Right Brain Feed

 We've been enjoying Brood 14 cicadas in Asheville recently, they have been very numerous. I've never been in a full fledged cicada party before, they are hanging from all the trees and bushes, molting, changing color, singing wildly, and fornicating. I guess when you only get to party once every 17 years, you gotta make it a good one. 

 I can now say my aquarium is recovered from hurricane Helene. It went two weeks with zero light, and quite a while with no water changes (when we did get water restored, it was heavily treated/untrusted).  I kept my biological filters alive by using a USB bubbler in my UGF uplift tubes, and also bubbling my HOB filter. I had a few USB power blocks that would recharge daily at a neighbors to drive the bubblers. Many plants died, but all my fish made it. I looked at it as an opportunity to get a whole bunch of new plants to try. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! It's been nice to have the tank to focus on, and enjoy. I've dialed back fast growing plants, and opted for slower growing ones to dial down the maintenance requirements. I've also gotten a little better at giving the plants time to adjust when I make a change in fertilizer/water harness/CO2/light. One of my anubias bloomed two days ago, which is cool. I've never had that happen before. It...

 We recently took a much needed trip to the West coast. Trip was fairly family focused, as we have family in Portland, Seattle, and San Diego. Had a blast in Portland, loved the food truck culture. Amazing mole (3 kinds!), really nice Peruvian smoked chicken with yummy jalapeño cilantro cream sauce, amazing Pizza crust (Kens Artisan Pizza), and it was fun to try Burmese food (a salad with green tea dressing and 4-5 different types of nuts/seeds).  Enjoyed relaxing afternoon beer at a pub, enjoyed tranquil Japanese gardens, saw Sarahs nephew, hung out at Powells, and played some games of Tempest in a retro arcade. Portland definitely suits us, we will be back.   Seattle was a quick visit, checking in on my parents and sister, and seeing Sarah's sister.  San Diego was visiting Sarah's other sister, and seeing Sarah's almost 1 year old grand nephew (wow, that feels old!). He's very photogenic, a bouncy sweet baby. I melted. I even managed to capture his first steps on v...

 This is the third year I've gotten wild ramps from the farmers market. The pattern is always the same... I'm itching to get back to farmers market produce, find a really awesome looking ramp recipe online, buy a bunch of ramps. One year I tried grilled ramps, one year I made ramp butter, and this year it was ramp pesto. After buying them, I spend way too much time fussily cleaning and trimming up the muddy messy ramps.  And finally I try the recipe, and have my hopes dashed once more. It never seems worth how messy and time consuming cleaning them is. Then my mind gently forgets how messy it was just in time for it to be next year's ramp season. 

 I like to automate things on my fish tank, and decided I wanted to automate fertilizing my aquarium plants. That led me to the seedy underworld of dosing pumps. I really wanted to stick with a simple straightforward...and cheap one. A dosing pump is connected on one end thru tubing to a liquid fertilizer, and the other end pushes a few ml a day of the plant fertilizer over the edge of the tank into the water.   I got a Jebao DP-4, and tried a couple of things to get it to work. Warning: unless you are fiddling with aquarium doing pumps, the rest of this post will be a snoozefest. I found complaints online that the DP-4 dosing pump leaked air into the line, meaning that it would dose inaccurately. So I bought slightly small silicone tubing thinking it would make a better seal. It didn't. It both leaked in air, and the silicone tubing I got was even pulling air in thru the silicone walls! I didn't realize silicone tubing could be semipermeable like that. So I got airline t...

 I’m trying to learn the art of being patient…. It’s a challenge. Two months into my new tank setup, fish and some plants seem happy. I’ve added some really fun fish: a herd of a dozen lambchop rasboras, two marigold swordfish, three orange platys. I still have a few aging black skirt tetras, and an ancient zebra danio that will outlive us all. I also got some Nerite snails, which are doing a decent job of eating algea bits. Here’s a current photo: And here’s how it looked two months ago: I removed some of the messier plants that were in my initial Darwin in Action post. I find some (most?) stem plants need very very regular pruning and primping, and so I’ve really got to love them to keep them. Two remaining stem plants are probably not going to make the cut, but for now I’m keeping them as the plants grow in. I’ve ordered a few new plants to try, which arrive in the next two days.  Tank setup: 55 gallon Lights: 2 Nicrew planted LEDs at 50% intensity on for 8 hours a day Unde...

 It's always a little sad to see the leaves drop, and feel the slide into winter.  I've really been enjoying leaves this year, and doing mono print cards with them.  As tomorrow is winter solstice I look forward to longer days, eventual Spring, and next years leaves.

 I have an aquarium, and I keep freshwater fish and aquatic plants in it. I recently decided I needed to give it a remodel....change over to natural looking gravel, add an under gravel filter, and add some different fish and plants.  It's a slow process, you have to let the tank "cycle": it sits for a while to build up beneficial bacteria. Then you add plants and slowly increase lights as the plants grow, and at some point add fish. By cycling the tank slowly,it's better for the fish and keeps dreaded algae blooms in check.  I researched plants, looking for many that are slow growing (so I'm not trimming them constantly) and relatively hardy. I'm trying a ton of different varieties to see which do well in my water parameters (ph over 7, gh 120, kh 40).  Some of them will make it, some won't... A little Darwin in action, adapt or die. They are all tiny right now. I had a few struggling Amazon sword, and some very happy java fern, and I'm adding: Ludwigi...

  Recently I went to have a lake swim on a chilly rainy day. I figured the lake wouldn't exactly be crowded, and in fact I had the whole place to myself.... I swam out to the middle of the lake and paused to rest. The resident loon family (parents and one baby) happened to be close by.... And they swam towards me. I didn't move, just sat and watched them come check me out. I see them most days, but I don't really see them close up. Dang they are big!  It was a quiet special moment, I watched them for a bit, and then swam away, thanking them for sharing themselves on a chilly quiet rainy afternoon at the lake. 

 I recently got an interesting book from the library called "How to Break Up with your Phone". I realized I've been too glued to my screens: both phone and iPad. The book recognizes that phone have wonderful capabilities, but not all phone usage is good (or healthy). I'm not planning on giving up Google Maps, or my recipe app, 2FA, or learning using YouTube. And I just love having an awesome little camera always in my pocket.  The book has a bunch of exercises to help me recognize what things on my phone aren't really helping me. Teasing apart the good from the not so good has been helpful. The book had me consciously stop after I use my phone and examine how I feel, for me I realized social media in the form of Facebook and Instagram are kinda downers. I don't really like all the 'like' homework, it feels bad when I don't like all my friends posts, 'Like' has almost become 'yeah, I saw this'. Birthdays definitely feel less special ...

 Sarah and I recently got back from a great beach trip to Ocracoke, and a great stopover in surprising Durham. May is a great time to visit the Outer Banks, before the throngs of summer visitors. Ocracoke tends to be quiet, because it's so hard to get to (9+ hours of driving including a ferry ride).  We ate great seafood every day, hung out on a deserted beach, met some fun folks, and really chilled out. Our room had an awesome view of the little Ocracoke harbor, and we spent the week with no agenda. I spent hours just watching the world go by from the widows walk on the top of the B&B. A slower pace of travel for sure. We also stopped by Durham, which is a cool little spot, visiting a friend we hadn't seen in years. Durham has really decent food, from Peruvian charcoal grilled chicken to Shakshuka in a new African restaurant, and a full on Ina Garten inspired feast at our friends awesome house. Also highly recommended is the Sarah Duke Gardens, especially the Asian sectio...

 Caution: glass geek post!. One problem that frequently arises is how to get rid of surface devitrification (ugly scum that shows up on fired glass). Some things that cause it: residue from my glass cleaner or drying rags, dust from my adjacent clay studio, glue that gets used to hold glass in place while carefully transporting it to the kiln, finger prints, price tag goo, etc.  In the glass community groups devitrification (aka devit) is a frequent topic of discussion. People ask for advice on how to clean their glass before firing, and which glass glue works best. All sorts of answers pop up, with not a lot of side by side tests. As a software engineer learning fused glass, it helps me learn if I test. I tested 20 different scenarios with 3 different COE 96 clear glass types that I had in stock: Oceanside Crystal clear, Oceanside icicle clear, and Wissmach clear. Each test consisted of a 1x1 inch square of glass with a cleaning method, and possibly a glue substance and glue ...