How I start the seeds

Here I am going to talk briefly about how I start my seeds since it is time to start getting ready for the spring.



Step 1. Get an egg carton and put some potting soil starting mix in the little pockets. Put some water on the soil. Then put some seeds on top of the soil. I have found there is no need to try and bury them. This one has some cilantro seeds.





Next wrap some plastic wrap around the egg carton. This will help keep the moisture in. Especially in Colorado and NM. Take the wrap off every day and spray some water on the soil and then cover it up with the plastic wrap until the seeds are on their way. I usually put them somewhere that is warm with alot of light.





Here is a picture of some plants that I decided I could leave the wrap off of. Once they get a little bigger I will pull them out of this eggcarton, and replant them in a pop bottle. I have found it is better to take the egg carton off when replanting, but not everyone agrees with this.

The planting season is rapidly approaching

The planting season is rapidly approaching. This weekend I went to Colorado to see my Mom because she had a stroke. She told me she would like some cantaloupe growing at our house. She likes to eat cantaloupe for Breakfast. So I got my brother Baby Tao and we dug up a farm at her house. Here is Baby Tao raking some weeds out. This dirt had alot of roots. It was pretty hard to dig up. Luckily we had a really stiff pitchfork that could break up the dirt. We also got alot of exercise with the pick. After we finished I got Tao a new shovel and some seeds so he could plant a farm for Mom to enjoy.



Here is Bear. He is about to blow away.




Here I am getting my home farm in New Mexico ready. I am trying to get as many weeds out as possible.

First Farm Feast

Last night My old machine shop friend Seth came to visit with his wife Christine. It was the first time the farm got used for a meal. Christine took some sour dough bread and dressed it up with some olive oil and a combination of thyme, basil, oregano, marjoram, and some other kind of basil. It turned out really good.





Here is Christine with her creation.



Seth was kind enough to bring some homemade apple wine (shown here) along with a variety of home brewed beers.




My friend Billy informed me of this Buffalo Chicken Dip. I decided this would be a good time to try it out. It turned out really tasty. I highly recommend it.





Here is a link that tells how to make the Buffalo Chicken Dip.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2226159_crack-dip-buffalo-chicken-dip.html

First successful soup pour with a homemade double boiler

After a little Internet research and a trip to the thrift store I made my own double boiler with a $5 crock pot, a tin can, some old nuts and some wire. Here it is in action melting some soap down for a pour




Here is the soap after it started to melt. It appears to me that soap is not very heat conductive. It takes a long time for fat soap chunks to melt. It seems to really help to have the soap shredded up before melting.



After the soap was melted I poured it into my mold. It is pretty viscous. This is very different from the paraffin wax I used before. That stuff was basically as runny as water when it was melted. This soap is more of a paste. After it cooled I noticed it had significantly less shrinkage than the wax as well. I did a little bit of experimentation with adding a sprue to my last mold, but it does not look necessary with the soap.



Here is a slightly cleaned up image of my first cast soap.