Whatcha Up To???

[Mr_Yan]

The special flavor ice-cream in the break room at work today was watermelon. Made me think of this post.

Poured a few watering cans of KoolBloom fertilizer on tomatoes, squash, and melon.

Still dry here but being stubborn about watering. Seems like a waste to use treated potable water to water a lawn. Remote chance for rain a few times over the next 24 hours.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Watched the Doppler radar as a t storm rolled south toward us, fell apart about 15 miles north, and re-formed about 10 miles south.

Had the kids empty their kiddy-pool with their watering cans. They could dump the water where-ever they wanted. I had images of the Sorcerer's Apprentice going though my head.

 

[w_r_ranch]

I haven't been here as much as I normally am as I'm busy doing both hardware & software upgrades to our computer system(s). As I mentioned earlier, I am adding a NAS to our network (that was the easy part)... getting our computers to dual boot over the network is just one of the challenges. It hasn't been pretty...

I started out by cloning my Windows 7 system to the NAS & in doing so, I inadvertently wiped out my system disks because I wasn't paying attention. That screw up took a few days to recover from & I am now continuing on the original project...

 

[wolffman]

Put in a rather large order for fall potato seed to supplement what we saved back from the spring crop for planting. Going to grow a pretty big potato crop this fall.

 

[w_r_ranch]

YAAAAA!!! The latest Linux Mint (17.2) is installed & configured!!!! It is amazingly fast after having dealt with Windows (& all the crap necessary to protect it)!!!! The next step is to procure a copy of Crossover to see how many of our Windows programs can be migrated to the Linux installation.

I always used some flavor of Unix when I was working. I really, REALLY hate Microsoft & would love to get rid of it entirely if I can transition Mrs. Ranch to it without too much trouble....

 

[Mike]

@w_r_ranch just something to consider if Crossover doesn't work out for you is to give VMware Workstation a try. It will allow you to run a virtual machine of Windows (or many other OS's) on your Linux box. This way Mrs Ranch will still have her full blown windows install within her own virtual machine.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Finally got some rain here. It's been three to four weeks. I know Illinois is trying to follow California's lead on about everything but we're not a desert.

 

[Mr_Yan]

@w_r_ranch & @Mike You two ever play with a chromebook or similar?

 

[Mike]

You two ever play with a chromebook or similar?

Yes I have played with the Chromebook and the Chromebox (desktop version). In fact I have setup my father with a Chromebox to use at his house and I have a Chromebox myself sitting in my garage.

Comes in handy when I'm tinkering out in the garage and need to look something up quickly or play Pandora radio while I'm out there working.

What would you like to know about them?

 

[Mr_Yan]

@Mike Our computer is three years old and seems to run fine but starting to look around for replacement / alternate. This was a mid-line desktop PC when we bought it and well overpowered for most or all of what we do. The chromebook will do 95% of what we use a computer for but I think I found a problem. We use nook e-readers and Overdrive lending service from our public library. In order to port the overdrive book to the nook we need to use Adobe Digital Editions and this is not available on the Chrome OS/front-end.

I hope to start learning python this winter. From what I have read there are a few python shells made for Chrome. Though I would never get a C compiler on one when I start playing with my Arduino again.

 

[Mike]

The chrome are great computers if you just surf the internet, email, and some writing and spreadsheet work (using google docs). They wont install windows apps. They work great for their purpose though.

That said if you don't care to do some hacking you can install Linux as well on the chrome book.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Yesterday I had to repaired a broke pipe in the backyard's irrigation system. It was no fun...

Today it rained 0.8", so I worked on the main computer some more. I installed G4L (Ghost for Linux) and successfully cloned the boot disk locally. Tonight, I will try cloning it (over the network) to the NAS.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Clean & refill the hummingbird feeders.

Clean & refill the wasp traps.

Continue working on the Linux side of the upgrade... The cloning of the system worked across the network. Tried installing the weather station package but had no luck getting it to work, so I will need to do some more research on this. Completed all operating system upgrades & then re-cloned the system.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Trans-planted 20 feet of beets and two 20 foot rows of turnips from soil cubes.

Started work on my patio again.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Cut the grass.

 

[Mr_Yan]

High about 72° F, cloudy, windy.

Tonight's low forecasted at 52°

Just tacked bird netting over my grape vine. This is the third year it has set fruit. I hope this will be the first year I get the fruit off this vine.

 

[ErnieCopp]

Yan,
I tried something different this year, as my grapes are on an Arbor and too big to cover with regular netting. I bought a roll of cheesecloth and cut pieces and tied around bunches or groups of bunches, leaving the ones up high that i could not reach for the birds and bees. Bees sucked the juice out of a lot of the grapes, leaving the skin, while the birds ate the grape. I liked the results so will use cheese cloth again.

Ernie

 

[Mr_Yan]

I thought about that @ErnieCopp and have been meaning to make the baggies or get materials to make them but life kept getting in the way. I was at farm and fleet getting birdseed / mouse bait and the bird netting looked like a good alternate.

My grape "arbor" is along my wooden fence so I tacked the netting along the top of the fence and have it drape over the grape vine then I tacked the netting again along the lower fence rail. I cut a piece of plastic drywall corner bead in half along the corner giving two ten foot strips. These plastic strips gave me good nailers where I used 5/8" roofing nails to tack it to the fence

 

[Mr_Yan]

Oh yeah, today was my oldest kid's first day of kindergarten

 

[ErnieCopp]

Yan,
You and i often have similar ideas. In some places i was able to staple larger pieces of cheescloth several feet long to the framework on the Arbor, inside and out, then clip the two draped sections together. It helped that i had a huge crop of grapes, so i only had to cover part of mine, and still had plenty to leave uncovered for the birds and bees.

Ernie

 

[w_r_ranch]

Monday I washed the picnic tables & the big smoker down in the 'party barn'.

Tuesday I watered everything while I continued working on the computer project (it coming together nicely). I have just a few issues remaining, like getting everything auto-start at power up (timing issues).

Today I got the VPN & the virtual machine (which runs the weather station & other legacy software) to auto-start. The printers are operational from both systems & I installed/tested the FTP software from the virtual machine. Tomorrow I'll set up the email accounts & restore both mine & Mrs. Ranch's email backups. I think I done for the day, so it's time to shut the server down & make another backup so I don't risk losing any work (I'm getting too close to this project's completion)...

Also made bread for today.

 

[Mike]

Sounds like a busy day Sam. What did you end up using for the virtual machine?

 

[w_r_ranch]

Oracle's VirtualBox 5.02.

 

[wolffman]

Got a new piece for concealed carry

 

[Mr_Yan]

Bought some more flour and the like:
60 # flour (high gluten, unbleached AP, whole wheat)
15 # oatmeal (some steel cut some quick)
7 # black beans
1.5 # bulgur wheat