Bill's Ramblings

Home

Robots

Building a Metal Melting Furnace

Metalworking

Alternative Power

Classic Computers

Gardening

Community

Links



About this site

Coming soon?

Email the author:
bill@geektrap.com

Greetings!

Welcome to my little corner of the web. Put your feet up and relax for a bit.




This Summer's Project: An earth-sheltered greenhouse 23 May 2009, 0:32 UTC

For some time now, I've wanted a permanent greenhouse that would shelter our veggies from ravenous hordes of grasshoppers, and which would stay above freezing inside through the winter, so we could grow fresh food all year-round. A few years ago, I bought a copy of "Gardener's Solar Greenhouse - How to Build and Use a Solar Greenhouse for Year-Round Gardening" and had occasionally dragged it out and flipped idly through it on cold winter nights. Finally, I decided _this_ was the year!
read more...


A Sweet Little Ass13 March 2009, 14:12 UTC

Congratulations, it's a jackass. Our donkey, Thunder, just gave birth to a very cute little baby boy donkey (who has since been named "Flash") sometime between late last night and early this morning. Mother and baby both appear to be doing fine, as you can see. He's been frolicking around the pasture, bucking, prancing, and generally having fun.




Here he is at one day old, fluffed up and looking cuter than ever:


[permalink]


A ROVing Robot27 December 2008, 23:22 UTC

Since I can't do much outdoors this time of year, to keep myself from bouncing off the walls I've decided to try to build a medium-sized, possibly solar-powered, four-wheel-drive robot (more accurately, a Remotely Operated Vehicle, or ROV) that can be driven around our couple of acres of pasture via the web, and used for viewing and exploring the various plants, insects, and animals found there. If nothing else, it will drive the yappy dog next door to distraction.
read more...


The Joys of Bureaucracy (A pole barn in seven acts)29 September 2008, 22:52 UTC

Okay. So we have two miniature donkeys and a miniature horse, and they need a little shelter. The one we put together when they moved in with us last winter, using bales of straw pinned to the ground with chunks of re-bar and a tarp lashed over the top was crumbling fast. We talked it over and decided that our best bet was to build a lean-to attached to the side of our existing metal barn (which is used to store equipment and vehicles, not ponies) using the same pole-barn construction methods and materials. We could share the common wall, thus saving some time and material, and electricity would be near at hand. How hard could it be?
read more...


Thinking of buying an Atwood RV Furnace? Keep thinking.1 September 2008, 4:17 UTC

A tale of my experience trying to get a defective thermostat replaced.
read more...


Older entries:

All older entries...


[atom feed]  
[æ]