Hobbies: What other Hobbies do you have?

[Kendo 2]

18 hours ago, vancleef said:

Cowpoke Kendo. I like that image, you riding the range wearing an impossibly huge hat.

More like me on a 4-wheeler wearing a baseball cap...with a beer in a koozie.

[vancleef]

Scratch built a bank for my miniature Western collection. Had the most fun with the safe.

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 And here are the jerks that are going to try and rob it!
 

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[Kendo 2]

On 4/29/2021 at 10:47 PM, vancleef said:

Scratch built a bank for my miniature Western collection. Had the most fun with the safe....
....And here are the jerks that are going to try and rob it!

You should do the saloon from Tombstone.

[Kendo 2]

The garden is doing far better than last year.

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• I have so many fruit and blossom sets on the Roma tomatoes that I've had to tie them up twice to keep the branches off the ground; that's even with the lower branches trimmed up by about a foot.  It may be a 'bumper crop'.
• All the potatoes set bloom maybe two weeks ago (a month ahead of schedule).  They'll probably start dying back by late May or early June and be ready to dig.  Hopefully I'll have enough Summer left to do a crop of beans in the potato beds.
• Squash and beans are doing their thing and there was enough green on the onions to cut them back.
• Everything else is on schedule.

 

[vancleef]

1 hour ago, Kendo 2 said:

The garden is doing far better than last year.

  Hide contents

• I have so many fruit and blossom sets on the Roma tomatoes that I've had to tie them up twice to keep the branches off the ground; that's even with the lower branches trimmed up by about a foot.  It may be a 'bumper crop'.
• All the potatoes set bloom maybe two weeks ago (a month ahead of schedule).  They'll probably start dying back by late May or early June and be ready to dig.  Hopefully I'll have enough Summer left to do a crop of beans in the potato beds.
• Squash and beans are doing their thing and there was enough green on the onions to cut them back.
• Everything else is on schedule.

 

How are the cows doing? Have you had any problems with rustlers?

[vancleef]

2 hours ago, Kendo 2 said:

You should do the saloon from Tombstone.

The bank was inspired by one in Tombstone that I took lots of photos of when I was there.

This one is from a few years back that I constructed, inspired by Tombstone's famous Birdcage Theater:
 

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I have a large saloon interior that I built years back for replicating Barroom Brawls in miniature. But I want to do a new one now that my skills have improved.

Edited May 6, 2021 by vancleef

[Kendo 2]

17 hours ago, vancleef said:

How are the cows doing? Have you had any problems with rustlers?

Whitney has taken over the steers.  They like her better than me anyway.  She talks baby talk to them and they follower her around like dogs.

[vancleef]

5 hours ago, Kendo 2 said:

Whitney has taken over the steers.  They like her better than me anyway.  She talks baby talk to them and they follower her around like dogs.

That is, like, the most awesome thing I've heard this week!

[Misakura_Yeager]

I've been collecting anime figures and stuff. I always wanted to have a room full of anime collectibles and I'm starting to fulfill it little by little ^^_  

[endgameaddiction]

@vancleef

 

I saw this last night while looking for some extra vending machine models 

 

[Kendo 2]

Wow.

[vancleef]

8 hours ago, endgameaddiction said:

@vancleef

 

I saw this last night while looking for some extra vending machine models 

 

I have a friend 3D printing Fallout minis and terrain. I'll see if I can get some photos.

EDIT: Found it!
Facebook

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by vancleef

[Kendo 2]

Started the work for a winter garden last week.  Nothing grand, just scattered some edible cover crops (leaf lettuce and cabbages, mustard greens and cilantro.)  Bought some recycled greenhouse plastic to make some cold frames for hardneck garlic and 1015 onions. 

My gardening big coup this year; red sugar cane the dept of agriculture banned.  I have 14 rooted stalks ready to plant (enough to do a 20' hedge).  I made my own biochar and inoculated it with my homemade beer failure, leaf mold from under an oak tree, some expired molasses and my own urine .  It sounds (and is) gross but mold and bacteria have done their job i.e. no pee smell.  Gonna line the trenches with that, top it with some compost and lay the cane in.  By August 2021 I'll have my own sugar cane for juice or syrup. 

[ritualclarity]

10 hours ago, Kendo 2 said:

Started the work for a winter garden last week.  Nothing grand, just scattered some edible cover crops (leaf lettuce and cabbages, mustard greens and cilantro.)  Bought some recycled greenhouse plastic to make some cold frames for hardneck garlic and 1015 onions. 

My gardening big coup this year; red sugar cane the dept of agriculture banned.  I have 14 rooted stalks ready to plant (enough to do a 20' hedge).  I made my own biochar and inoculated it with my homemade beer failure, leaf mold from under an oak tree, some expired molasses and my own urine .  It sounds (and is) gross but mold and bacteria have done their job i.e. no pee smell.  Gonna line the trenches with that, top it with some compost and lay the cane in.  By August 2021 I'll have my own sugar cane for juice or syrup. 

Why would the Department of Agriculture ban sugar cane? 

Curious, why would you line the trenches with Biocar?  Is it some process to help prevent pest (worms etc) from eating the plants?  I am not a farmer, barely capable house plant care taker.. (at least I haven't killed any of them lol) but if I am not mistaken biocar is good for soil and the environment but can't it take some time to become in sync with the soil? also doesn't it prevent the worms  from doing their thing helping the dirt get/stay healthy? (being inorganic .. well at least mostly ... carbon if I am not mistaken)

[ritualclarity]

On 5/5/2021 at 9:03 PM, Kendo 2 said:

The garden is doing far better than last year.

  Hide contents

• I have so many fruit and blossom sets on the Roma tomatoes that I've had to tie them up twice to keep the branches off the ground; that's even with the lower branches trimmed up by about a foot.  It may be a 'bumper crop'.
• All the potatoes set bloom maybe two weeks ago (a month ahead of schedule).  They'll probably start dying back by late May or early June and be ready to dig.  Hopefully I'll have enough Summer left to do a crop of beans in the potato beds.
• Squash and beans are doing their thing and there was enough green on the onions to cut them back.
• Everything else is on schedule.

 

How did it go?  Did you get your bumper crop?

[Kendo 2]

20 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

Why would the Department of Agriculture ban sugar cane? 

The variety I have doesn't need to be replanted every three years and is hardy in my zone; i.e. the USDA considers it 'invasive'.  It's also disease resistant.

20 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

Curious, why would you line the trenches with Biocar?

Biochar is a sponge that will soak up whatever you mix with it.  I inoculated mine with native soil bacteria and impregnated it with nitrogen and phosphorous.  After it cured it went in the bottom of the trench and the cane on top.  The cane roots will seek out the biochar layer a foot beneath them and establish a good system.  By the time the biochar breaks down the cane roots will have all the nutrients and carbon they need for a few years.  I can top dress with compost to give it a boost when needed.

20 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

How did it go?  Did you get your bumper crop?

Off of 17 roma plants I got about 200lbs of tomatoes from the whole season; not all at once but in one BIG harvest and then a few smaller follow-ups.  I canned practically all of it and the cooking process yielded about 10 gallons of juice.  I rendered that down into a little over 2 quarts of tomato paste.  I still have home canned tomato products in the pantry.

Spoiler

I had to pull the onions and potatoes early because of all the summer rain we had so they under-performed.  Vine borers wiped out my squash (again) and I only pulled 2 harvests before they died.

I had a lot of empty space so I stuck in bagged Louisiana red beans from the grocery store.  I ate most of them, saved enough seed to replant in March and I tilled under everything else to fix the nitrogen for spring turnips.  I had so much basil I just threw it on the compost pile after it went to seed and the bees were done with it.  I had so many cucumbers (50 gallons) I ended up giving them to one of my hunting buddies so he could bait hog traps with them.

Everything else I planted either under-performed or outright failed.

[ritualclarity]

7 hours ago, Kendo 2 said:

The variety I have doesn't need to be replanted every three years and is hardy in my zone; i.e. the USDA considers it 'invasive'.  It's also disease resistant.

Thats pretty silly if it isn't harmful (and doesn't seem to be) compared to the benefits it has. (disease resistant)

Biochar is a sponge that will soak up whatever you mix with it.  I inoculated mine with native soil bacteria and impregnated it with nitrogen and phosphorous.  After it cured it went in the bottom of the trench and the cane on top.  The cane roots will seek out the biochar layer a foot beneath them and establish a good system.  By the time the biochar breaks down the cane roots will have all the nutrients and carbon they need for a few years.  I can top dress with compost to give it a boost when needed.

Ah that makes sense. I've heard that previously but not in solid "real world" use.  

Off of 17 roma plants I got about 200lbs of tomatoes from the whole season; not all at once but in one BIG harvest and then a few smaller follow-ups.  I canned practically all of it and the cooking process yielded about 10 gallons of juice.  I rendered that down into a little over 2 quarts of tomato paste.  I still have home canned tomato products in the pantry. 

Ihave little experience in this. I assume by your response that it was quite haul for your setup. 

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I had to pull the onions and potatoes early because of all the summer rain we had so they under-performed.  Vine borers wiped out my squash (again) and I only pulled 2 harvests before they died.

I had a lot of empty space so I stuck in bagged Louisiana red beans from the grocery store.  I ate most of them, saved enough seed to replant in March and I tilled under everything else to fix the nitrogen for spring turnips.  I had so much basil I just threw it on the compost pile after it went to seed and the bees were done with it.  I had so many cucumbers (50 gallons) I ended up giving them to one of my hunting buddies so he could bait hog traps with them.

Everything else I planted either under-performed or outright failed.

 

[ritualclarity]

On 5/21/2021 at 10:03 PM, vancleef said:

I have a friend 3D printing Fallout minis and terrain. I'll see if I can get some photos.

EDIT: Found it!
Facebook

 

You should consider getting into 3d printing yourself. Print your own models ... Then paint! I am sure it cheaper than buying premade models. Also, with a bit of practice and some guidance (from many here that do 3d models) you can possibly create your own custom models to paint to boot!

Also your friend did an awesome job at creating those models.

[Kendo 2]

Me and my lame gardening...

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Went to my sister's house (she lives in town ) and set her raised beds up for winter/spring.  Cleaned up the walkways, pulled all the weeds and raked leaves to start her a compost pile, built a cold frame for her kitchen herbs out of some old 6mm greenhouse plastic I had.

For payment she cooked me dinner; fried chicken, homemade yeast rolls, mashed taters, green beans.  And she made 40 wt cream gravy with the chicken grease.  I ate so much I had to take a nap. 

[ritualclarity]

4 hours ago, Kendo 2 said:

Me and my lame gardening...

  Hide contents

Went to my sister's house (she lives in town ) and set her raised beds up for winter/spring.  Cleaned up the walkways, pulled all the weeds and raked leaves to start her a compost pile, built a cold frame for her kitchen herbs out of some old 6mm greenhouse plastic I had.

For payment she cooked me dinner; fried chicken, homemade yeast rolls, mashed taters, green beans.  And she made 40 wt cream gravy with the chicken grease.  I ate so much I had to take a nap. 

Not lame at all.... not at all.

 

[Kendo 2]

me and my garden.  WARNING: Boring wall-o-text.

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The current weather is jacking with my efforts 

GARLIC:  I kept 10 lbs of garlic in my fridge for 3 fucking months to trick it into doing the hibernation it requires to make full fat bulbs next summer.  I planted dense in short rows a few weeks ago and it's already sprouted.  If there's a hard freeze the plants will survive BUT the green tops will die back and that means full-sized bulbs with a shit-load of tiny cloves...instead of nice fat cloves.  It's still garlic, but the kind that's a pain in the ass to peel.  And I won't be able to use most of it as seed since small cloves means small garlic next season.

ONIONS:  The sweet 1015 sets I bought and stuck in the ground to overwinter and then replant are fucking GROWING like it's next spring.  Not that big of a deal since onion roots are like wire, but it can stunt bulb growth without a bunch of tlc after they're replanted.  Extra work...yea!

SUGAR CANE:  I planted it deep and it's mulched with over a foot of pecan leaves so hopefully it won't break the surface.  If it does and the temp drops below 50 F after that the whole crop is fucked,  It will rot in the ground.

COVER CROPS:  All of the spare seeds I just tossed on the ground have sprouted and formed a green carpet.  It's grown so much I can tell the difference between cabbage, lettuces and mustard.  Even the cilantro I tossed in has true leaves on it.

MISCELLANEOUS:  There's a volunteer cucumber plant that's already 6' long and it's blossomed and set fruit.  Cucumbers growing outside in December...hmmm.  A potato I missed has sprouted and has true leaves.  The herbs I have in a hoop tunnel are sprouting new growth.

 

[endgameaddiction]

Lately I've rekindled memories back when I used to collect comic books. It's been a super duper long time. Talking about late 90's since I last collected any. These past days I've been searching for ones I'm missing I need to finish my collections.

[vancleef]

Finally got a night free from customer orders and painted something for myself. Scratch built a custom base for the 28mm miniature of Snake Plissken from Escape From New York:

 

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[LadySmoks]

3 hours ago, vancleef said:

Finally got a night free from customer orders and painted something for myself. Scratch built a custom base for the 28mm miniature of Snake Plissken from Escape From New York:

 

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A movie ahead of it's time! Walling off NYC and LA as prisons seems like a no brainer these days!

[endgameaddiction]

Writing a science fiction story. There is no main story right now because I'm noting down everything that consists of this world. From characters, factions, the world itself, etc.  When I started doing this, I was doing it on my phone using Samsung Notes. Really liked the dark theme and white text and allowing me to import images. I knew I could do this on MS Wordpad as I had done this many years ago. However, Wordpad doesn't offer a dark theme. or changing the page to a dark color along with the text being a lighter color so that it's easy on the eyes. For days I was researching until I stumbled upon LibreOffice, which allowed me to do just that. It's a great alternative to MS Word and Office. So I have been transferring it all over from my phone.

It's going to be a long time before I put this story together because I'm putting in many important characters that will exist in this world. Like if they are unique named NPCs in a game world. I also have another for factions, settlements, the world itself, vehicles, currency, locations (wilderness), locations (city, towns), weapons, attire, etc.

The idea is to come up with a story for a game. And then learn to develop with UE5 and just create small worlds for fun with these characters and factions. Though, that is a long ways ahead.

Edited October 14, 2023 by endgameaddiction