Snohomish Almosta Ranch

9/6/13

SkyBison Memories

The SkyBison has been a wonderful companion and

aerial photography platform for several years.

But technology evolves...

Good bye, SkyBison. You have filled my heart, lifted my life and

you have been the "wind beneath my wings".

SkyBison taking Lee Alley up for a final sunset photography shoot
over Sturgis, Bear Butte and the Buffalo Chip Campground

SkyBison's first day of flight, May 29, 2007
at the Belle Fourche Airport

SkyBison moves into its new home
at the Sturgis Airport

Lee Alley and the SkyBison resting after a flight.
Bear Butte in the background

7/31/13

LEE'z B'z MAKE DONATION TO LEE'S "SENIORS REAL ESTATE" CLIENTS

Five of my six honeybee colonies did not survive the winter. But one colony did moderately well. Not the banner harvest of 140 pounds from my first colony a few years ago.

But, still, this one surviving colony survived the winter with about 40 pounds of honey to spare. We waited until late July to make sure the queen was providing them plenty of new baby bees, and that they were well on their way to plenty honey to survive on next winter.

So last weekend Lee'z B'z "volunteered" to donate their surplus inventory to my most deserving seniors real estate clients. On top of that, last month I had confined a hive full of honey that a colony had abandoned in late spring after a great start (Colony Collapse Disorder?). So we also harvested those surplus frames.

Looks like we'll get a couple dozen jars of Leez Bz honey this year. And we'll will have a couple jars of honeycomb wax to make candles, lip balm, axle lubricant, ...

7/30/13

LEE'S URBAN GRAND DAUGHTER MEETS GRANDPA'S HOBBY FARM

Collecting Eggs

Herrrrrre, chick, chick, chick.

4G Social Network:
Goose, Goat, Grandkid, Grandpa.

Feeding Harney and Sylvan, the Pack Goats

Grandpa Teaching His Daughter's Daughter How to Kiss a Boy (Goat)

Sylvan the Pack Goat Sharing His Spring Buffet

MOTHER GOOSE AND HUBBY ANNOUNCE THEIR NEW TRIPLETS

Mr. Grey and Ms. Absolute Vodka
Announce the Arrival of Their Triplets:
Shot, Sip and Swig

Babies' First Bath with Momma...Dad Stands Guard

10/18/12

BOMBER PRISM

My father, born 1912, scrounged some of his most interesting gadgets from post-WWII "army surplus stores" (back when they truly had military surplus inventories). Dad was a very serious gadgeteer. He always had some kind of Mr.-Wizard tinker project in the works.

Around about 1979, when his grandson (my son) Paul was 4, Dad came to me with something he thought I may enjoy sharing with Paul. He said it was sold to him at an army surplus store, represented as part of the aiming system for a bomb sight from a WWII era B-29 bomber.

It was a high quality optical prism.

So this week I will send this to my son, Paul, in case he may enjoy sharing it with his son, Nolan.

7" High Prism

Roy G. Biv !

Red
orange
yellow
Green
Blue
indigo
violet

10/2/12

LET'S ALL CHIME IN !

An acquaintance had a birthday coming up. Her heart surgery, too. What a fine time to bring the calming, healing deep tones of giant, deep-throated wind chime, perched high on a hilltop overlooking our home in the forest. She said it sounds every bit like an old European cathedral's beckoning melody. I agree. Deeply ethereal, having the forest softly chiming a patient invitation to its top of the hill, to a place in the mind, a peace in the soul, to bring birthday happiness and medical mending.

Resonance Theory: The DNA of a chime

Top Plate: The brains of a chime...

...and it's backbone.

Cutting Tubes to Calculated Lengths:
Loud noise, burning sparks, noxious gases.

Meet the Choir!

Click on

THIS VIDEO

of Fine Tuning the Pipes with Frequency Analyzer.

The longest pipe, at about 8 feet,

persists its fundamental for 6 minutes(!) at 1 foot away.

That way, long after the nylon strike-plate (made from kitchen cutting board) taps the metal tube to generate the metallic vibration, the inner atmospheric resonance persists long after, thereby generating many tonal qualities in concert with the other tubes.

B-flat, Second Octave: 116.1+/- Hz

The Choir, Resting. Ready for Hanging From a
20-foot TeePee Frame of Chainlink Fence TopRails

140 pounds and 12 feet

Drum roll, please.

Well here we go again. Microsoft and Google can't cooperate, even at the level of up-righting a single photo.

What the cat sees when looking up.

Checking Out the New Animal at the Farm

HA! We can scream louder than that!

To serenade the busy bees.

Perched High On a Hilltop
Overlooking Our Home

9/14/12

Chicken Solarium / Lunarium Progress Report

I wanted the chickens out of my equipment shed. The chickens clearly hated the landscaping, judging by their fervent demolition work. So I killed 32 "birds" with one stone. Well, with one Chicken Solarium, anyway.

Still to come, a freeze-proof solar thermosiphon to water them even in winter. Also a super bright switched interior flood light made from LED's salvaged from a damaged trailer tail light, and re-purposing an old solar photovoltaic panel scavenged from the ungrateful goats' barn.

The interior night-lights in the photo's below are cannibalized from the innards of driveway clearance lights. Pretty simple solution when you have a transparent roof! The solar photo voltaic cell of each of the solar powered driveway lights points upward through the clear polycarbonate roof. The high intensity LED's point down, thinking they are lighting a driveway.

Also, fresh-air circulation system for this chicken house is based on a book I read about open-front chicken houses published by a physician in 1924. Makes sense...chickens already have a feathered comforter, they will NOT get cold. But an enclosed chicken house will collect flies, bugs, lotsa nasties to get sick on. So I put large 4-ft wide door in each end of the 16-foot long house.

So far, the chickens just love this place and they say they'll never go back.

Chicken Solarium

See hatch doors for exterior egg collecting (on right side)

Southern Exposure Oriented to Solar Track for Our Lat/Long

Work table height is optimized for sorting seed trays, also as scaffold for deploying trays on mezanine

Sorting Seed Trays

It was not easy, making the work table low enough for the work table down below, but high enough as a scaffold for working with seed trays at mezzanine level. And the roof trusses are designed so the horizontal cross braces just clear the gardener's head when she is standing on the scaffold. And the chickens drop their "drops" on hay strewn on the floor, just barely clearing the work table. Contrary to conventional floor design, the plywood floor boards are all easily lifted out for washing or replacement. And their is a gap in the floor perimeter so that we can spray the inner walls (to improve solar heating), and have the water just run down the wall and out the floor. Sure hope this thing works as well as I worked on planning it.

Deploying trays to mezanine for solar greenhouse effect

Watering seed trays standing on work table

Garden in foreground, hay barn, goat barn in distance

For stealing eggs from outside

If you could see The Ladies all coming down single file in the mornings, you'd know why it's called a "gang" plank. These girls are not to be reckoned with a feeding time.