But since it was pouring all over the place to the amusement of my niece and nephew, I drug the ladder out of the garage to clean it out while nature was providing me with constant water. I cleaned out the obstruction and immediately noticed a gyser at the base of the downspout. That can’t be good, I thought to myself.

So, I went to the street to see if I could see where the water should be discharging. I found the tube, but as expected nothing was coming out of it. So I went to the garage and grabbed a small diameter piece of wood to see if I could reach the obstruction. Unfortunately, I could only get about 4 inches in and the blockage was very hard.

Plan B. I go to the shed and pull out the heavy artillery. One large spade and a hand trowel and back to the front yard I went. I dug up a smallish portion of yard about 1 foot wide by about 2.5 feet long. Immediately I see a problem. I find the end of the PVC that is sticking through the curb, but it ends about 8 inches behind the curb. Another 10 or so inches behind that is another piece of PVC. I am at this point assuming that this piece runs all the way back to the house but I’m also positive that it is totally full of dirt, leaves, seed pods and anything else that could wash down the downspout. This is definitely going to take a plumber’s snake and that is going to be a project for another day.

Oh, the blockage at the curb? Someone pushed a beer bottle into the end and it just happened to have the exact diameter of the PVC. How kind of them to make sure that the streets didn’t get wet.

The results have been very surprising. The kids are very excited about their chore charts. My daughter is even finding new things to help with so she can fill in another square. My daughter was the first to ask about helping with laundry. At first she helped sort the clothes which she had no problem doing. Next she wanted to fold the laundry. This was a little more problematic. But, we had a solution.

A month or so ago, I saw a t-shirt folding machine. There are several places online that have instructions to make one. They are very simple to build (my 4 year old helped me) and cost next to nothing. They are fun to use and work quite well.

Materials

• Scrap cardboard or foam core
• Packing tape

The machine is made from 4 pieces. Since I was trying to involve the kids, I made the folding machine small enough for their clothes. They are both in shirts in the 6 – 7 size range. If your kids clothes are smaller or larger just size the middle section up or down accordingly.

Cardboard Pieces

• (2) 12″ x 22″
• (2) 8 1/2″ x 11″

Construction is simple, just tape both sides of the joints with packing tape. The side pieces are only attached at the top so the bottom of the center can flip up. To tape the seams, you will want to leave a small gap. The easiest way to leave the gap is to lay the pieces on top of each other and wrap the tape around the stack. When you flip the top piece back down, you can tape across the seam from the other side.

Using the folding machine is also easy. Just lay the machine so that the center portion that is not attached completely is away from you. Lay your shirt face down centered in the middle of the machine. Fold one side towards the center. Repeat with the other side and lastly fold the center flap towards you. You should end up with a cleanly folded shirt.

Have fun.

Here is the first video that we came across for a folding machine. This video also has dimensions for a folding machine that is sized for adult shirts.

Solution: Rope extension handle

Pros:

1. Allows me to walk with a normal stride
2. Allows your wrist to rotate in a more normal position

Cons:

1. Doesn’t work going downhill. This didn’t prove to be a problem for me, because most of the time, your strides are shorter going downhill than moving uphill.

Materials:

1. a piece of rope approximately 3 feet long
2. a piece of PVC, approximately 4 inches long

Directions:

1. Drill two small holes at each end of your PVC. The holes should be in from the ends slightly and large enough for your rope to pass through.
2. Pass each end of the rope through the holes and make a knot. I prefer looping the tag end of the rope through the loop twice instead of the usual single wrap. This knot is called a double overhand knot. This creates a knot with a flatter bottom that will sit nicely against the PVC.
3. Lastly, make a larks head knot to attach your new handle to your wagon. Look at photos below to see how a lark’s head knot is formed.

Click here for the project details.

• Bulb type seeders which create a vacuum by squeezing a bulb and then releasing pressure when the vacuum tip is in the seeds
• Single tip vacuum seeder powered by a vacuum pump
• Multiple tip wands powered by a vacuum pump
• Plate seeders that have many holes that match the cells in planting flats. These too are powered by a vacuum pump.

The type we are going to cover in this project is a single tip vacuum seeder.

Material list.

1. 
    A Vacuum, in this case a Tetra 30-60 air pump for an aquarium, $19.99
2. 
   An air brush, $9.99
3. 
   Glue tips $2.00
4. 
   A small section of vinyl tubing with an inside diameter of 1/4 inch $0.25
5. 
   An air line tee $2.00
6. 
   A section of air line. In this case, more flexible is better.$2.00

Total cost for materials should be around. $36.00

Construction Details

1. Modify the air brush
   1. Remove the paint needle. This is the gold portion at an angle with its tip in the tip of the air brush. It is a threaded fitting and will come out easily.
   2. 
      The glue tips need to be pushed into the end of our vinyl tubing. The easiest method for us was to push it into the tip point first. We then could use the back of the air brush to press the tip into place.
   3. 
      Once the tip is in place, you will need to press the tubing onto the air brush. This also requires a firm hand. In both cases, it is easiest if you leave the tubing longer than you need which gives you something to hold onto.
   4. 
      Trim the excess of the tubing if you haven’t cut it to a one inch length earlier.
2. Modify the pump
   1. 
      The aquarium pump is meant to blow air, not suck, so we need to make a few modifications. First, remove the four screws from the bottom of the pump.
   2. 
      Next we need to pull out the valves. These simply slide straight up. To get the white plastic part up where you can get a hold of it, you can pry in the very center with a sharp pointed tool. We used a normal kitchen knife. Just insert the tip of your tool at a steep angle between the bracket and valve. You will find a recess a small distance from the top that the tool can slip into to lever it up. You can grab the top edge of the valve with pliers once it moves a little to finish removing the valve from the housing.
   3. Repeat with second valve.
   4. 
      You will need to twist the actual valve itself so that the large hole is next to the magnet. This is the opposite of what is shown in the photo.
   5. Reinstall both valves in housing by simply sliding them back into place.
   6. Reassemble the housing making note that there is a front and a back. It should easily slide together if it is being assembled in the right direction. Reinsert four screws removed earlier.
3. Connect the air brush
   1. 
      Cut two small sections of hose and connect to the two outputs on the air pump.
   2. Connect ends of tubing to air tee
   3. Connect remaining line to end of tee and air brush

Using the seeder

I would love to hear from anyone who makes a version of the this vacuum seeder or would like to share ideas for other designs. If enough people are interested, I will make a multiple point seeder.

Details on our fix can be found here

Sometimes, things just work. Our little Samsung ML-1210 printer is one of those things. It has been chugging along for quite a few years now. Sadly, laser toner is very expensive. You can actually buy the newer models of the Samsung printer on sale for less than the price of a toner cartridge. Not being one to throw things away, I have avoided buying a new printer. After all, ours works quite well.

When looking for toner this past month, I ended up on Amazon.com. The toner for our printer runs about $90.00. You can find the manufacturer toner cartridges on sale for about $70.00 and you can find compatible toner cartridges for around $50.00. But, I noticed, that you can buy refill kits. I can’t say I had great luck with refilling inkjet cartridges in the past. I was pretty apprehensive, but the $25.00 price tag persuaded me to buy it. Worse case, it didn’t work and I was out $25.00.

The refill kit arrived within a couple of days and has enough toner to refill cartridges 4 times. They recommend that a toner unit not be refilled more than twice. Refilling it was a breeze. The cartridge has a plastic plug, in the end, just pry it out, screw a spout onto one of the toner bottles, pour in the toner, and replace the plug. I noticed, that many people recommended refilling outside and I recommend this as well. I was surprised how quickly the toner came out of the bottle. If you expect it to act like water, then you wont have a problem.

I highly recommend refilling your toner. This company provides a quality product that saves considerable money and as a side effect, you get to keep one more item out of the trash.

You can find them on Amazon or directly one the company web site.
http://www.lasertekservices.com/

If you want to go the cheap or quick route, I recommend, using something like palettes or wire mesh. Wire mesh can be formed into a roll and the edges zip tied together. I especially like this method as it is easy to move the compost bin or disassemble it to remove the compost. Pictured below are a couple of examples. The palette version sits behind my fence and holds mostly leaves and grass clippings once the leaves start to fall.

If you would like to make something more involved then you can make something similar to the following. Essentially I made three squares from 2x4s. I then covered the sides of the frames with hardware cloth. I bridged the frames together across the back of the bin to hold them at the desired dimension. I also add a couple of 1x4s across the bottom to keep the front from bowing outwards too much. The front edge of the bins have strips of wood that were screwed into the front to make a channel. The channel on mine accepts fence picket material. This is simply what I had laying around. I like using the strips of wood because you can make the front of the bin higher or shorter depending on how full your bin is. Here are some pictures to try to illustrate.

A couple of final tips.

• Having more than one bin makes turning the material much easier
• The true composting zealots suggest that you always keep your compost covered to prevent the nutrients from leaching into the ground below your bin
• Don’t put any meat or dairy products in your compost
• Don’t put any cat or dog feces in your compost
• A mix of roughly 50/50 “brown” to “green” material is best if you can
• Don’t build your bin against your house, the heat of the composting process has in some cases caused fires
]]> http://wlkr.org/2008/08/07/composting-what-could-be-easier/feed/ 0 http://wlkr.org/2008/05/24/quick-method-for-pitting-cherries/ http://wlkr.org/2008/05/24/quick-method-for-pitting-cherries/#comments Sat, 24 May 2008 14:27:32 +0000 Glenn Welker http://wlkr.org/2008/05/24/quick-method-for-pitting-cherries/ I bought a bag of cherries from the store the other day. I thought it would be a good snack for the kids during a little picnic. I went to the drawer for a combination tool that minces garlic and pits cherries. I can state firmly that this tool is horrible. The pitting portion of the tool is in between the handles making it very awkward to use. It also only managed to hit the pit about 25% of the time.

So, I proceeded to rummage through our kitchen drawers for a chopstick. I had seen tv shows where the chef had used a chopstick to remove the pits. I had tried this method in the past and it too left a lot to be desired. However, during my search I found a tool that worked very well.

What I found was the sleeve from an instant read thermometer. The thermometer itself has been missing in action now for a few weeks, but the sleeve itself remained. I simply took the end centered it over the stem end (after removing the stem) and pushed. The sleeve itself slid through the cherries quite easily. I also pushed 100% of the cherry pits from the 30 or so that I was preparing for the picnic. It seems that the hollow tool served to capture the pit in the recess preventing the pit from sliding to one side.

Pitting cherries is still time consuming but my hollow tube worked much better than the tool purchased and was easy to use.

]]> http://wlkr.org/2008/05/24/quick-method-for-pitting-cherries/feed/ 0 http://wlkr.org/2008/04/28/cheap-plant-markers/ http://wlkr.org/2008/04/28/cheap-plant-markers/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:48:09 +0000 Glenn Welker http://wlkr.org/2008/04/28/cheap-plant-markers/ I’m sure all gardeners at one time or another have bought those cute little plastic plant markers. Unfortunately, they are quite expensive. My favorite plant marker currently is good old fashion Popsicle sticks, which can be bought in large quantities at any art or craft store.

But if you are the type of person that likes the look and durability of plastic then we have a cost saving suggestion for you. Someone on the Instructables web site suggests using plastic spoons. He wants you to melt the handle off which creates a nice pointed tip, but that just seems like way too much work not to mention smelly. Just simply cut or snip off the handles and you have cheap plastic plant markers.

]]> http://wlkr.org/2008/04/28/cheap-plant-markers/feed/ 0