraps in the bucket, but if i take one of my big metal spoons and go around edge right at the start that wraps them all up in their own webs and then i can do whatever i want with that (innoculate a new bucket or bury it with food scraps - enough will get back out eventually to start their webs all over again).

i don't get pictures because i'd need eight arms to get everything done all at once. see, spiders are smarter in that ways...

 

[flowerbug]

more spider hunting this morning. before breakfast even. in my room along the patio door where i have a few things in the way so it's not easy to get at them all and to check everything. i had webs for quite some time, but nothing major was too scary for me. i found one larger common house spider that was just getting big enough to start an egg sac, a few smaller cellar spiders and four tiny spiders that were likely escapees from the worm buckets, but they are so tiny i don't really mind them much as they also help eat any bugs that might be around. as far as i could tell none escaped me so i hope to have knocked back their population in here again. they've not been too bad so far, i just have to keep at it and check once in a while.

i also went outside and checked the propane tank level and then opened up the crawlspace entrance to check for mouse nests or other activity. glad to say nothing was going on in there so i refreshed the bleach container and closed it back up again (so that seems to be working out well in discouraging them from going in there).

ok, now time for breakfast.

 

[flowerbug]

celebration and taking a break time.

after close to 10 years i have finally conquered a pile of papers. yes, i hate filing papers so much that i just left them in a pile in a box flat here on the shelf right next to me so i would see them every day.

to be fair, i have made progress on dealing with them this past year in that i did go through them and pull out the stuff to be shredded (and got that done). so today i only had a small pile to be shredded again (which is already done).

so i've freed up that space for more clutter (beans likely ).

what remains is a more recent pile which was basically done to keep me from adding anything more to the old pile. it's likely only got a few things in there that are older than a few months. we'll see when i get into it. maybe in a few minutes. maybe longer. i'm still kinda quivery from what i did already...

the file cabinet ate them and will eat more. thank goodness it doesn't poop...

 

[Branching Out]

celebration and taking a break time.

after close to 10 years i have finally conquered a pile of papers. yes, i hate filing papers so much that i just left them in a pile in a box flat here on the shelf right next to me so i would see them every day.

to be fair, i have made progress on dealing with them this past year in that i did go through them and pull out the stuff to be shredded (and got that done). so today i only had a small pile to be shredded again (which is already done).

so i've freed up that space for more clutter (beans likely ).

what remains is a more recent pile which was basically done to keep me from adding anything more to the old pile. it's likely only got a few things in there that are older than a few months. we'll see when i get into it. maybe in a few minutes. maybe longer. i'm still kinda quivery from what i did already...

the file cabinet ate them and will eat more. thank goodness it doesn't poop...

It sounds like you completed a mammoth task --way to go flowerbug! I can imagine that it felt very good to cross that one off your list.

 

[flowerbug]

It sounds like you completed a mammoth task --way to go flowerbug! I can imagine that it felt very good to cross that one off your list.

it was not huge, it was just something that i never wanted to do and it was always easier to find something else to do instead.

i finished up most of the rest of it this evening. i will always have to deal with paperwork and filing but it will now be easier to find a few things since they are actually filed! imagine that? hahaha...

i can now get back to some bean collection and picture taking that i've wanted to do for a while but needed to get some other things done first. yay!

 

[flowerbug]

yes, more spider hunting today. i wanted to check my room under one of the bookcases and also under my futon because i knew it also needed dusting - which means i also did some cleaning (blech dusting phooey)...

i found two of the common house spiders (one female that had seven(!) egg sacs and the other could have been a juvenile or a male. another of the wispy spiders managed to get away but they don't bother me nearly as much as the common house spiders so i will find it some other time.

not really too bad overall to only see three spiders in that much space. i think the bigger ones do definitely keep the smaller ones under control...

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday was errand running and shopping day.

my keyboard for the computer was starting to miss things when i pressed keys and i didn't really like the feel of it and also my mouse was also not working quite right so we stopped in the computer gadget store and i picked up replacements for those. the old ones i can keep as backups as they do still mostly work and are better than nothing if i accidentally break these new ones.

the new keyboard is one of those RGB lite up and of course the first thing i had to figure out was how to turn off or tone down the lights - i don't want flashing lights going all the time, it's distracting and hard on the eyes when i type in the dark. the setting i found that works the best is the one that lights up the key you press but just for a moment and the rest of the keyboard stays dark. i hope this one lasts at least three times as long as the last one.

it is fun in the dark to go through all the options and see the pretty lights but for getting things done.

humorwise this sort of thing always reminds me of versions of this which i've seen in many old-time computer rooms:

ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENSPEEPERS!
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.
IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.
ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

Blinkenlights - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[digitS']

ACHTUNG

We will need @Phaedra to transbliterate that ..

. into ... the english language.

digitS'

 

[flowerbug]

doing more bean scanning/sorting the past few days to get some containers and box tops emptied so they can be stacked back together and give me more room again for future projects.

these are mainly Purple Dove bulk beans which i go through and make sure they are all in good condition and remove any of the stickers (bits of pod that attach to the hilum) since these will be eaten i don't want those bits floating in the water when i'm cooking them up.

the not so good condition ones end up as worm food. there's usually not too many really bad condition beans that make it this far in the sorting process, but i'm also picky and want to be sure none of them spoil in storage.

another reason to go through them all is to pull out some for replanting that are interesting because of shape or seed coat. so far i'm not finding too many that are different from what i've seen before.

i also haven't yet gotten to the containers and flats of beans i picked from the patch where i planted a lot of the odd beans from the previous harvest. i've already done some preliminary scans on these but i'll go through them again before putting the rest in a container to be eaten or replanted. i will not be giving them away to grow to other people because they may contain a lot more genetic mixing than i'd want. it's my private mixer...