Notes For Me ( and You)

Alex is back to school and we are back to a quieter house. In fact it was really quiet this weekend because Peter was away on a ski trip to Canada – Friday afternoon until early this morning.

I picked him, and four others, up from the bus just after 4:00 am and he is now catching maybe an hour of sleep in his bed (he said he slept on the bus but that’s never restful) before getting up for school – his choice. He said he had a good time, but we will probably have to wait for years to find out the details.

Today is the start of the second semester, so some new teachers for Peter but no new subjects. Jake continues with the same cast of characters.

After a really warm day yesterday, we are heading back to winter with snow forecast by Friday.

It has been a snowy and cold start to 2010. My cold frame has struggled to preserve heat – my 100W light bulb has helped, but clearly a couple of changes need to be made for next season.

(My home control software program measures and plots the temperature inside the frame and temp immediatly outside, so I get clear record of what is happening)

First of all there are a lot gaps at ground level, between the bottom boards and the rough ground. On windy days this allowed the cold air to push in and drop temperatures. Secondly, some sort of thermal blanket to drop over the glass would help. Finally, for these really cold nights, a proper heater would be nice.

Having said that, the lettuce and rocket is still alive, albeit hardly growing ( we had to buy lettuce at the store last week for the first time for months).

The first true cold night of the season arrived (down to 21 deg F) and I am afraid that I was not fully ready for it gardenwise. The plan had been to put a small heater in the cold frame where the lettuce and other greens have been growing – but I did not get around to that. I did install a temperature sensor, connected to my house computer, so I was ready to control a heater from the computer – just failed to install the actual heater!

So this morning, when I went out to pick the lettuce, etc to make the lunch sandwiches, things were frosty inside the frame. I think the plants will survive – only problem is that anything picked at that temperature turns to mush when it is brought inside and washed. I did quickly run out a simple extension cord and light bulb to act as a temporary heater to help things until day light.

Last week I replaced the original florescent tube fixture with two pendants above the island. This does mean less light in the kitchen, but combined with the recessed lighting above the sink and work areas, there is still more than sufficient light available. The complication in the project was that the two new lights needed two new boxes installed since the electrical wiring to the original fixture did not come out close to either of the new locations.

The far hole is where the wiring came out originally. The middle of the three lower holes was cut to gain access so as to run the wires under the double joists.

I used a router to slot these two joists just enough to run the cable. A nail guard was then installed over the wire to protect the cable in the extremely unlikely event someone would try to poke a hole in the ceiling at that location.

Two new electrical boxes were the installed and the ceiling repaired ( and I must say that worked out very well).

The only real problem came when the lights were installed. It turned out the chain on one light was different from the other. A few frantic phone calls and a replacement was overnighted, just in time for the final installation, just a few minutes before the neighborhood book club was due to meet in our house.

Here is the final result.

Jake may or may not have a slight crack in his collar bone – that’s the verdict from the ortho doc. That’s an improvement from the Sunday morning status at the emergency room. Treatment is now do what doesn’t hurt, so he will be back out and about really soon – although he might not be playing soccer goalie again this season.

For those of you keeping score at home, this would be his third broken collar bone – that is actually why the diagnosis is unclear. The “maybe” crack line is right in with the damage from before.

He was playing goal keeper for his soccer team ( a first!) and came out diving at full speed at a player’s feet. Jake claims the player kicked him, but I would have to say that Jake was flying out there and was responsible for at least 50% of the collision.

So he is still sore on his shoulder, but should be back in action really soon.

November 1st, and the zucchini are still producing, and actually much more welcome now than in the middle of the summer bounty. We had the last of the pototoes for dinner last night, along with almost the last of the carrots. Also on their last legs, a few green and yellow peppers.

Still to come, maybe a couple of weeks away, will be broccoli and cauliflower, along with the fall lettuce and rocket. Then it will be time to start planning next year!

Jake is playing this year for the middle school football team that is afilated with the high school team. This means they run the same type of plays, use the same style of calls, etc.. Here he is on picture day.

There are a lot more pictures of the team in the Gallery.

Although it is now starting to get cool, we are still enjoying veg from the garden. The zucchini are still producing and there are still carrots and potatoes left. The fall lettuce are still too small to eat, except as thinnings, and the broccoli and cucumber are also still weeks away.

Next weekend I will put the cold frame out, and plant few more rows of lettuce under there – although I won’t need to bother covering it for a while, unless we get some serious cold weather earlier than usual.

Alex is making a strong recovery since his surgery ( he has a plate with 7 or 8 screws holding the various parts of his collar bone in place). He has a portable ultra sound machine that he has to use twice a day for 20 minutes to stimulate bone growth. Sounds kind of weird, but it is covered by insurance so it must have some kind of track record.

Things have been very busy, but I have finally got some time to write some stuff for this blog. The bad news is that I have this time while waiting in the reception area of Holy Cross Hospital. Behind me Alex is being preped for shoulder surgery to bolt his broken collar bone back into one piece.

A week ago he was playing pick up football when he flipped end over end after hitting someone who was kneeling on the ground. Jeremy, his roommat called us from the ambulance that was taking him to hospital. He saw a specialist on Tuesday, and the strong recommendion was for surgery. His clavical was actually broken in two places, with a small piece between.

Hopefully in a couple of hours he will be in better shape. He will be coming home with us for the weekend, but should be back at school on Monday.

On more conventional news, my fall garden is in good shape. Cauliflower, broccoli, and kohl rabi were planted as seedlings, and lettuce and rocket sown directly. The weather has turned gradually colder, but no frost as of yet.

Inside I have been playing around on the computer trying to get a weather simulation/model up and running. This is a real model, run nationally by “proper” weather folks. I expect it will be super slow on my own system, probably taking longer than real time – i.e. the model will take longer to run than the actual weather ! But it will still be kind of cool – and provide a reason to buy a faster system.

The model is the WRF
model has been developed by various agencies and all the code is freely available. Getting it all to compile correctly has been a challenge, but so far I am making progress. I have the pre-processor running, the actual forecast engine has been run once, and now I am working on the post processor stuff – to actually be able to get to see what has been calculated.

A nice weekend, weatherwise – and otherwise.  This was a quiet weekend on the sports front, with most sports  having a bye week due to the Jewish new year. Peter played on Thursday night – and this time Wootton won in overtime.

We had a nice time at a party for Nancy’s summer softball team. It was at a nice house out in Damascus – crabs, burgers, chicken, with lots other dishes and desserts.

I changed the oil on the van, and also changed the coolant – we have now had the “new” van for five years.

We did talk to Alex on Sunday night, hopefully the start of a regular phone call, and things are doing well for him. President Obama visited the campus l;ast week and there was a great exitement ( one of the pluses of going to a university so close to the nations capital).