Fred's photos from Wheaton Labs

I kind of identify them by the flavor of the chewing gum.  #3 looks like the one I call spearmint.  #1 looks like one I call double mint but I think it is a seedling cross with slight pink in the blossom. #2 looks kind of like a royal mint that one of my tenants started from seed but I cant locate the container it was in.

Thanks Hans, I'm not sure I could ever tell the difference between the different chewing gum mints, and now it has been several years since I've had one.

In shopping for garden watering supplies, I've learned some disturbing info. These products are made with lead and chemicals like DEHP.  Some say "not intended to convey water for human consumption." Well, what if I want to actually eat the stuff I grow in my garden?!

Has anyone found a solution to avoid this stuff? I know it is now standard for indoor plumbing fixtures to be marked as "no-lead".

I think all the boots took a turn digging the shallow trench across my plot, but today Stephen and i finished the digging. We then laid the pipe in the trench and started filling it in. Almost done. A trench down the middle of the most used path isn't very convenient!

The last photo is of a caterpillar i found after he had been munching on some mint leaves. He hid his head in the shadow and thought because he couldn't see me, that i couldn't see him. It is probably the orange mint moth (Pyrausta orphisalis), though there's quite a few moths in that genus in Montana and not much info about them. It will be hard to tell, unless i see the adult moth as well.

Today Cory and i put the finishing touches on closing the shallow pipe trench. Then we sifted through some soil for saffron crocus bulbs. Saffron is a fall blooming crocus and right now it is still dormant and it is a great time to transplant them. A couple years ago Jen, Josiah and i bought some saffron bulbs from a woman growing them nearby. She had been growing them in milk crates in a hoophouse. This is the method worked out by the University of Vermont, so many growers use it. From my share we planted out about 2000 bulbs on my berms and around my plot, and kept a small portion in the crates in case the ones planted out failed. Last year I planned to plant the remainder on berms that weren't yet finished. The bulbs in the ground seemed to be doing much better than the ones in the crates and enjoyed a longer growing season that she led us to expect. I ran out of time and the bulbs spent an extra winter in the crates. They didn't like that. They also probably didn't get watered enough last year. So, now that we sifted through the soil for them...we hardly found any...and they are tiny. The crates were lined with landscape fabric and secured with duct tape. That has started to degrade. Not many bulbs, but i'm happy to be getting these sources of microplastics off my plot.

The bottom sides of the crates were covered in spiders and some strange fungi (which i am working to ID and will post later).

One of the crates had a volunteer growing in it. Anyone recognize it? It has distinctive leaves, and woody stem, and had purple flowers early this summer.

The plan for the skidable shed is for the floor to be tongue and groove boards. Well, i bought regular 2x6's and we'll cut the tongues and grooves ourselves. Nothing is ever as easy as we imagine. I haven't changed the blade on my tablesaw in quite a while. That means first there was a little rust to deal with in that process. I put the dado stack together that would cut a 1/2" groove. Then i discovered that the dado throat plate was not the right one for my tablesaw (as you can see, very obviously, in the first photo). At least i only spent a buck on it.

The internet has many for sale, and some may even be the right one, but i didn't want to wait for shipping or spend the money. So, i watched videos on how to make your own. Of course, my older saw has a different mechanism for mounting the plate and it won't be so easy as they make it look in the videos. As you can see in the second photo, the original plate is very much thinner than my piece of wood.

I had to use a router to cut a shoulder into the piece of wood so it will fit into the opening in my tablesaw. Well, just as i was finishing i noticed there was a problem with the way the router was mounted in the router table which caused my cut to be a bit too deep and the flange a bit too thin. Then on to digging through bins of bolts looking for one the right size, and the matching nut, measuring washers with a caliper, etc. After putting the router table back together, i got a new piece of wood and did it all over again, cutting a second dado throat plate. Second time around was faster. You can see the final piece in the third photo.

Tomorrow i will do the final test fit into the saw. Hopefully there will be less adventures and i can make some test cuts for some tongue and groove flooring.

Today Dez and i got the dado throat plate to fit in my table saw. That took a bit of problem solving. Then by raising the dado blade it cut its own opening in the throat plate. That is the first photo.

Then we made a test cut. It was a little wider than i was hoping. I think, in part, because the board moved a bit as it passed over the blade. So, we figured out a way to use the featherboards from the router table. They aren't made for my saw, so we clamped them down using a board i had. Normally these would lock into the miter slots, but these required holes which i didn't want to drill in the saw table. The featherboards help hold the piece that is being cut snugly against the tablesaw fence. These ensure that the board will pass over the blade uniformly and reduce the chance of kickback because of their directional resistance. You can see our setup in the second photo.

In the third photo you can see the board with the two test cut grooves.

As Dez was tightening his clamp, he noticed that the motor pulley was crooked. Then he noticed that the motor mount bolts were loose or missing, except for one! Thanks Dez!! It turns out the pulley was missing its key and was crooked because the set screw was being tightened down into the keyway, but it was too big for that space. So, after a trip to the hardware store, i installed a shiny new key in the pulley and lock washers on all of the motor mount bolts. Keyway with key is visible in the fourth photo. This important piece of metal locks the pulley into position on the motor shaft.

I think we are finally ready to start cutting the floorboards tomorrow.

Fred Tyler wrote:

In the third photo you can see the board with the two test cut grooves.

Wow!  How do you cut the boards that fit INTO those grooves?  Can't wait to see that.  

Could your mystery shrub above be bittersweet nightshade?

Jan, the plant i have doesn't seem very much like a vine. But, i couldn't say it's not bittersweet nightshade for sure as the flowers were dried up when i first noticed them, and i don't know that plant personally. I'll have to check again next year.

To cut the matching tongue for our grooves, we shifted the tablesaw fence over 1/2". In the first photo you can see what the board looks like after one pass through. Then we flip the board end to end and pass through to take the same amount of material on the opposing side, leaving the tongue behind.

The second photo is of one of our test cuts.

The third photo is our first 8' tongue and groove 2x6!

The test cuts seemed to be fitting pretty good, but when we went to the full size boards, the tongues came out a little too wide. My saw fence is an older design and hard to adjust accurately. I think tomorrow we will try running the board through flat on the table instead of vertically. The saw fence will then be controlling the depth of the tongue (which isn't as critical). To control the thickness of the tongue in that orientation, i will raise or lower the saw blade (which i have more control of on my older saw). Hopefully it will mean less passes through to get everything fitting well.

I still have no actual ID's on these weird fungi we found while sifting out the saffron crocus bulbs. My guess is that they are probably sclerotia. Sclerotia are a concentrated mass of mycelium that some fungi use as a food store until fruiting conditions are better.

The one in the last photo had a thin skin that rubbed off to reveal what looked sorta like a brain!