the Outfit

Good Morning
I did not do the one project I said I was going to do yesterday, build a cabinet for the Tusas car stereo. I did not sit, and I did not smoke all day, no doubt the two were tied together. Every time I had the urge to smoke I found something to get busy with. Man I'm hurting this morning, so I must have had a lot of urges to smoke.

First thing in the morning I worked in the garden, clearing last year's mulch from the upper bed. We're doing non-tilling style of gardening.  Supposedly, it doesn't disturb the sub-surface ecology, but it also means one less process in an already demanding life, so I'm totally down with it.

Anyway, I planted carrots, spinach, radishes and lettuce in the bed right outside the backdoor. I was surprised to find that we did not have any beet seeds, nor zucchini. I'll need to rectify that today. I did plant small sugar pumpkins, acorn squash, bush beans, and snow peas amid platinum white corn.  
 
The Jeep made it home with the low fuel light on, so I parked it by the biodiesel filling station, knowing I hadn't made any. I needed to get that rectified, so that was a priority.

For as yet unknown reasons the WVO (waste veggie oil) would not come out of the 30 gallon measuring tank. I tightened the connectors, thinking the pump couldn't draw a vacuum on the oil tank, then I put the vacuum pump on the system and that wouldn't suck the oil out either, but it was pretty neat playing with the system, fruitless as it was.

I dismantled the fluid transfer pump, hoping to breathe a decisive, "Aha," but it looked fine inside. I cleaned the lines between the measuring tank and the pump, nothing appeared to be obstructing the oil from draining, but it wouldn't move. I stirred the WVO, added a pint of methanol, stirred some more, feeling a little like a crazy old witch, finally, seemingly through no help from me oil began to move.

Once the oil is in the processor it requires heating for a couple hours, before the next step.  

Our Clematis plants are doing well this year. They don't seem to climb well, but the plant on the left is holding on to the trellis well enough so I decided I would build something quick for the other one. In an experiment I made the thick end of a small Cedar post pointed using a hatchet and drove it in the soft garden soil using a steel post driver. Amazingly, it worked. We planted the Clematis next to the tree thinking that it might wrap around the trunk, but that didn't happen. Now I'll draw it over to the makeshift trellis with strips of cloth similar to the strips I use to tie up the tomatoes. 

Makeshift-trellis-May-2012

Front-garden-May2012  Seeing some East-coast flower gardens posted on Facebook yesterday, I quickly decided to enhance our little garden with some of the house plants we're tired of watering. I don't even remember what this one is called, except I bought it for Mom from WalMart last year and it had pretty flowers. 

Irises-Front-garden-May2012 and another one of those Walmart flowers transplanted to the outdoors.

Strawberries-May2012  Strawberries seem to be doing okay in the barrels, although the holes I drilled in the sides for extra plants leak all the water out.

Sunrise-May-2012-greening  Finally it is noticeably greening up.

Buddy-restrained-May-2012  Buddy wasn't home all day yesterday, so today he'll remain restrained. Poor guy, but I warned him, "You stay home," I said.

Buddy-leased-May2012  Ever seen such a sad face?

Pre-Sunrise-May-2012

Alrighty, that's a bunch of pictures I know, it is only the tip of the iceberg of projects I worked on yesterday. I am happy albeit tired, I am ready to go to work, and even more ready for my paycheck.

This week is the Pre-Tusas Camp work party. We'll have music to work by. Aaron Juarros is bringing his music making equipment Friday night according to Austin. Everyone intending to party at Tusas is encouraged to work this weekend, those that do will certainly be smiled upon, and known to us

Brian Rodgers

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