Stormcrow's Hobby Farm

[BlindLemonChicken]

That is a brilliant idea!

While your tractor is very nice, I'm not sure it's the most picturesque thing you can see out your front windows.

I don’t know…I find tractors kind of charming…I took a picture of one a few weeks ago that I would post here except my house is also in it.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

...and delivery is delayed till tomorrow.

For anyone curious, I can't use local limestone as grow medium in my tanks because it will continue to drive the pH of the water alkaline as it wears away, making it impossible to get the system in balance, or to grow any acid-loving plants. The rock they brought in to Lowes is a crushed granite suitable for driveways and the like. Seems to be the right size, and at $80 for 1/3 cu yd, its not a terrible price for small lots. I can get it $200/yd if I buy 10yd at a time, so may do that, dump another load on the driveway, and "steal" some for the grow beds.

 

[Sally PB]

Anyone that wants to offer floorplans, imagine a rectangle 166" wide by 284" tall. Doorway at bottom right corner, entering from the side.

Totes measure 40" x 48". The big tanks go OUTSIDE - its only the grow beds I need to both place, and be able to walk around. Does me no good to have 48" of bed width if I can only reach the first 20" or so. Will probably start w/ 6, and expand the system outside if it works well. Working theory, anyways.

You are making me miss my mold design days! Dang, I loved ExpertCad. That was an awesome drawing package.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I used to teach Cadkey. Taught myself enough SketchUp in a weekend to get by. May draft something after work, if I'm not too tired - using the tractor at lunch to level more of the greenhouse [yes, I SHOULD have done this before I finished the walls. Wife had a change of plans/priorities - so now I'm adding dirt, not digging out.]

 

[Sally PB]

I used to teach Cadkey.

We used ExpertCad in the tool and die shop where I worked. Then they got one seat of Cadkey to try out. The user said, "Oh, Sally, you will love Cadkey!"

Then they went with Unigraphics. I suppose solid modeling was going to be it, eventually. But ExpertCad was VERY user friendly and intuitive. UG... was not.

Or maybe it was the poor trainers/badly designed classes we were sent to. One teacher didn't know he was supposed to teach our class, showed up 5 hours late the first day, and then seemed resentful the rest of the week. One guy said, "Huh. I've never seen it do that before," when the canned exercises didn't go as they should have. (I lost count of how many times he said it, but it was over twenty on Wednesday of the M-F class.) One class had a good teacher, but all the computers we were working on had the wrong version of the software installed, and we lost half a day while he reinstalled the software on 16 computers with only one set of CDs to work from.

My group missed out on two memorable events. One was a student from another shop who was in waaay over his head and slowed things down with his endless questions. The one I heard about was during the discussion of how to do a 360 array and he asked what the 360 meant.

But the one event I'm really glad I missed was when a guy had a heart attack in class.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

When Cadkey became Parametrics for Solid Modeling it went from user friendly to NOT.

Apparently, that was typical of the Cad products at the time.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

(and I was so tired after work I completely forgot) Also, Lowes called and cancelled a chunk of my Order. Looks like I'm going to have to drive to Dothan for closure strips. {Grrrrr....}