Hydroponics

Hydroponics, no to be confused with Aquaponics.  This is a technique I have used with great success over the years.  Anytime some vegetable or another in my pantry begins to sprout new growth I give it a mason jar of water to grow in.  In a few weeks time the plant is usually ready to be moved to soil, either in a pot or in the garden.  Many plants can be propagated with this approach.

In previous years I have used this technique on sprouting onions, sweet potatoes, some vines, and even avocado pits.  This year, as you can see, is more of the same.  I have some potatoes started, and plan to add a sweet potato later.  The vine is a clipping from the ivy on the north side of my house which I plan to use as a house plant before removing the ivy entirely from the side yard.

With onions, I have never planted with the intent of harvesting the onion itself. I have only ever used it to clip the green growth and use it in various dishes much like one might use store bought green onions.  Since I have never tried to produce a fresh onion, or even seeds, I don't know what the results of such an attempt might be.  I have however, had great success planting sweet potatoes from this technique.

Aquaponics, with which I have no experience, is a more elaborate adaptation on this technique which incorporates the use of a fish tank into a closed system that cycles the water from tank to your plants and back again.  Currently I am unable to invest such resources, though I am interested in learning more regarding aquaponics eventually.

New Beginnings

I have decided to revive my blog and shift its focus.  I recently purchased a home and am finally able to delve into gardening and landscaping.  I will, on occasion, include other projects from around the home, but primarily will focus on sustainable gardening and living.This initial entry will be a bit of a data dump as I cover everything I have noticed and done over the last several months since purchasing the home.

The home itself was built in 1974, and sits on a little less than 0.2 acres of land.  The front of the home faces West.  On this side of the house I have two mature, if ill cared for, Honey Locust trees.  Sadly I recently learned that the tree on the south side of the yard has a beetle infestation and will need to be cut down soon.  Much of the yard has been neglected over the years, leaving the soil badly depleted in most parts, and some poorly maintained flower beds in various locations.  The back yard has a decent porch, and several grape vines growing on the east fence consisting primarily of a seeded green grape, and one vine of concord grapes  -- all in need of proper pruning.  The South side of the home has a large RV pad and a small strip of lawn against the fence that appears to be the healthiest soil in the yard.

The area does have a diverse aviary population.  To date I have seen crows nearby, and found various finches and pigeons in my yard as well as a Northern Flicker and a Downy Woodpecker.  A couple magpies have ventured into our yard on occasion as well due to the feeders I have hung on one of my trees.

There are also various bulbs in the soil and flower beds that I have stumbled upon, so this spring should be interesting as these flowers come to life.

Going forward, I intend to plant some fruit tree guilds and other shrubs with principles from permaculture.  I also want to eliminate the grass from the strip and replace it with a variety of flowers and drought tolerant plants.  I will be trading sprinkler heads for drip tape systems where-ever possible, and generally trying to restore health to the depleted soil.  My goal is to create a more sustainable landscape that consumes fewer outside resources and benefits humans and animals alike.

Downy Woodpecker

Magpie and Northern Flicker picking seeds from the snow.

Finished!

So, my first flute is done despite a bit of a learning curve, and it turned out great. Here are the last few photo's of it as I finished up the project.

Here I'm about half way through the tuning process. You can see the bottom three holes are quite large compared to the pilot holes I drilled for the top three which hadn't been tuned yet at this point int he process.

Here I've completed tuning the flute and am almost done putting on the shellac to give the flute its finished look. (other students from the class working on various stages of their flutes in the background.)
There's the finished flute at home on our coffee table. I've yet to get a picture with my camera that really shows how nice it turned out. My instructor helped a good bit with this flute so I can't quite claim this one as my own. I'm well into my next flute however, and its going remarkably well. Updates on that to follow soon!!!

All....most..... there....

The flute is almost completed. Finished shaving it down to form and sanding the flute to 400 grit, will probably sand a bit more after the flute is tuned the rest of the way and has the six finger holes drilled out. Once that is finished it just needs to be shellacked and that'll do it for the flute itself. Still need to make a "bird" for the flute so it actually plays. I've been borrowing one for now just to tune it and such.

Old "nest" new bore.

had to cut all those little pieces off to tune the flute to F#

Preparing to shave the flute to its final form.

Shavings, and the final product. Pretty happy with this
considering everything this poor flute has been through.

Lathing in agony.

So, our little project has progressed to the lathe, which ended in a small disaster which resulted in a bit of a detour. Fear not though, all is well and the flute has been saved..... until Thursday when I return to the lathe anyway.
Visible on the left here is my original flute mounted to the lathe in preparation for being turned (made round). Unfortunately for my poor flute this venture ended poorly for it. Just to make this easier to understand, by the time I had achieved a round form on the flute the walls of said flute where very thin. As I continued to round the flute I..... well, I made an hour-glass shape out of it and ended up with a section so thin you could actually see light through it when looking down the bore. This of course, meant the flute had been ruined. As I mentally prepared myself to have to start over and make a new flute from scratch my instructor looked at what I had done and told me it could be fixed, but that it would require tools we did not have in the shop. In the mean time I needed to make a new bore to replace the existing one on the flute in preparation for this repair job. (then a weekend went by.)










So, I took the black walnut wood I wanted to use for my second flute and made a new bore out of it for this current flute. Today our instructor brought the specialty equipment in and we prepared the old flute for its new bore. This process involved removing the old bore and shaving the inside of the flute to make a wider opening. Then the new bore was shaved down to a size small enough to fit inside the old flute, thus (after some gluing) combining both pieces into one flute.










So, the flute is glued together and the glue is setting. The two pieces look good together and I plan to add a small turquoise inlay at the seam between the two pieces of wood to accent the transition point. Once this is done I'll go back to the lathe and turn the flute till both pieces match in size. After that all that remains is tuning the flute and calling it done.

Clicking on the photographs will give you a larger image to look at.

Sandpaper and Glue

Well, another week or so has gone by and the flute is coming along nicely. Shown in this photo are the early stages of the sound holes of the flute. The air will flow from the left to the right of the flute. It will eventually come up through the opening on the left, traverse the "flue" and then enter through the "true sound hole" (or the hole on the right) this hole will make the actual sound of the flute, somewhat like blowing across the top of a glass soda bottle.






This is the inside of the flute with the air flow from right to left. To the right is the slow air chamber, to the left the actual bore of the flute. I used a chisel to create the small ramps leading up to the openings from the inside, this aides with the air flow to keep things moving smoothly. Once this was completed I needed to route the flue of the flute to channel the air from the opening of the slow air chamber to the opening of the bore. I chose to add some Black Walnut to this section of the flute which meant I needed to cut two small pieces of wood to use as my inserts. Once these were cut to approximate size I sanded them down to fit and glued them in place. This was followed by more sanding to make the top flat and level. This section of the flute is called "the nest" and later in the process you'll see why its vital that this piece be completely flat and smooth. So, after some time on the sanding block this is what I ended up with. (air flow from right to left again).

With all this competed I was ready to Glue my flute together in preparation for turning the flute to make it rounded. This takes a few basic steps, first the bore and slow air chamber of the flute should be shellacked to protect them from moisture. Then a light coating of glue is applied to one half of the flute. Both halves are then pressed together and clamped in place after aligning the bore of the flute properly. So, my flute will sit like this all weekend until work resumes on Tuesday next week. (note, the image of the flute being glued is another student and his flute, not the one I'm working on. and yes, our "clamps" are made of PVC pipe.)

In the beginning...

Well, I didn't think of posting this project on the internet until a few days into the course so for my first flute I don't have any pictures of its true beginning. To sum it up, I started with a basic plank of Alder wood and cut it down to the two stacked pieces shown here. In my notes you can somewhat see what the basic design needs to be for the flute when completed. at this point in the process I have decided to make a 7/8 " bore flute and marked out the sections of the flute that will become the bore, the slow air chamber, and the mouthpiece. Due to restrictions on tools it would be a few days before I could actually use the router to route the bore into the wood.

So, on to the router. We use these fun little "jigs" our instructor invented to hold the wood in place while we use the router, this does two things for us, foremost it protects our hands from any injury the router bit might cause. (made of carbide, wouldn't be pleasant.) and secondly it holds the wood straight and steady to help ensure a straight bore, I say help because you can still mess it up.






So, here are the two halves of my flute after the bore and slow air chamber has been routed out to 7/8". Now I get to spend ages and ages sanding these spaces to make them smooth, starting with 100 grit and working my way up to about 1000 grit so tune in next week to see how far I make it. ;)