Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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Thursday, October 22 2009
Temperatures rose into the 70s and the sun came out, making for a spectacular autumn day, with colorful leaves framing chunks of clear blue sky. If more autumn days were like this, I might actually like the season. Unfortunately, though, in this climate autumn is typified by grim platinum skies, chilly breezes, and weak solar influx due to overcast conditions, shortened days, and lingering foliage. It's a vaguely-depressing time, though I love the music that captures its essence (for example, Under the Bushes Under the Stars by Guided by Voices, The Trials Of Van Occupanther by Midlake, and, of course, Animals by the Pinkest of Floyds.
The warm weather seemed to breathe a sense of last-minute frenzy into the local arthropod population. The few remaining bachelor katydids cha-cha-cha-chaed in full daylight, hitherto-unseen species of beetles and spiders crawled about, and the air (both indoors and outdoors) was thick with swarming Lady Beetles.
I took advantage of this almost embarrassing surplus of outdoor heat to work once again in my brownhouse, this time carefully cutting and positioning the sheets of MDF onto the top and front-vertical surfaces of the pooping bench, having slathered construction cement on the particleboard underneath. Then I piled rocks on top of the MDF to hold it down, not wanting to mar its surface with fasteners. (I found Redback Salamanders attempting to hibernate beneath most of the rocks I used for this purpose.)


A large green beetle (about an inch long) I found outside the front door this afternoon.


A carrion beetle on the steps down to the greenhouse.


The brownhouse, viewed from uphill (the west). Note the freshly-painted Purple Martin house.


Same view with the door closed.


Inside the brownhouse, using rocks to hold down the MDF I was gluing.


The brownhouse, viewed from the southeast.


The brownhouse from the east, with a view of the hole where the shit collector can goes (I was fixing the hatch at the time, which had overheated in the sun and come somewhat delaminated). Though the brownhouse looks like it is sitting on a concrete foundation, that's just Wonderboard panels attached to pressure-treated corner posts. I've also added some additional treated framing lumber to support the Wonderboard and frame out the hatch hole.


A spectacular orange spider I'd never seen before that I found in the brownhouse basement. The body on this guy is over a half inch long.


The brownhouse posing with the greenhouse, viewed from the southeast.


Plants in the greenhouse. The plant in the back is a tomato I've been growing for over a month. The two nearer plants are dwarf banana trees that a reader suggested I get. We'll see how they do.

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