This spring I did a small foray into AliExpress to see what interesting products I could find. I ended up ordering three products: kozo (Broussonetia Papyrifera) seeds, Abelmoschus Manihot gum powder, and tororo-aoi (Abelmoschus Manihot) seeds. The gum powder was…
Category: Personal
Life Hack: Dishwasher Water Traps
We have a collections of plastic drinking cups, some from the dollar store, and other more stylish ones from Ikea. These are great for giving drinks to children because they aren’t too big, and more importantly they are unbreakable. But…
Making my mill more rigid
In my shop, I have a Sherline mill. Normally I have it set up like a model 5000 series, with a solid column, for rigidity and to reduce the number of adjustments that can go out of whack. Recently I…
Finally fixing an arduino shield
Three years ago I attended SoOnCon 2012 hosted by Diyode in Guelph. The “badge” for this event was an Arduino Uno board, with Codeshield, a shield of general-purpose sensors and actuators, all mounted with a battery pack on a custom-made…
Sunflowers!
This year we planted sunflowers in one of the flower beds in front of our house. Rather than the usual huge yellow variety, we selected some that would have a bit of a colour mix in them. Because of their…
My tomato plants are dying (again)
I’m finding that the tomato plants in my vegetable garden, which have been growing so well up until now, are doing the same thing they’ve done for the past three or four years: They suddenly wilt, sicken, and die. What…
Blackberries!
…and not the ones RIM makes, either! This year, the blackberry plants growing wild in our yard along the fences and stream valley seem to have a bumper crop of berries on them. I suspect the plentiful June precipitation had…
Father’s day at the Hamilton Mini Maker Faire
Last Sunday (the 21st, that is) we spent the afternoon in Hamilton at the Mini Maker Faire, hosted by the Hamilton Museum of Steam & Technology. The site is a former Victorian-era steam-powered plant for pumping municipal water from Lake…
Tramming the Mill
In order to get a good finish when milling the top surface of a part, as I will be doing to prepare matrix blanks, it is necessary that the axis of the mill spindle be perpendicular to the surface of…
From drought to downpour
We’ve had several weeks here with essentially no rain, and the garden has been looking rather sad. I planted tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, and basil around May 24th, with promise of rain (finally!) in the forecast but it did not materialize,…
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