My mind has a hard time convincing itself that a hazy sky can be explained by events 2000 miles away. Sure enough:
I believe the World Health Organization recommends a daily average no higher than 10.
Wildfires Tickling Sensors
Been Building
I started early in the season with the usual piers, beams, leveling, subfloor combination. Now I get to frame which is immensely more satisfying. Tearing the shingles was heartbreaking, I will never do shingles again. This poor early choice is likely why our house isn’t fully sided yet. I estimate it’s about 20 times the amount of work as doing boards. And I really don’t have time to side 20 houses. They’re also impossible to remove or replace. Bleh all around.
I’ve involved Robin more in the construction, he’s eager to learn for his own house. Music to my ears. We built a small covered thingy to hold all the things that might blow up. I didn’t like having them closer to buildings. This project had him use all the tools and techniques on a small scale, but he’s helped me on the subfloors since.
2024 Construction
The house is reaching its final footprint. I still haven’t modeled the deck which didn’t really need much forethought, but I’d like to have a complete model of the house. It’s very useful on top of being fun.
This year we’re looking at a kitchen alcove/bay window.
And a “basement” with a small quirky room on top. We could really use a space to store a bunch of stuff in the absence of an actual basement.
Protected: The Spanish Armada is Back for More
Random Plots
Mandala/Tessellations by Hava Edelstein (as always :)).
Large plastering of UV ink, it looks awesome in person.
I’ve refined my algorithms for processing multiple colors.
I’ve got my next 2 big plots lined up, but I’ll abstain from revealing their test renders until their full size reveal, likely this Fall. Both are collaborations with artists.
Organic Lanterns
It’s a great year for fireflies, we harnessed the magic into lanterns.
Experimenting with Larger Ink Reservoirs
When I plot stuff that goes beyond a pen’s ink capacity, it’s a pain to swap pens. It’s a constant worry and the operation has the potential for ruining a plot. So I’m experimenting with ways to have enough ink on board, or maybe refill. Of course I’m learning that pens are designed within tight tolerances of pressure & viscosity.
I think this one is going to work. I made the reservoir’s volume 5 times that of an unaltered Precise v5 pen.
I always make an ink mess with each experimentation. I’ve learned that PLA printing is not liquid tight. And so thank you Nathan for the resin printing :). One other silly lesson I’ve learned is that various paper can suck up ink at different rates.
Irrigation
It’s not much but for us it’s huge, we finally have enough water and ways to move it that we can give the gardens a good soak. For the past 9 years we’ve been reliant on the weather, which usually does its job in Vermont. Although when it didn’t, we’d be reactive and move a lot of water by hand only to keep plants alive. Now we’re able to soak several hundred square feet of soil whenever they could use it, and it’s less manual labor. Double win!
We want to build a rain capture system to diversify strategies, but that’s dependent on other projects. We’ll get there.