The peas have finally started to ripen and we have had our first harvest. It wasn’t really enough for a portion each, but due to horticultural incompetence our sights are set low and any edible output is considered a triumph!
Author: Dad
Comet Neowise
Last night I went out to try to see the comet. I drove a couple of miles north of Salisbury to a lay-by on high ground with a clear view to the north. A couple of other people had had the same idea, but it wasn’t too busy. Fortunately, there was very little cloud and once it got dark enough (about 2030) and I was looking in the right direction (about 2300) it wasn’t too hard to see. With the
Xen hypervisor working on RockPro64
Previously I described how I had made a start on configuring my new RockPro64 SBC to act as the new house server. My intention has been to use the Xen hypervisor to allow me to run the server as a bunch of virtual machines. For the last couple of weeks (and aided a great deal by the time available whilst stuck at home) I have been struggling to configure the board and get Xen working. The Xen ARM project write
Horticulture update
It is a few weeks since I last commented on gardening activity. Vegetable efforts continue and the big success has been the lettuce in pots which we bought as baby plants. These are doing well and provide plenty of leaves via the trusted “Cut and come again” method. You will not in the photo the automatic watering system. This sort of works, but it is leaks somewhat and I can’t get the coverage to be very even. I have some
Replacing the Fiesta’s fuel pump
Regular readers will recall that I have been having problems with the fuel pump on my old Mk 4 Fiesta. Well, whilst I was in the process of fixing the rear brakes it seemed to fail completely. I guess I should be grateful that it always seems to pack in when the car is on the drive! This time the fuse didn’t blow leaving me not entirely sure that the fuel pump was the problem. I spent some time trying
Making a start on my new server
I have decided to begin the process of replacing my venerable AMD Athlon based server which has been running continually since 2006 (99.526% uptime). After a considerable amount of research I settled on the ROCKPro64 because: It comes with 4 GB RAM. Very unusually for a single board computer it has a PCIe slot allowing a SATA card to be added. I would like to attempt to use the Xen hypervisor and the chipset is alleged to be compatible. With
A garden friend
Today, as part of the Golden Age of Horticulture, I was clearing an area at the back of the garden when I met a local resident! I am absolutely delighted to have a toad in the garden as they are well known for eating slugs. I must make sure that I leave some cover for him/her to live in. We don’t have a pond so I’m not sure where any toads might be spawning.
Fiesta rear brakes
Being stuck at home has not only given me more time for gardening, but also to do some long outstanding jobs on the cars. First up are the brake shoes on the Fiesta rear drum brakes. They have never been done before and on the few occasions I checked them they showed only modest wear. This is typical for brake shoes as they wear much more slowly than the pads on disc brakes. I already had a set of shoes
An unexpected discovery
Can I start by stressing that this is not an April Fools joke! Today, as part of the new Golden Age of Horticulture, I made a start on weeding the area under the flowering currants. There were quite a few weeds including some small nettles and a number of brambles. When I dug out one of the larger brambles I as surprised to unearth something man made. I started to dig and it became clear that it was a plastic
A Golden Age of Horticulture
There is no doubt that Covid-19 is a terrible thing, but as always there is a silver lining to be found. Being confined to home everyday, coupled with excellent weather since working from home became mandatory, has allowed me to spend far more time in the garden than is my custom and as a result I feel that we can expect great things from the garden this year. A key task is to remove the numerous piles of branches which