This year, New Year’s Eve was celebrated with both manmade and natural fireworks. The aurora was unusually active and it was a clear night. I noticed it when I went out to do the evening chicken chores and informed Melissa and the offspring upon my return. They grabbed warm clothing and headed outside for a […]
Celebratory Fireworks Read More »
This morning, I began the aeration of the biomeiler. The temperature readings in the pile indicate that the interior is beginning to compost. The goal of aeration is to switch the composting to an aerobic process, rather than have it be completely anaerobic. For our purposes, the important difference between the two is in
Biomeiler Aeration Begins Read More »
The latest temperature measurements of the biomeiler have had strange variations. The high temperatures were not so high that I couldn’t believe them, but they were higher than I expected. The rate of temperature change, however, was fast enough to trigger my suspicion. The thermocouple I was using for the reference junction had a plug
Thermocouple Troubles Read More »
Here in Fairbanks, the winter weather conditions are often just right for a phenomenon my uncle refers to as “lazy snow.” When one snowflake lands on another, some of the kinetic energy involved in the collision is converted to heat. If it is warm enough outside, that tiny amount of heat is sufficient to melt
Today was the shortest day of the year. In Fairbanks, sunrise was at 10:50 A.M. and sunset was at 2:46 P.M., giving us 3 hours and 56 minutes of daylight. Since the Sun moves in a low arc across the southern sky, there is a decent amount of twilight on either end. Today’s photo was
The female of the two cots that hatched on October 8 laid her first egg today. This was one day short of 10 weeks, which is right on schedule. This egg is smaller than usual, but that is how it goes with young layers. She’ll produce bigger eggs after she has had some practice. Quail
After Church, there was a moose in the garden near the raspberry arbors, eating some of the willow tree. This one was not very big. I suspect this is its first winter on its own. In the winter, moose come into town from the surrounding areas to look for food. We often find moose tracks
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Between yesterday and last night we received over a foot of snow. The trash cans in the picture already had snow on them, so the height of the piles is more than a foot. Fortunately, this snow was fine-grained and not difficult to shovel. After I cleared the necessary paths, I got out the snow
This was final exam week at UAF. My partners and I had to finish our project and give our final presentation about it. The device sits on a plywood box which holds the Raspberry Pi and the breadboard that contains the weighing circuit and RFID circuit. The keyboard, monitor, and mouse would be connected to
Currently, we do not produce produce for sale, but we have dreams of doing so. To that end, I signed up to take the class. In Alaska, the Office of the State Veterinarian and the Department of Environmental Conservation work with the Food and Drug Administration to manage the sale of food products. We
Produce Safety Class Read More »