Cal Jorgensen

I already put together a PEX tracker a little while ago for my own use. It's essentially a copy of Ash Jackson's Trello PEP tracker with all the badge cards rewritten for PEA and PEM, so I don't think I'd want to share it without permission, but I'll ask.

Edit to add: here's the link to the workspace. Copy the boards to a new workspace please!

Looks like an earwig. They're usually scavengers. Some species will hunt small arthropods, but they're not considered harmful to worms or people.


Editing to add: apparently in large numbers they can damage plants though, so maybe try not to take any out with the worm castings!

The "One of the following" list at the end of the PEA Community page is a little unclear. There's no break between the list before it and this one; is doing one of the them a separate requirement, or one of the options for the four BBs?

They lay seasonally, unless they have extra light, just like most chickens. For year-round egg production, a lot of people keep quail indoors. Not an option for me, so mine are slowing down now too. I prefer to give them a break anyway, but I'm thinking of putting up a small solar powered light, just to see if I can stretch it out a little longer.

Ten of the fifteen chicks I hatched this summer were males. I kept two, culled the most aggressive three last weekend, and gave away three this morning as part of a barter which netted me a couple more hens, but that still left me with two extra. And I remembered I had this bb unfinished still, so here's a second attempt. They're joining the three from last weekend in the freezer for now, until I'm ready to roast them.

The bathtub/shower drain has been getting slower and slower for a long time now. I have, admittedly, been putting off cleaning it for way too long.

I had to repeat the process about 30 times to get it all - the blockage was much too big to grab all at once. Ended up with an enormous pile of sludge, but the drain is totally clear now!

I picked out ten brown and ten blue eggs. They were much more difficult to blow out than chicken eggs, and I broke 4 of each, but I have a nice dozen to gift and decorate with.

I was hoping to figure out some natural or recycled material to add to make them more solid, but it turns out the person I'm giving most of these to uses epoxy resin.

I'm going to try egg blowing this weekend. A family member has been making jewelry from plant parts, and I want to offer her a few eggshells from my celadon (blue egger) quail. The only problem is that eggshells are too fragile as they are. I'm thinking I'll fill them with something to make them just a bit less crushable... does anyone have any experience with blown eggs? Would injecting them with clay or paper pulp help?

Hi. I sort of disappeared for a couple years... mainly because seeing my old name next to all my posts was putting me off a bit. I've been going by Cal since then. They/them.

I still live in Northern Michigan. Still don't own a house or land, and houses are so ridiculously expensive here, especially ones along bodies of water, that that might not change anytime soon. No ponds for me. Sad.

I didn't plant much this year, mostly focused on building multiple new garden beds. I did toss a few pumpkin seeds in the ground just to see what would happen. There are two pumpkins that the deer haven't found yet. Next year I'll have to plan better. On the other hand, I hatched eggs for the first time! 15 quail chicks. They're 6 weeks old now and at least two are laying already.

That's... about it, really. I feel like I haven't made much progress in the last few years. Hopefully I can change that.

This thread reminded me of The Garden of Earthly HOA Violations, so named because it was designed to function as a privacy fence and food garden in an HOA which forbade both. I can't find the post outlining the setup of it, but if I remember correctly all of the materials used in its construction (mostly containers and bricks) were recycled.