Antique Radio

This last Thursday as part of my vacation I went up to Ann Arbor with my brother and one of our mutual friends. While wandering the town we stopped by a hole-in-the-wall antique store, where I found this gem...
This is a General Electric model 410 tabletop radio in very good condition (as you can see even the cloth speaker guard is intact!) After doing a little research I determined that this radio is about 59 years old. It was sold as working, and work it does with only one slight flaw, there is very little in the way of music on the MW (commonly called AM) band!!!
I had been looking for a low-cost, working or repairable vacuum tube radio for some time, and when I saw this unit marked "Works! $35" I decided to buy it. As I said the only problem is the overall lack of music on the MW band; though the dial is slightly off the reception quality and selectivity is better than some much newer transistor radios. The sound quality is good; with no undesirable distortion . Now all I need is a zero-range AM transmitter so I can supply my own music...

Home Ag: Sunflowers

In addition to field corn I also planted about 120 sunflowers, which I have neglected to post pictures of until now. Sadly they are well past the "pretty" phase, but that's not why I'm growing them...
These plants are all over 10 feet tall, with most having a head measuring over a foot across. Fortunately they are "droopy," which deters wild birds from stealing my crop.








And here's a picture with me holding a soda can next to one of the lowest heads... Yes they really are that big!
I believe that I lost maybe a fifth of these plants to rabbits that ran under the electric fence, however there are still PLENTY of flowers left over!

Home Ag Update: Knee high by the Fourth of July... YEAH RIGHT!!!

As you can see from my two test plants, I am WAY past the old adage! Mind you my test plants (I call them that because I planted them to test the "Round-Up Readiness" of the rest of my seed) are a week ahead of my plot, but...


















These plants are even taller than the test plants. The tallest of them are already over my head (I'm just shy of 6')! I've only applied nitrogen once since I planted them, and you can see the results.













And the other half of my garden; comprised of four tomatoes, and crop plantings of sweet corn and sunflowers. It isn't doing nearly as well as the field corn, as the weeds have taken over.













And a shot of my entire operation. Enjoy.

Electric Fencing: DANGER 10,000 VOLTS

Well once again I got hit by my own electric fence, this time while "gapping" it to test the potential on the line (a rough estimate of how many volts are on the wire judged by the length of the spark it throws). I got hit while throwing the disconnect, and for the instant the line was hot it hurt worse than the time I touched one leg of a 480 at work (that's 277 volts AC)!
Here is a brief video of a half-inch spark drawn across the disconnect switch. Enjoy what it LOOKS like (hopefully you never get to find out what it FEELS like)!

Home Ag Update: The corn is up!

Finally about "one third to half" of my corn has sprouted! So far the first two planting days' worth of corn is up, with the rest about a week behind. And at least so far it looks like I have a very low mortality rate (as in by far and away most of the seeds have sprouted)!
Here is a picture of once of the further along seedlings, as well as a few of it's neighbors. However as you can see some weeds have sprung up, and though I had hoped not to need to I may wind up having to spray the corn patch with 2,4-D (I can't use Round-Up, as only about a third of the corn is guaranteed to be Round-Up Ready). This won't kill the grass, but it will take care of the broadleafs. We'll see, if the corn grows fast enough I won't have to spray at all...
That's all I have for now. More when the results are more dramatic.

Home Ag: Field Planted!

Well two weeks after starting all of my corn (both field and sweet) are finally planted!
The three dark areas are the areas I planted today (I decided to "water-in" those areas).
So far I have planted a "mixed bag" of modern field corn and two varieties of sweet corn (Golden Cross Bantam hybrid, a classic sweet corn and Ruby Queen hybrid, a red-kernel sweet corn). As for the space left in the middle, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'll have to make a trip to a greenhouse before long...

Home Ag: Fixin' the Cistern!

NOTICE: Second post today!

I feel very fortunate that my house came with a cistern; a now all-but forgotten source of fresh water. A cistern is a large underground storage space for water, which is generally supplied by rain collected by the house's roof.
My cistern is located on the north wall of my house, and has no clear design feature for filling it. I plan on using aboveground courrogated drain pipe to move rainwater from the eaves through the access hatch visable in the picture, and to use a sump pump to actually use this water to irrigate my crops.
In order to do this I need to run both a water pipe and an extension cord down the raised hole on the right side of the picture, and fish them out through the access hatch to attach them to a pump. Most likely this will be easier said than done, but in the end will be well worth it, as this is a source of FREE water for irrigating both my garden and my lawn!

As of right now the only function that my cistern serves is to provide a home for a single frog! Currently the cistern holds about two inches of water, and as you can see the wreckage of the old wellhead pump are still in there. Once I have a pump in there and connect the eaves to it, the frog will have to move out... Sorry, but I now officially need the stored rain water...