Author Archives: Greg Thames

A great day!

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Zoë has learned to pump! It’s a great day when she can get on the swing and get moving without assistance. She still needs a boost when she wants to get really high (and we all know what fun that is). I’m not sure who is more excited…her or me.

As the Barrel Turns

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Our compost bin is up and running! We put this together from recycled (mostly free) items. We bought the hinges for the lid and the pole it spins on from the RE Store. So for around $3.00 we have an awesome large compost bin that’s easy to manage. I am happy to report it works great! It gets nice and warm in there (most of the heat is self generated since our spring/summer weather is NOT) quickly breaking down. Just a spin a day and the black gold is on its way. We are hoping to have our first batch done in about a month.

Its coming together

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This last week some friends came over to help out in the garden. I loved it! I didn’t get any pictures of us working but the garden looked great afterwards. They planted onions, broccoli and cabbage and weeded the whole garden! They made quick work of the weeds in raspberry patch which can sometimes be a daunting task. I am especially grateful to the boys for going on their slug hunts :o)

Lake Retreat

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This last weekend we headed down to Lake Retreat for their Helping Hands weekend. Lake Retreat is a Christian kids camp and conference center. Each year over Memorial Day weekend families volunteer to head down and work on various projects they need to complete for the new camp year to begin. We arrived Friday afternoon. Played games that night and got up nice and early for the Saturday work day. They weather was perfect (especially since most of the projects are outside). Sunday is play day. They open the lake for a while and you can take the boats out. Greg did a little paintball (one of the highlights). Monday morning projects were finished up and after lunch we headed home. Tired and ready for our own bed. It was a great weekend and we are ready for next year!

Some highlights…

Everyone lends a hand.

The masive tire swing!

Zoe was able to drive the bobcat and clear some logs and brush.

~ Merriann

Mary, Mary quite contrary. How does your garden grow?

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Well our adventures in hydroponics has been going quite well so far. We just started planting our real garden (you know the one with real dirt!!) this weekend. We have planted Romain lettuce, beets, pole beans so far this weekend.

Zoe is trying to show you the worm she found in the garden.
In this picture Z, is planting pole beans!!

God willing we will be planting more this week, if the rains hold out for a if days. So we are planning to plant the following this year:

Tomatoes:Sweet 100, Gold Nugget (these are like candy), Roma, and Beef Masters (Which is like hamburger tomatoes)

Broccoli and Cabbage

Salad greens and Lettuce

Snow peas (This rarely ever make it the the house since they are so good.)
Walla Walla Onions, and Yellow Storage Onions

Kandy Corn (That is the name of the type of corn, first time in our garden people tell us that this type is one of the best)

cucumbers

carrots

sunflowers

Zucchini

Pumpkins (sweet pumpkins, jack-o lantern and great moon pumpkins)

Pak Choi (it’s kind of a lettuce-from Asia)

Tomatillos

And watermelon (the reason I wanted the hydroponics in the first place)

Yellow Wax pepper (Hot)

Super Cayenne Pepper (Hot)

Fiesta pepper (Hot)

Oh before I forget I also built a small green house. I think I am going to put the peppers, a few tomato plants and one of the watermelon in it because they love heat.

This green house was made from recycled windows from Craigslist and motorcycle crates.

Here are some pictures of the hydroponics we have going on.

Oh before I forget if I am forget any plant that is a must in a Pacific Northwest garden please let me know! And maybe we can add it to our garden!

~Greg T

LinuxFest 2008: AKA Super Nerd Fest….

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Hey Ladies and Gents,
Well Merriann has been on my case for not posting more often and well I really have a good reason for it! Honest! And as soon as I remember what is it I will past it on to you. But really I have been kind of busy. One of the first things other than work, I have been up to in the past few weeks was the biggest and best Open Source Computer Software event in Bellingham, Washington called Linuxfest 2008. What is Open Source for you non-tech people out there, basically it is software made by people whom share it for free and They also share the code they used to make it so that someone else can improve on it. They don’t charge anything for use of the software. And for the most part it is built as well as big software companies like Microsoft software.
Well, some friends (Fred, Jake, Stu, Levi and Andrew) and myself went to check out some of the cool events. I must admit that it is cool for nerds. Who else would willingly go inside a classroom on a beautiful spring day in the Northwest to talk about computers??
See my point!! Just think about it! and the answer is NERDS or GEEKS! Which I must admit I am one of them. But they did have some pretty cool things going on. Like the kids (Jake, Levi, and Stu) went and built Lego robots.

I am sorry to report that the one Jake build had a short life. He built it to be extremely quick, but a little to quick and it quickly flew of the table and popped into hundreds of little Lego pieces. But what’s awesome about legos is that you can always try again.

All in all it was a pretty cool day, we did get out of the class room and had lunch in the sun. We got tons of free stuff from t-shirts, pens, flashlights, software and all kinds of other stuff too. And the most important thing we learned some new things in the process!!

~Greg T

Baby Boy

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We found out Friday we are having a baby boy! Zoe got her wish of having a brother (although now she says she wants a baby and a dog). Greg and Zoe went with me for the appointment. Zoe enjoyed seeing the ultrasound and hearing the heartbeat. He was sleeping at the time though so we didn’t get the see him moving around.

~ Merriann

Start 'er up

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Our starts have are looking great! You really get the itch for spring when they get going.

Oh…and take a look at our newest project. Hydroponics! So far we want to do peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and watermelon with this method inside.

~ Merriann