badpenny @slrpnk.net i make stuff and draw things and live in alaska. i used to live in apartments and struggled with container gardening and doing woodworking projects, but now i have a small house with a yard. so i am here to learn how to grow stuff and be a benefit to my community, online and off.
can i pick your brains about working with glass containers?
I've been saving glass bottles and jars to recycle into utensil containers, paint rinse cups, vases, candle holders, windchimes and whatever else. At this point i could break half of them and still have plenty. I have a glass bottle cutter and the stuff to sand down the cut rims afterward. (I read somewhere that the sanded rims are fragile and it's best to heat the glass rim with a propane torch, but i dunno if i'm up for that.)
I'm thinking about how to turn these plain containers into nicer items, ideally so i can keep saving my bottles and recycling them into gifts. I've read about engraving glass with a rotary tool (which i own, with plenty of diamond bits, and i've engraved on metal), and the only other thing i know of would be using armor etch, but i'd have to hand cut the stencils and it sounds tedious and messy.
I don't know how concerned i should be about the glass shattering as i am engraving. I have glass cutting oil, or do i need to rig up some kind of tub with a water drip to engrave in? I know glass dust is a problem, too. I've waited until summer to start this project so i can work outside, at least until i get the feel for it.
Has anyone engraved on glass or done a similar decorative project with recycled bottles and jars? Or just a project with cut down containers? How'd it go? What did you make?
Love this. I've been wanting to make some koroks myself so this is great.
Cricket flour isn't bad at all. It adds a burnt toast flavor that works best in heavier spiced baked goods. I've made this recipe a few times for halloween and challenged people to "eat bugs" and everyone who tried it has liked it. I do make sure they don't have a shellfish allergy first.
It's reasonable for the early adopters who built the house to be salty when they get a flood of noobs tracking in mud on the clean carpet. But everyone's a noob at some point in their digital life, so that's why it's important to try to take cues from the culture you are joining and be willing to learn. Don't get insulted - just chill a little and try to engage with the community on its own merits. Give it a few weeks before you decide you know what it should be and what it needs.
I didn't hear about lemmy until the reddit dustup so i'm a noob too. I picked my instance by going into a bunch of instances, looking at the communities list and applying to the one that had the most content that interested me. It's not rocket science to find where you fit. If you can put together a couple coherent sentences, you shouldn't fear a mild application question. Now i'm getting annoyed by the flood of subreddit dupes, pointless memes, reddit-centric chatter and such, so i imagine it's way worse for the OGs. Reddit is dead. Let it die. Make better comunities, don't resurrect the zombie corpses of subreddits that were just pointless repost karma farms anyway.
Things will settle down in a few weeks once we get into mid july, i reckon. People with short attention spans will complain and then wander off. People who find a better instance fit will shift, or even start new instances. Bugs will cause problems and get patched, and then there will be new bugs. There will be defederation drama. It's all good. Don't be insulted, settle in. Then in a few months or years when we get a fresh flood of inconsiderate noobs with "rebuilt the thing we left" energy, you get to be the OG yelling about all the mud on the carpet.
thanks! good thoughts. yes, definitely looking at how i can change/improve the pile(s).
far north composting?
i live in alaska and i've started doing some very slapdash lazy composting. i bought a wire pet pen off amazon for $35ish that comes in 8 panels, and then i split that into two 4 panel segments, and then i staked & zip tied them behind my shed to form two wire boxes and i've been tossing yard & kitchen veg waste in there willy nilly. the advice i got was it's tough to compost here properly because of the 6 months of winter, so just put everything in a pile and cover the top when the snow comes, and then next year when it thaws, dig it out and use it.
i'm thinking about starting a small indoor worm farm this fall to handle kitchen waste in the winter months, instead of having to shovel a path to the compost bins.
i have a large raised garden bed and i think the lady who had the place before us just put her kitchen waste in the corner of the bed. there's a lot of happy worms in the soil.
anyone got any tips for composting options in northern latitudes?
financed solar panels can make selling your house really complicated. you'll have to find a buyer who will take on the contract and not everyone is excited about another house related monthly expense. i've heard enough bad things that i would only do solar panels if i paid for them upfront.