hamtron5000

joined 1 year ago
MODERATOR OF
 

What do y'all do to winterize your gardens? This is going to be my approach to the potato patch as winter approaches.

16
Composting In Place (www.gardencityharvest.org)
 

Getting ready for winter, though it is pretty mild where I live, and thinking about composting in place. Anybody done it? Would it work where you are?

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

thanks to your post here i looked up Sharewaste and am now a host myself!

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 month ago

i built a compost bin out of free pallets from the neighborhood and compost my household's food waste as well as yard waste from family members. i also follow the lazy compost "method" of collecting kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, and etc and adding them to my pile. my in-laws regularly contribute lawnmowing scraps and leaves. i look forward to really putting it to work in the spring!

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 month ago

as for me, i live in Western Colorado, USA - in the high desert. we get a ton of direct sunlight, it's really hot in the summer and can get really cold in the winter - USDA hardiness zone 6b/7a. it is also a very arid land.

my setup is super basic, as lazy as it gets. i use a pallet compost bin that i made out of free pallets i got from the neighborhood, pretty much as shown in this link. we keep our kitchen scraps and i add to the pile generally once a week. we also add yard waste of our own, and that of friends and family and neighbors occasionally. i water the pile irregularly as i am extremely lazy, but i do have a water barrel set up nearby that, in the future, i will use to drip irrigate the pile, but that's a next spring project now. something for future Andy; we hate that guy! ha.

we also are using chopped up leaf mulch as compost on a part of our back yard that we are turning from a dirt patch into a garden. this is sort of a compost-in-place situation, or a lasagna mulching situation. it's not amazing, but it works; i grew potatoes in a wood chip mulch this year, so i am hopeful it will work next year.

 

what's up, everyone? i'm Andy, a new moderator of c/composting. i figure i can at least post a heaptalk thread for us to talk about our composting efforts. where are you, geographically, and what challenges do you face? what kind of composting setup do you have?

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)

i check in here pretty regularly but am largely a lurker; if that's okay, i could take on moderating c/composting. i'm no expert but i am an enthusiastic amateur...

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 9 points 3 months ago

this is my dream right here. my wife and i bought a "fixer upper" with bare dirt in USDA zone 6b/7a, and i dream of doing this. thanks for sharing!

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago

maybe i can incorporate a 501c(3) and run it as an NGO, ha! but, seriously, fair point. i have heard both horror stories (SWAT teams bursting in in the middle of the night, etc) and bore-er stories (ran an exit node for 3 years, nothing ever happened). i guess i'm worried, and that worry maybe implies that i should not do it just yet. Signal proxy might be the way to go.

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 months ago

yes, the instructions are definitely doable - i am just wondering if there are recommended home network hardening steps that one might recommend. honestly, my worry is probably more related to the Tor exit relay. i really want to do one, but i also do not want legal trouble. maybe i'll start with a bridge, sigh. but thank you! no worry about tone, text is tough.

 

does anyone here have experience hosting a Signal proxy and/or a Tor relay? there's a blog post on signal.org asking for folks to help, and i can but i don't know enough about network security to feel safe/confident doing some of this stuff. same with Tor - i've always wanted to host an exit relay (and in fact have this whole long theory about how every public library in the US should host an exit relay, but that's for another post someday maybe).

do any of you have experience with doing this? what kind of best practices would you recommend? any good resources on protecting your network that you might point me to? i will be getting my Net+ cert within the next year but for now i am starting from "enthusiastic beginner" and want to be helpful, but careful.

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

dang, the bookbinding looks super cool! good for you. i am slowly beginning to investigate a partnership between my workplace (in the IT field, and we do a lot of ewaste recycling) and the local migrant center to provide them with a bunch of machines for things like GED, citizenship study, and communication.

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 months ago

good luck and good powerthrough!

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago

i'd love to see photos!

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

i'm recovering from COVID (ugh, it's terrible) and we have both been too wiped out to cook lately, so i did not get to it. it's on my list for either Thursday night or this weekend, though. i'll post a reply and maybe some photos if it goes okay.

[–] hamtron5000@slrpnk.net 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

for myself, i have been an unproductive lump for weeks due to oppressive heat in my part of the world. and also laziness, and internalized pseudo-Protestant work ethic guilt, and other stuff. but i do have some plans. i live in the arid southwest of the USA (well, extreme western Colorado but it's effectively the arid southwest, climate-wise). i've got some potato plants that are growing which have largely been watered via a rain barrel i have set to collect water from our downspout in our backyard. i have three more such rain barrels which i plan to install.

my mother gave me a gift certificate to a local nursery, so we're going to plant native/xeric bushes and trees on the west side of our house which is currently essentially bare and exposed to late afternoon glaring, hot sun.

we're adding cellulose insulation to our attic in September, and once the heat has died down a bit we are going to finish covering out front yard in cardboard and mulch, hopefully in time to plant some winter cover crops. we also planted an apple tree last year that has survived the winter and the summer thus far.

lots to do, and little energy to do it with unfortunately. i'm feeling really depressed and shitty about climate stuff right now, which is why i made this post; i'm hoping i can get some secondhand positivity or enthusiasm to help me get going to actually do some of the projects i have in mind.

 

This is a place for you to talk about things you've been working on, projects that you think are cool, things that you're doing and etc. I'm hopeful that seeing people's cool projects and efforts can be inspiring to the rest of us!

 

Hi all - what are some of your go-to foods? I've been doing a lot of the microwaveable processed stuff for convenience's sake, but I'd like to do a bit more cooking if possible. I don't meal prep at present but am interested to hear what y'all find easy and tasty and actually make regularly.

Thanks!

 

hi all. i live in western Colorado, in the desert part rather than the mountain part, and it's HOT. and sunny. my house has a long west-facing wall full of large windows, and we've been keeping the blinds shut all day but it's not helping. i'm thinking of installing awnings.

my questions are, a) have you done this or something similar, and if so what did you do, b) are there awnings available that are NOT just plastic? and c) any other hints, tips, or ideas would be welcome.

 

(image via daily-dragon-drawing on tumblr, specific post here)

happy spring to many - here in western Colorado we're vacillating between warm and cold in a true, classic Colorado manner.

i do these posts about praxis periodically because i seek inspiration and motivation for concrete actions i can take in my life, and you, the community of people who are into solarpunk, are creative powerhouses. with that in mind, what kind of projects are you all working on, or have you seen going down? any ideas that you're excited about doing as the weather gets warmer?

thanks for being rad, friends.

 

Imagine I want to create a local internet for my community. Things that will be useful, helpful, and easy to use. Ideally, setup/maintenance would be relatively straightforward too, since I will for the time being at least be running this solo.

So if I'm going to be the community SysAdmin but also have free choice of what to run, what would you think about the following ideas of things to share with people?

-Radarr (movies) -Sonarr (TV shows) -Lidarr (music) -Calbire (or Readarr I guess, for books) -Jellyfin (media streaming) -Nextcloud (file sharing)

And then as for me myself, I'd probably set up a Graylog Open instance to aggregate issues, and have a couple of separate physical servers for these different things.

Do you think that would be helpful/useful/fun for getting community members to think about the potential of hyperlocal internet?

Alternatively, are folks doing this already? If so, how do you have this kind of thing set up?

If I'm dreaming big, I would also love to set up a mesh relay to offer this intranet stuff to the community.

I'm hoping that these ideas are solarpunk enough and selfhosting enough to warrant community feedback.

Basically, I guess, are there any other community SysAdmins out there doing this kind of work?

Thanks for your time.

 

Hello all, happy early spring to those of you who are experiencing it! Here in western Colorado, we've got our tiny rainy season going on. what are you doing in your communities, in your gardens, in your organizing spaces? what kind of cool praxis have you got going on?

 

middle-aged IT generalist guy, United States. from left, lens cleaning cloth, REI 1L nalgene, handkerchief, coffee tumbler, ridge wallet, generic grid lined notebook, Leatherman Signal, Pilot G2 .07 pen, keys for work with included tiny flashlight, and phone case (Peak Design Mobile) to represent the phone (Pixel 7 Pro) used to take the photo.

not pictured: car/bike keys, as the wife has the car today and it was snowing so i didn't bike, and wristwatch because i forget, constantly, that i'm wearing it; it's just a part of me. generic Timex Weekender with a nylon strap. does nothing special but tells me the time, accurately, on a face i can read, even in the dark.

1
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by hamtron5000@slrpnk.net to c/utilitycycling@slrpnk.net
 

https://imgur.com/a/ivFq4VE

Hi all,

A coworker gifted me a free Trek 4500 from the early 2000s, largely unused in the last many years. It sat in my back yard for a few months while I thought about what to do with it; I've finally made the first movement towards having a badass utility bicycle.

Step one involved knowing that I like a more upright riding position and am not the most comfortable or agile person on a bike (that's nice-speak for "I'm a pretty fat guy" and "I never really rode bikes as a kid so I learned how in my mid-20s and am still not 100% comfortable with it"). So I bought a pair of swept-back handlebars which I then kept in a closet for a month, lol.

Finally I decided to just move forward, so I took the bike to the local bike shop and had them do their inspection, basic needed maintenance, and installation of the handlebars. Now I have something fairly comfortable which also looks kind of neat.

Four more things I have planned to do:

  • Add a back rack that I have on an old trashed frame also in the backyard.
  • Acquire and add fenders. While it rarely rains here, when it does I'd like to be prepared.
  • Acquire and add a front rack, since this is going to be largely for groceries and errands.
  • Add a bike trailer, again for groceries and errands.

Other possibilities include a different seat, a handlebar bag in lieu of a front rack, essentially anything else to make it cool and functional.

Do y'all have any recommendations for stuff that might be worth adding or doing to this bike to make it comfortable for someone overweight to commute with and do basic errands and groceries with?

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