Blog

BirdNET

BirdNET is a project that provides automated detection and identification of bird species from bird sounds. A Shazam for birds. And, when linked with Flickr, I get to see an image of how the species looks whenever a bird is identified. I’ve had a BirdNET station running for a few months now. It was quick…

Race Report: 2022 McDowell Mountain Frenzy 50 mile

Last week in Phoenix, AZ, I ran my first 50 mile race with friends and support from our loved ones. The race was the McDowell Mountain Frenzy put on by AravaipaRunning. Part of their desert race series. Coming into race week, I felt undertrained in part due to some hip and knee pain that limited…

Denali Expedition 2018: a very late retrospective

About 5 years ago my friend Jason raised the idea of training toward the goal of climbing Denali, North America’s tallest mountain. At the time our experience amounted to a few weekend mountaineering trips to Mt Shasta. Going from that to a 3 week long expedition sounded like a huge hurdle to overcome. Nonetheless without…

Grill fired pottery

Rescued a thrown out Weber charcoal grill a while back and tried using it to fire some wheel thrown greenware. It is supposed to be similar to pit firing without needing to dig a trench. Progress shots below. I tried some thicker walled pieces (1/2+ inch) and thinner walled ones (~1/4 inch). The clay bodies…

RAP/ROAM/NARM Reciprocal Membership Map

A number of gardens and museums provide “family” level memberships which come with a reciprocal membership benefit that provides access to a set of other garden/museum institutions. RAP, ROAM, and NARM are three such reciprocal membership programs. I was a bit frustrated by the tooling/materials provided for seeing the qualifying institutions. The respective program websites…

Composting

I’ve been composting for some years now and in 2020 I formalized my learnings by joining the UCCE Master Composter course. Much of the course followed readings from the Rodale Book of Composting and a Master Composter Training Manual Handbook. I learned a bunch, and especially enjoyed the series of guest speakers. Topics spanned soil…

Mission Peak 4x

What do 4 paragliders, 4 pairs of tarantula legs, a 4 shaped tree, and 4 wild turkeys in a row have in common? The number 4! Also, they’re found on the 4 sides of Mission Peak. Or at least they were on the day I ran the hike on each side.  Mission Peak is a…

Rhubarb and Indigo

I recently purchased a towel with an interesting waffle texture. Unfortunately it only came in white, which I find a bit boring. We had an aging indigo vat sitting outside through some frosty nights and held some doubts whether it survived the weather. I also had a pile of rhubarb leaves leftover from a harvest.…

Water Reuse for Fun and Profit

There are a number of ways homeowners can reduce their water usage. Take shorter showers. Take fewer showers. Use water-wise drought tolerant landscaping. Those are ways that may come at some personal inconvenience. But there are other ways that have a small upfront cost but little or no inconveniences. Here I’ll share ways and ideas…

Home Wall Build

One of the responses to the pandemic this year was the closure of rock climbing gyms. And for some months, parks were closed as well which closed the door on outdoor climbing. Plus the stay-at-home order meant not travelling far from home. Stuck at home, I was presented with a good opportunity to find replacement…

Loading…

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.


Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

%d bloggers like this: