Goaty suburban weed control and other stories

They just have some of the best articles over on yougrowgirl.com

This one (Getting her Goat) is a cracker - a recent transplant from NY city tackles her weed problem in suburban Boulder, CO by hiring a small herd of goats.

Does it go without saying that I have been tossing around a similar idea for a while. My problem is grass though - not something goats are that keen on - they are more your bush-whacker / weedwacker types. I think a cow might not go down so well, but how about a small herd of rabbits? You could drop a couple of cages down for a day or so on a patch of lawn, and move them around as necessary.

Turns out I’m not the only one who has wandered down this path. Here’s a post on
gardenweb.com: Another stupid idea: Rabbits. The thread continues with some thumbs up and down.

Holes. One person points out that rabbits like to dig holes. I had in mind a enclosed mesh frame with 2in. mesh on the floor. which I think would thwart that. It would be fully enclosed, probably with a hinged lid, probably with some shade netting. You’d need to watch for excitable dogs, hawks etc. The wire mesh would protect them from harm, but not trauma. And, before you object, this would be shift work with rabbits getting rotated in and out as necessary to keep everyone happy. Read on down the thread and someone posts saying they “use to keep rabbits and ducks and used them both as weed grazers”. Ha! I am vindicated.

There’s always sheep of course. Not nearly as fun, but faster I imagine.

What price do you put on a herd of rabbits? I think this would make a great summer job, or weekend enterprise. I can get someone to mow my lawn for $25, but I might pay double for the entertainment and environmental value of having the job done by rabbits.

Video IM on windows '98

For all sorts of reasons my laptop at home is still running windows 98. Mostly because I'm low on disk space and haven't the time or money to figure out an upgrade path.
Meanwhile I've got a webcam and want to video chat across mac/pc platforms. Yahoo is kind of working, no audio and disappointing frame rates. AIM should work - I have the latest version (5.5 at time of writing), but I've since learnt that they only support windows XP. How crappy is that?

Here's the AIM video FAQ

Human Power

It's another project I'll put on the end of a very long list. Last year I picked up a stationary excercise bike to this end - it has a stable frame and a built in fly wheel that I thought might get me part way there. Of course, efficiency is not a design concern for these machines - they are supposed to make you work - so who knows. I purged my project list and put it back out on big trash day unfortunately. Another time.

My plan was to power a lathe with a simple belt drive, and maybe put an arbor on there for things like sanding, buffing, grinding. I still like that plan.

Fontifier

Fontifier

A me too blog (spotted on Zeldman). But I was just thinking about something similar just last night.

»Fontifier lets you use your own handwriting for the text you write on your computer.
It turns a scanned sample of your handwriting into a computer font«