Joel Johnson over at Boing Boing posted this interesting net gun that you can build for around 50 bucks.

The net is 90 square feet and will travel 15 to 25 feet using compressed air.

This could make catching extra zippy chickens a bit easier, and it provides a non-lethal way of dealing with those neighborhood kids who keep jumping into your yard to retrieve their ball or frisbee.

Here's a picture of Lucy with our footbridge in the background where the creek has a curve in it. The panoramic nature of the photo is thanks to the Fuji Finepix S1000fd. It has a pretty neat built in feature that allows you to stitch three pictures into one long image.

After you take the first shot you save it in the memory and the next frame has about a fifth of the last image in a ghost like form that allows you to line up the picture exactly where you need it.

The Gorilla glue bond was not quite strong enough to hold up against the heavy pounding a few weeks of wood splitting will tend to put it through. The wiggle is back, and parts of the bond are breaking away from the handle.

The maul has not flown off the handle yet, and as long as it gets the job done we will most likely continue to put it through the many paces of log splitage.

Lucy is often on hand for wood chopping, waiting for just the right piece to snatch up and carry off for safe keeping. We can never seem to get that kind of enthusiasm out of Huckleberry.

The picture is the field behind my mom's backyard in Ohio. This time last year it was showing signs of soil compaction as I walked up and down its trail. Thanks to some corn stalk mulching I've noticed a decrease in the mud and standing water.

I'm not sure how often one needs to mulch corn stalks, but I have always enjoyed gazing out at these fields.

The wind is the price you have to pay for such a nice view. On a day like this you might want to consider electric socks to keep the wind chill as far from your toes as possible.

Visiting civilization, I load Mark's mom's washing machine with load after load of dirty laundry.  Every few weeks, I wash my clothes in the wringer washer, but Mark tends to throw his in a pile  in the corner of his room and wait for six months until he visits his mother.  The time has come for me to take the bull by the horns and take over our household's laundry rather than just my own!

In the summer, I wonder why anyone would do their laundry with anything except a wringer washer.  Standing in the hot sun, cold water dripping off my elbows, I wash my clothes with creek water and dry them with sunlight.  As the fall advances, though, I try to remember why I use a wringer washer, my hands freezing solid in ice water until I can barely feel them and they turn bright red.

The obvious reason to use a wringer washer is that they can be used without running water --- essential on our homestead --- and can be left outside to freeze with no negative repurcussions.  When done properly, using a wringer washer also saves water.  For the 0.05% of my reading audience who would ever consider using a wringer washer, I've compiled a list of wringer washer tips.  Enjoy!

The TC1840H steel yard cart with collapsible sides has proven to be a real work horse for us. We've had it going on two years now and it's held up under some serious abuse. I did seem to break one of the supports...but it was easy enough to repair. Like I said...we have probably overused the poor thing and it's a testament to its makers that it's still doing the job and doing it well.

A friend of mine emailed me this photo of what looks like the same model cart being deployed in the secret tricycle surge in Iraq. This could be just the kind of secret weapon our troops really need to wrap up the current Middle East Crusade so that they can all finally come home and get some well deserved rest.

I have a confession to make.  On Black Friday --- in the polar opposite of voluntary simplicity --- I not only bought something, but I bought something big.

When I quit working for my nonprofit, I had to return the fancy equipment I'd been using --- a zippy laptop, a stunning camera, a swell GPS.  I thought I'd miss the camera the most and had told myself I could splurge and buy one of my own, but luckily before I splurged I went back to my old laptop and realized that it was like returning to using a screwdriver after you've been building houses with a power drill.  I had gotten used to being able to manipulate 2.4 MB photos with ease or format big fancy documents.  Back on my old computer, not only was the broken hinge not as repairable as I'd initially thought, but those large manipulations would take 15 minutes of painful effort, the mouse lagging behind where I pointed it as the computer worked all out and still barely managed.

And so I told myself "if you can find a zippy laptop for under $500 you can get it", thinking all the while that the budget was too low and there was no way I'd find something zippy enough to tempt me so cheap.  But then on Black Friday I went online and found a 15% off sale at Lenovo along with free shipping --- and got a zippy laptop for under $500.

When the computer arrived yesterday, the creek was way up and the footbridge icy and lopsided, but I crawled across (literally), pushing the laptop box in front of me --- my version of risking life and limb for shopping.  Next week, Joey will set it up with Linux (at which point I will begin to love it --- right now it's running windows and I can't seem to force myself to touch it.)  And that is my confession --- we all fall short of the glory.  But at least I didn't fall in the creek!

The traction chains started slipping after a few days of back and forth in the mud.

I took each wheel back off and doubled the amount of rope and weaves. I also secured the rope ends with some metal wire.

After doing a bit of research I discovered that for about 5 dollars per tire you can get 100 percent nitrogen pumped into your tires. Nitrogen is more stable and will not fluctuate when the temperature changes. It is also reported to decrease the amount of inner tire decay.

Helium might seem like it could make your vehicle lighter, but it won't.... and then you have to deal with your car talking in that high pitched tone.

The additional bead of Gorilla glue eliminated the wiggle and is still holding up well. Now it's a question of time. How much pressure can the bond take and for how long?

I was doing a connector upgrade on our irrigation pump today and discovered a small tip that could ease some friction trouble that can sometimes occur with plastic.

Some pieces are more difficult to couple when it's cold out. Toast the stubborn part over a fire for about 30 seconds... being careful not to let it get too hot. This will make it easier and give you a chance to warm your hands.