Spring is in full swing here, and summer is probably just around the corner. We are already starting to see 80+ degree highs pretty regularly. That must mean it is time to hit the garden! We usually kick things off with a visit to the local botanical festive. This year it was moved and by my estimate was about half the size it normally is. Very sad. As a result we got no herbs and still have a number of empty planters. Still, we got a lot of good plants!
Our big backyard planters I made were looking kind of sad. All my attempts to grow clover kind of went kaput. Only the pink flamingos were coming in nicely.
Some native friendly variant of Mexican petunia went into the right side bed while some blanket flower and Mexican heather went in on the left. We transplanted the flamingos so they could spread more.
Even the back door planter got in on the action. I found a tiny lime bush and some lavender for the bees. This one still needs some help filling out.
Out front didn’t see a lot of new flowers. We were trying to pick up native sun happy pot friendly plants. Not sure how successful we were, but here is some of what we got.
The sweet almond smells amazing and looks good in these cool new 90 degree pots we got.
There was a Florida friendly daffodil apparently and something called nemesia. We probably need to fill out about 6-10 more pots out front for everything to look right. Hopefully we will have another free Saturday soon to do more gardening.
Last but not least this little simpson stopper is hopefully going to grow up big and bushy to help cover up the trash cans. Right now he is a runt, but a little water and a strong summer ought to fix that.
As if allowing two long eared fuzzy ingrates in the house wasn’t enough, I eventually relented to us hosting a temporary visitor. A particular bun from the mean streets of Melbourne got picked up by a cop and needed a home for a short while so he could get fixed and make his way to the greater Orlando rescue group. I was expecting an ornery skittish bad bun. What I got instead was an incredibly sweet creature. Someone either lost him or kicked this guy out. Either way, they are losing out big time.
he gaps between each tile varied between 1/8″ and 1/16″. It made any errors on my part easier to hide, but keeping everything looking right meant I needed a variety of shims. When installing the tile I did my best to keep the gaps clean, but sometimes the mortar squeezed through. It is tough to clean without disturbing the wet tile too much. Instead I waited till it was cured and used a custom little tool to scrape it out. It is a thin putty knife ground down to make a small hook/dovetail shape. I was able to get into the gaps and clean out any stray mortar that even the smallest grout saw couldn’t get to.
As a bonus I had extra thin cut maple left over. I want to use this stuff up quickly. At these sizes and with it being flat sawn, it will cup and bow quickly. At work we stretch regularly using a deck of cards with different stretch moves. The box the cards came in was complete junk. I thought having a two sided card caddy would make transport and use easier.
I was 99% sure that all it really needed was a new hot end. Not sure what happened to the last one, but it would jam up no matter what I did. Monoprice of course doesn’t sell new ones, and I didn’t want some cheap knock-off. I didn’t realize it when I first had this problem, but it turns out E3D makes a “lite6” version of their famed V6 for half the price. It can only do PLA and ABS, but that is all I ever wanted anyways. Step one, remove old hot end with extreme prejudice.
Next a length of pipe acted as a down spout. I start with only this downspout, but the pellets came out too quickly from the drop. They would hit the bowl and go everywhere. The bunnies didn’t mind the game of 52 pellet pickup, but some pellets would escape the fence.
I could now work on the small pantry without any fear of getting in the way of cabinet installation. It would give us a place to put back some of our boxed junk and help out in minor cooking adventures at Kitchen Base Camp. I went with adjustable wire shelves and wired an under-cabinet light in the top that goes on with the lights over the stove. Some basic molding happened on the inside, but most will wait till I can do everything after the cabinets are complete.
This project took only 3 2x4s, a bit of glue, and a hand full of screws. I started by cutting up a pile of 3.5″ long 2×4 segments. These are going to go together like a end grain cutting board.
With everything glued I had a big block target. This alone would probably last a while, but could somewhat easily cleave in half along the grains. To help with strength I wrapped the edges with 2x4s screwed into the core. This will help hold the relatively delicate center together longer.
Kilted Craft Works 