A DIY Tool for Taking Apart Pallets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm_8odBBQZ0&list=UUAh44GRXNB-iB0IWBJ0gGbQ Ever try to break up a pallet without splintering the wood? Personally, I’d put this tool innovation above the level of discovering a unified field theory or spotting life on Mars. This DIY pry bar opens a whole world of pallet wood reuse not possible with a crowbar. And it’s another great video from the folks at Garden Fork TV (who thoughtfully include their trial and erro...

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Drone Flyover of the Root Simple Compound

...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SplvON5R_Nk Many thanks to Steve Rowell for dropping by last week with his drone and shooting our humble compound. I cobbled together a rough cut of some of the shots that show our house and the neighborhood. Look carefully and you’ll see our chicken coop, adobe oven, the small but growing new planting in our front yard and more. Plus those 100 foot Mexican Fan Palms!...

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Pl@ntNet: “Shazam” for Plants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_cBqaPfRFE Pl@ntNet is an iPhone and Android phone app that uses image recognition and crowd-sourcing to recognize plants. It’s free, so I downloaded a copy yesterday and ran around the yard to see how it works. You take a closeup of a leaf, flower, fruit or bark and the app takes a guess on an identification. My first attempt was Nasturtium, which the app immediately identified despite my bad photo. It also corre...

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My Apologies to the Skunk Community

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCQBA58VoGQ For years I’ve blamed the nightly vegetable carnage that takes place in our raised beds on skunks. The other night, our CritterCam (a Wingscapes BirdCam Pro ), revealed the culprit: raccoons. And they work in trios! No wonder it’s been so difficult to secure the beds! Given the strength and agility of Racoons, I’m surprised that bird netting has worked at all (though, I’ll note, only when that netting i...

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