Sacred space

I really like fires in the backyard on these chilly fall nights. Lea & I sit around the fire as the kids & Clover run around and play in the dark. Every so often they stop and suit with us to catch their breath. Now we have created a very special spot for these evening fires. It is in the back corner under a small tree. We are still working on the landscaping and decorating. It almost feels like we are miles from home. It is becoming our own sacred space. Later.

Garden Spiders

In general I am not a fan of spiders. They do not make me run away screaming, but they do make my chest feel tight and my heart to start beating faster. However, I have always liked the looks of a garden spider. I really enjoyed surveying country roads in the late summer. The ditches are always full of weeds and garden spiders. This particular spider was outside of the main library at the University of Illinois for a couple of weeks. Not long after I took this picture I saw 3 guys trimming the bush with scissors and the spider was gone. Hope it found a nice new place to live out the rest of its life. Later.

Hardy's Reindeer Ranch

Today we spent an hour and a half in this maze. We were not lost, but trying to find the 8 check points. We found 6 before giving up and moving on. Once we were out of the maze we got to ride pedal cars, shoot paint guns, and play on some hay bales. Not to mention the bunnies, the puppy, and of course the reindeer. We had a great time, though the kids were disappointed that we did not get to eat lunch with our friends at Heritage Lake. Sounds like we need to make another trip to Rantoul very soon. Later.

Lake of the Woods

What a beautiful view. It is from the bell tower at Lake of the Woods in Mahomet. There are a lot of stairs to climb but it is worth it. We went back a few weeks later hoping to see the changing colors of the leaves but the tower was full if wasps! The higher we climbed the more there was. My daughter and I quit at about the second landing. My wife and son went all the way up. The view was nice but there were so many wasps going in and out the windows that they did not get a good look. If you get the chance you should go. If you get there early the wasps may not be so bad. Later.

Snacks downtown

Downtown Champaign & Urbana both have some great shops. Antiques, original art, used books, and just about anything else you might be looking for. I personally prefer going to downtown Champaign though. It is certainly not all the bars that draw me, those days are long gone. It is the great little cafes and coffee shops that I really enjoy. This picture if of a fabulous iced sugar cookie with apple cider to drink. I thought the cookie might make the cider taste bitter, but they went together really well. I got it at Cream & Flutter, formerly known as Cakes on Walnut. Stop by and check it out sometime. Later.

Queen Anne's Lace

It is hard to tell in this picture but our Queen Anne's Lace is going to bloom soon. That would be those weeds with white flowers that you see in unmown ditches along the road. Smells a bit like carrots. You may be wondering why I am excited about a weed finally flowering in our yard. We plan our flower garden so that it will provide the food & habitat of each stage in the life of the wildlife we want to see more of. We have tried transplanting this flower many times with no success. Last fall my son suggested harvesting seed heads, so we did. We planted them this spring, but I was beginning to think we had planted them too late. Then today we saw our first stalk. Hopefully there will be plenty of time still for the seed heads to form. If not we will harvest more this fall and scatter them before the first frost. Later.

Garden

This is our first tomato! We actually got two cherry tomatoes off of the plant that the tomato horn worm destroyed, but I am not counting them. I have decided that while I really like fresh veggies, I don't care for all of the work a garden takes. So this year I planted a few tomatoes & several pepper plants in pots that I scattered around the flower gardens. The tomatoes are doing fair, but the peppers are really struggling. They would probably all be doing better if I could remember to water them once in a while. I will take what ever we get though. It beats getting up at 6 to go to the farmers market. Later.

Amorphophallus titanium

We got to see, and smell, a corpse flower! My son has wanted to do that since he first heard about them years ago. We figured it was something that would probably never happen. I did not know that the U of I had been growing this one since 2001. I am not sure if it was because this is the first time it has bloomed, but it did not really smell that bad. My wife told me that she heard that David Attenborough was the first to call it a "corpse" flower. Evidently he did not want to say "giant misshapened phallus", even in latin. If you ever get the chance to see one, go for it. Do not let the fear of the smell stop you. Later.

Fossil hunting

We finally got to go to the Middle Fork Forest Preserve in Pennfield a couple of weeks ago. We have been several times before, but this time we explored the Middle Fork River. It was wonderful. The kids swam, caught crawdads, chased minnows, and tracked a clam. I was told that the path along the river has been in use for close to 10,000 years. It is a path that went from where we were to the Paxton area. I had hoped we would find some fossils or geodes, but no such luck. Not that any of us looked very hard. The trip did get me more interested in rock hounding though. It turns out that hunting for fossils is really frowned upon these days. I think this is really sad. I understand the need to protect major historical sites and our public lands, but what about the awe and wonder of finding something so amazing as a fossil or geode. It is not the same when you look at some collection locked
behind glass. I guess the answer is to do no damage & don't get caught. Later.

Wheat Gluten

I tried smoking a cajun flavored chunk of wheat gluten today. I am not happy with the results. The outer bit got a fair smoke flavor but it is too hard after the smoking. I am really trying to find a way to make the gluten less "bready" tasting without making it some other over powering flavor. I am going to try it in the pressure cooker again with a new broth recipe. I have steamed it in the oven using plain water the last few times I have made it. The texture is good and the flavor is good when used in recipes, but too bread like for a sandwich. Hopefully I can figure out how to get a better texture from the pressure cooker since I really like the flavor I get that way. Later.

Spot

Do you use sunscreen, try to avoid the sun, or do you just not worry about it? When I was a kid we never used sunscreen. I used to get burnt to blistering quite often. These days I use sunscreen when we are going to be in full sun for extended periods of time, but otherwise try to avoid the chemicals when we can. It is a tricky balance. Here in a few days I will find out what the little red spot is. Wonder if it will change my sun & sunscreen policy. Later.

Reclaiming wood

I think I may be watching too much of "The Antonio Treatment". He uses a lot of reclaimed wood in his projects. While I was replacing the lumber on my deck I began to wonder if it was salvageable. Someone had incorrectly pressure washed the redwood deck at some point. Too much pressure wears away the softer bits of the wood and it looks horrible. Turns out though that if I take off about 1/8" on each side, the lumber is once again useable. My plan is to recover enough lumber to build an eating bar on the deck and to provide the supplies to have a bird feeder project for about 7 kids. Later.

Seating area

This is the beginning of a new seating area in our backyard. We always just sit on the deck and look out over the backyard. Sitting in the back corner of the yard will offer a whole new perspective. Lea painted the terracotta medallion and it gets to be the first bit of beautiful color in what will be our new space. Lots of mulching to do, and some hanging pots to buy, but really looking forward to trying it out. Later.

Bike Building

I am glad I got this book at the library instead of buying it. It has some good information about bicycles and welding but it did not have any good tricycle plans for adults. However, I am going to try and build the sidewinder. It is kind of a wilder version of Huffy's "green machine" for adults. If it works I will make a video of me riding it. Later.

Milk Shake

In general I am not a fan of frozen treats. They hurt my teeth too much. I do like a good chocolate milk shake though. Jarling's Custard Cup makes a good one. Luckily we do not go there very often. Later.

Kids Bowl Free

Took the kids to the bowling alley today. We met some friends there and did some good bowling. The three of us each bowled two games, I had to rent two pair of shoes, and I bought two sodas. The whole trip cost me eight dollars. If you would like to know how to have so much fun for so little money, google kids bowl free. I know I am going back next week. Later.

Chives

Not only are chives tasty and easy to grow, they have beautiful edible blooms too. I have never seen chives bloom before. We usually eat them all before they bloom. We planted more herbs and some pepper plants on Sunday. Later.

Toad

This is a picture of Peter the Toad. His name used to be Bob, not sure why the kids decided to change it. There is no good way to show you here, but this picture looks really good on our big screen tv. Motorola sells a $30 hdmi cable for the droid x. I bought a $3 hdmi cable on Amazon and it is working just fine. Now I can preview my hidef video on the big screen before uploading it to youtube. I can also view my pictures on the tv. A very fun, and inexpensive, way to let everyone see what is on the phone all at the same time. Later.

Downtown

I admit that I am not a big fan of shopping. I like buying things but the process of going from store to store generally leaves a little something to be desired. That being said, I really enjoy walking around downtown with the family. I enjoy the stores that we browse through and the time we spend together. The bonus is that we usually stop at Pekara or Aroma for a snack when we are done. The coffee is seldom good, but the food and company can not be beat. Later.

Dam

Beavers are damn good builders. Or is that good dam builders? I am not completely sure this was built by beavers since I don't see a den anywhere. Later.

Trucks

The longboard trucks, wheels, & bearings showed up today. Luckily we finished sealing the board yesterday. I should be able to get everything installed tomorrow. Unfortunately it is supposed to rain now until Friday. I would take her to a park and let her try it in the rain but I am fighting a nasty cold and am just not up for being put in crappy weather. Maybe we will take it to playgroup, though she might not want to share. Later.

Programable controllers

The people at Make magazine really like these programable controllers. I am interested in trying them but am a bit intimidated by the idea. I am hoping this book will alleviate my fear of buying one. They run anywhere from 50 to 100 dollars and can do just about anything you can think of. We sent, and brought back, men to the moon with less sophisticated electronics. Maybe I can find a really cool project to try if the book convinces me it would be doable. Later.

Doodler

I took the kids to their music lessons last night before going to work. They have their lessons at the same time now so it only takes half an hour, but since they are both taking lessons I don't have anyone to talk to. I decided to try out the app I got for painting on photos. As you can see I did not draw on a photo, but used a blank screen instead. It was kind of fun but the black lines were supposed to have some color as well. At least I thought they were going to have color. It helped pass the time but sudoku is more fun. Later.

Longboard

As you can see from the picture, we are down to one longboard. Evidently the author of the article is not 210 pounds. My board broke when I stepped on it to check the springiness. It is probably too late, but I had a piece of plywood leftover so I am laminating it onto the cracked pair. If it works it will save me the 15 bucks it will cost to get another board and start over. Later.

Making

I got to do lots of making today. I thought I would be trying to make an electric drill powered go cart, but Isabella decided she would like to have the longboard skateboard first. We cut and laminated the decks for two longboards today. It will take 24 hours to bond completely, then we can do some arting on the bottom side. We will order trucks, wheels, and bearings on line to save money. After we did that we made a set of adjustable stilts for Isabella, though they are a lot harder to use than she expected. I also hung some army ants for Ender and am close to finishing a towel tree for our bathroom. Later.

Movie night

We are watching the next to last Harry Potter movie. I forgot how many people die in this last book. Later.

Broodiness

Teenagers have nothing on chickens. The picture is of one of our hens, her name is Nova. She has officially become broody. Unless you pick her up and take her out, she will only get off of the nest once or twice a day. That means she is not eating or drinking enough. Plus she only potties one huge pile each day. We don't have a rooster so the eggs are never going to hatch, and I take the eggs out of the nest so she isn't actually sitting on any. We are trying to break her out of this broodiness so that she can get back to eating, drinking, and roaming around. Worst case she should give up in a couple more weeks. Later

Make Magazine

If you have never read Make magazine you should really check it out. It has great advice on tackling jobs most of us wouldn't even think of trying. At the same time it makes those tasks seem like they can be done by anyone willing to try and not afraid of having to do it over again when things don't work right the first time. This issue may be my downfall though. It is all about making things with wheels. Unfortunately my daughter saw the cover and is ready to get started. I think she wants to do the three wheeled bike powered by two 36 volt cordless drills first. I need to go read my insurance policy. Later.

Urine collection

It is harder than you would think to collect cat pee. Tiger had a urinary tract blockage back in January and almost didn't make it. He has been medicine free for two weeks now, if you don't count the prescription food he has to eat from now on. The vet needed a urine sample to make sure he would be ok without medicine. We locked him in a room with a litter box for three hours today. He was very unhappy but managed to hold it the whole time. I finally had to let him out so we could go letterboxing and he ran straight for his litterbox. I managed to sneak in the one I had prepared for the pee collection and got the needed sample. The vet said that it looked like Tiger was doing fine without medicine but that I should make sure he was getting enough water because his pee was awfully concentrated. Later.

Independent Media Center

Today we got a tour of the Independent Media Center of Urbana by the gentlemen that run Odd Music. Odd Music celebrates both "odd" instruments and microtonal music. They have a library of musical instruments that the public can check out for two weeks at no charge. They also host concerts using "odd" instruments, microtonal music, and audience participation. It was a great time. The kids got too make and learn to play udderbots. As a bonus they got to bring the udderbots home. Best of luck to Odd Music and the IMC. Later.

I took the kids on a bike ride today. After airing up all the tires we rode down to the grocery store. It is not even a half a mile away and half of that is through a park. But I still get so nervous when we are out riding. My son is eleven and my daughter is ten and they both have good heads on their shoulders, but they do get distracted pretty easily. I know that I was riding all around my home town by the time I was six or seven. Of course we see more cars on our short ride than I came across in a whole month riding as a kid. Some day they are going to be out on their own, but I am probably always going to worry. Later.

Swype

I read about swype before I got my phone, and even tried it a bit on a friends phone. I didn't care for it very much so I wasn't even going to try it on this phone. After reading the book I got at the library about the droid I decided to give it another shot. Evidently google enhanced swype for the droid x. I have done this entire post using swype. Later.

The manual

I had hoped to read this book before I got the droid. However, the library had to order it. It finally became available today. I have been doing lots of fun stuff with lots of different apps. Now I am going to learn more about what the phone itself can do. Plus all the little quirks and short cuts of the android operating system. Megamind is starting, later.

Rain barrel

My wife and I have often talked about getting a rain barrel to collect water for our plants. They are just so expensive that it is hard to justify the cost. This Saturday the city of Urbana and the U of I Extension are having a truckload sale on rain barrels and composters. The 55 gallon rain barrels are $55 and the composters are $45. I will be going right when they open to get a rain barrel. Later.

Photo editing

When I bought my first computer I knew that I wanted to use it for photo editing. I am not a professional photographer or anything, I just like messing with pictures. Now I like messing with video as well, but that is another subject. I am really amazed at how much editing and how many cool effects I can add to photos with my phone. I guess I really shouldn't be so surprised. The phone has a processor that is at least 3000 times faster and almost as much ram as my first computer. It is so easy to just take a picture, mess with it, and then send it out into cyberspace all with one device. I am really enjoying the exploration of this phone's capabilities. Later.

A Lark in the Meadow

The geocaching we did with the Champaign park district did not really prepare us for the sport. Today we were in Busey Woods and decided to try geocaching again. I opened the app on my phone that reads my location and searches for any registered caches that are nearby. There was one within 1/3 of a mile so we started the hunt. Googles navigator could only get us to within about 200' so I switched to the geocaching app. This app uses a compass and distance to lead you to the cache. 50' was the closest we could get. I think all the trees were interfering too much with the gps. We looked for quite a while but did not find it. I did get a couple of pictures of a cool shelf fungi, but it was with my camera and not the phone. My daughter and I had a pretty good time, but my son did not. We were really not prepared for that type of adventure. I think I need to plan ahead a bit more. Our next
hunt will be in a friendlier environment. Eventually we will go back and find this one though. Later.

Phone Backgrounds

It has been very hard to find a background that I am happy with. The droid has 7 "home" screens that you scroll through and it uses just 1 image as a background. As you scroll to different pages the picture just moves a little bit. It is a neat effect, but you have to choose your pictures carefully or you never really get to see the part you want to. Plus I have apps all over the screen blocking the image. I did finally find an app that allows a different picture on each page, but now I have to decide what is appropriate. I am not really sure why I am worried about offending people, but sometimes I do. I think I am going to use the new app and let it find pictures using key words I give it and just see what happens. Later.

Droid video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxQQg0KS9_Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player. I recorded and uploaded this video with my phone. Since it was recorded in high def it could not be uploaded directly to the blog. I wanted to be able to see the quality of the video so instead of resizing or compressing it, I decided to upload it to my youtube account and post the link. I think it might have been easier than uploading from the computer. If I manage to find, or make, a green machine big enough for me I will make and post another video. Later.

Camera

For years my daughter has liked taking pictures. When the kids were 4 or 5 we bought an inexpensive digital camera to save the money we were using to develop film. Both kids have used it off and on for the last 6 years. We suggested asking for a nicer camera for birthdays or Christmas, but there was no interest. Then this weekend my daughter decided to go ahead and get a new camera. She ended up with a Kodak Easyshare M550. It cost less than $90 with tax. I liked it so much I was thinking about getting one too. This morning I got a $60 dollar gift card email from Best Buy & the camera was in their ad. It was the same price as it had been on Saturday, but it came with a bag, tripod, & sd memory card. Needless to say, I went and got one. Later.

What is that song?

I was very excited when I got my last phone, an LG Voyager, because it could use Verizon's song id program. From that point on I could let the phone identify and store the songs that my daughter asked me to get for her ipod. No more trying to remember a few key words so that I could look the song up when I got home. I made sure to get an app for the droid that would do the same thing. It was a little more advanced than the Verizon one, but it had ads on it. Then I found out that Amazon was giving away a bunch of apps that you normally have to pay for. One of them was Soundhound Infinity. Not only does it not have ads, it can identify songs you sing to it! Pretty darn cool I think. Later.

Jeff vs The Tree

When I was about 10 years old, we moved to a 5 acre wooded lot in the country. It was an all electric house which made it expensive to heat. We built a couple of solar wood dryers, bought a woodstove and a couple of chainsaws, and started harvesting firewood. The things I learned over the following 10 years helped prevent a serious injury today. I was about 8 feet up a ladder, cutting down a 6 or 8 inch limb about 10 feet over my head. Everything was going fine until the free end of the branch hit the trampoline and rolled towards me instead of away. Proper ladder placement, the knowledge that trees are unpredictable, and some good luck kept me from getting seriously hurt. I ended up with a couple of scratches and some swelling, not too bad. I am going to go get some ice. Later.

Atboretum

Today was our first group letterboxing adventure. 6 families came to try and find the letter box hidden in the U of I Arboretum. We found one but not sure it was the one we were looking for. The sun was shining and much fun was had by all. Find an excuse and get yourself outside. Later.

Voice search

We ran to the store the other morning to get some donuts. While we were there my son asked me what maltodextrin is. I told him we didn't really have time for me to be typing that into the phone to find out. I was hungry and wanted to get home and eat the donuts. My son suggested I just ask the phone instead of trying to type it in. I didn't have very high expectations but agreed to try. I pressed and held the search button until the microphone icon came on. Then I spoke the word "maltodextrin" and waited. Almost as soon as I stopped talking a definition appeared on the screen along with a link to the wikipedia page. Voice reognition has come a long way. I was going to use it to make this post, but it only does about 8 words at a time. That was annoying so I typed it instead. Later.

Letterboxing

This summer we are going to try letter-boxing with our homeschool group. It has been too hard to wait for the first outing so we decided to try geocaching to pass the time. Combining the droids gps with Google's navigator makes this a lot of fun. Since we are walking it uses satellite images instead of a map. It is really cool. As an introduction to geocaching we are participating in a contest with the local park district. Fun and a chance to win $50. Looking forward to lots of adventure this summer. Later.

Spring fever hits hard at our house. I took the picture at Prairie Gardens. Almost all of the plants outside were covered in ice to protect them from the frost. While there we bought strawberries, a blueberry bush, & some flowers. Everything has been planted, now we just have to wait to buy more stuff. Hopefully there won't be any ice next time.

Tonight I got to show off a fun app on the phone. When we got home from watching the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie I turned on the gps & opened Google Sky Map. It shows all the constellations and can help you find any visible planets. It was too cloudy to see Saturn, but this is going to be a great tool for use with the telescope this year. Good night.

On Wednesday the 23rd I went to the Verizon store and got my first smartphone, the Droid X. After a few days of fooling around with it I have really come to like it. It always takes a couple of days to get a new phone to the point where you like it. You have to get all the fun things to the place you want them, get the backgrounds set right, and to find just the right ringtone. It is ready to go now though.

One of the reasons I chose this phone was because of the 8 megapixel camera. I homeschool my two children and we spend lots of time out and about. I like taking pictures of the things we are doing so I can send them to my wife while she is at work. My last camera, a Voyager, took fair pictures, but I wanted something better. Then we learned about letterboxing and geocaching, and there will be no better tool for those activities than the Droid X. I will always have it with me so we will be ready to go. Then I thought maybe I should blog about the fun things we do.

With that idea in mind I set up this mobile blog. After today, all the entries will be made with the Droid X. I am excited about being able to document the things we do in this way. I am looking forward to a fun summer full of adventures and recording them for all to read about.