jasonarends

experiments, projects

Author: jason

  • well, this is a little embarrassing (my blog got hacked and I never noticed)

    well, this is a little embarrassing. I started this blog in 2013 to document bread baking and some home automation projects (RIP to my Raspberry Pi light controller, which I’m now realizing I should also go check on). Then, the way these things go, life happened and I completely forgot about it. Forgot I still…

  • more home automation

    I have this Raspberry Pi that I’ve written briefly about on my other site: http://k0jaa.com/2015/01/raspberry-pi/. It controls the lights in my living room based on a few inputs: the position of the sun the weather if the room is occupied #3 is new and I just added it over the past weekend.  Here’s how it all works,…

  • straw bale planting day

    straw bale planting day

    The fertilizing period is done, and since I was out of town last week, we waited one extra week and got our plants and planted them on Saturday (4/18). Sometime over a week ago, I got a couple soaker hoses and then re-arranged the bales so there wouldn’t be any gaps – it turned into…

  • nature and morels

    Went outside today to fertilize the bales and took a few pictures of some flowers (looked like bluebonnets but I don’t think they are, they appear to be on onion/garlic stalk-type-things) and a snail under a tree.  By the way, I measured the temperature of the straw bales Tuesday and it averaged 87 degrees.  It…

  • represent.us

    http://my.represent.us/p?recruiter_id=16900 This is neither a conservative nor a liberal movement, it’s a non-profit that is trying to pass local Anti-Corruption Acts to keep bribery and big money out of government. Watch the videos, I think it’s a good idea, starting small where things can be changed to lead up to national influence in the long…

  • straw bale garden – beginning

    straw bale garden – beginning

    Holly and I are going to try a straw bale garden this year.  Neither of us have done this before, but we’ve been wanting a garden for a few years.  Since we’re currently renting, we don’t want to put time and money into the ground.  We’ve tried container gardens in the past, but unfortunately we…

  • Pizza Version of White Bread #1 with Sourdough Starter

    Pizza Version of White Bread #1 with Sourdough Starter

    i did an experiment today with the white bread recipe i usually make.  i wanted to make a tomatoey dough with pizza flavors, so i substituted spicy V8 for the milk, olive oil for vegetable oil, and garlic salt for the salt, and added some pizza seasoning to the flour. the recipe works out like…

  • Rustic Sourdough Bread

    Rustic Sourdough Bread

    i like the sourdough conversion of white bread that i’ve made a few times, but since it takes 12 hours, i looked for another version which might be faster.  i ended up trying King Arthur Flour’s Rustic Sourdough Bread recipe. i got a fancy new digital scale for christmas, so you’ll see that featured in…

  • more sourdough starter instructions

    i typed this up in an email to some friends i gave some starter to. there’s 2 ways to feed sourdough – by weight and by volume, and there’s also a few possible situations – counter-top or fridge. first rule is to always double it when you feed it.  this could be after you have…

  • Homemade Pizza Dough (Sourdough Starter)

    Homemade Pizza Dough (Sourdough Starter)

    i got a nice new pizza stone for christmas this year (i somehow cracked my previous two) so i decided to make homemade pizza and try using sourdough starter.  i followed this recipe i found on sourdoughhome.com. the first dough turned out a little dry so i made another in a slightly different way which…