The corn and beans are coming up nicely, and i hope to plant some squash this week. Rattlesnake pole beans and hopi corn are the staples this year and last. They do well in the hot climate of zone 9 and are slowly improving the soil in my little patch. The patch is about 15 feet square and has junk soil; lots of sand and dg. It also seems to have an endless supply of goathead seeds which sprout up as soon as any water touches them. I mulch through the winter and leave the plant material in the ground after the growing season is ended. This is a "three sisters" garden, where the beans climb the cornstalks and add nitrogen to the soil, and the squash's big leaves shade the soil; maintaining moisture through the dry months and suppressing weed growth some. This year I added drip hose through the patch which should save on water and reduce the time i have to stand in the yard in the evening getting chewed by mosquitoes.
After many years in the water sector, I started a new adventure with K-12 education in February of this year. I miss being comfortable in my work environment; having familiar lexicon, equipment, and mission parameters, along with easy expertise, made it easy to set cruise control and dream about the pension in my future. Being in a new environment with a new flavor of chaos is exciting! Every day i am learning new things and finding ways to lend my expertise to my new team. This is going to be a great adventure.
Part of being a compulsive tinkerer is having a hundred projects going at once, each at 80 to 90% completion. HomeAssistant, Jellyfin, and pfsense are three tech diversions consuming a lot of brain cycles. I happily monitor my energy use, turn shit on and off, and mess with the kids with homeassistant. Jellyfin has replaced most streaming services for family and a few friends. Audiobooks, e-books, movies, shows, and random youtube saves are easily accessible without tracking or advertisements or DMCA threats. Jellyfin isnt as good at music streaming because of the way it focuses on playlists instead of just being a good library, so i stick with airsonic for that. This keeps me fresh on managing linux, docker, libvirt, and other software. There is a wireguard vpn in there too; keeping mobile traffic private and ad free for friends and family.
There are house projects too. we are building a tiny house for eventual old people to live in. this includes a lot of heavy labor to get the yard and site in shape, but its good honest work and it feels good.
I am getting lots of miles on the pedals. 10 miles each way two or three days a week commuting. I havent had this much bike time ever and it feels great. Im still a fatty but im a fit fatty.
The world is on fire. A gang of monsters is destroying my nation. its an ugly baby, but it still hurts to see it suffer. horrible greedy people are killing each other in the name of their gods, and no-one is able to stop them. we are killing the only planet we have. we dont deserve this paradise; i hope we find a way to survive or maybe the next run of the sim will do better.
What's a Now page? The idea of the "now" page is described here: https://nownownow.com/about It's intended to quickly give someone to get a sense of what you're up to. (What would you tell a friend you hadn't seen in a year?)
Some other Now pages: Adrianna Tan, Corey Snipes
thanks, Corey!
I am an old man
ill tell you more when i get better at the typing
Email is fine and fun but please encrypt. break the surveillance economy!