Bittersweet autumn cleanup - the backyard bucket garden comes down. Now just the fall greens in the backyard and a few herbs. I also have the parsnips at the community garden plot, along with a few beans left to harvest and the cover crop. Things are coming to a close! #gardening

Me, back on July 14th: "I sifted maybe about 5 cubic feet (of compost)" Narrator voice: He, in fact, did not. It was, at most, 1 cubic foot. https://dice.camp/@chgowiz/114854290277769986 That was my first go around, when I had about 3 months of getting started. I apparently couldn't measure […]

[hunting, deer hunting] Although the (kinda [1]) cold snap starts on Monday, I'm waiting till Tues to go for two reasons - wind will be more favorable where I want to go and it'll be right after some (hopefully) rainfall so easier to navigate woods quietly. These first few hunts are more […]

None of the Traveller conventions are close enough to travel by auto to. Anyone know if there are any virtual Traveller cons? #traveller #conventions #ttrpg

The backyard fall greens plot produced a nice harvest of spinach! There's more happily growing, and the lettuce is a few days away itself. #gardening #harvest

Following @Tim_Eagon 's lead... I have 61 followers on Bluesky via the bridged account from here on Mastodon. Hi there! :waves: If you're there, and the current happenings and goings on of BlueSky don't agree with you, why not sign up for a nice server like dice.camp here (for TTRPGers) or […]

Autumn garden clean-up continues. All but two of my bell pepper plants are finished - final peppers collected and the plants chopped up for the compost pile. The lessons I learned from my struggles with tomato seedlings helped me to have better experiences with […] [Original post on dice.camp]

Bittersweet as I removed most of the tomato plants from the plot. From seedlings that I made mistakes with, to wondering if they'd survive transplant, they produced far more tomatoes than I expected. Grateful! Now they're compost. The cover crop is doing well […] [Original post on dice.camp]

The penultimate black bean harvest. There are a few late-comers still green on the vines, and I'll give them a couple of weeks. Later will come the pod shredding and storing of dried black beans. Yum! 2nd sowing of cover crops has sprouted! If I get 4 weeks […] [Original post on dice.camp]

2nd go-around of threshing dried amaranth seed heads, lessons learned from yesterday! 1. Do at a table. Easier standing! 2. Take seed heads, rough massage them into a strainer, lay stalks aside, work seed heads w/my hand in the strainer to get seeds. 3. Set 2 […] [Original post on dice.camp]

These are heartbreaking stories. I used to think it self-evident that no one is owed the right to continue getting paid for work no longer required as markets change. Needs change, and we need to change with them. But that was also before entire #art and #music worlds were openly stolen […]

More bean pods dried or drying, and the pepper plants aren't giving up yet! The 90F days and 55F nights are crazy! #gardening #harvest

I didn't know what to expect from growing/harvesting amaranth, so this whole process has been a learning experience. I guess my method of getting the seed off the heads produces quite a bit of chaff because maybe 25% of what's the bowl actually was seed. Not […] [Original post on dice.camp]

My view from taking the boat on the river for the first time (for me).

I won a thing today at the Illinois Learn to Hunt event!

My job for the next 3 hours...

In celebration of the harvest ending (soon), I made pumpkin/sourdough discard bread. Chopped pecans on top. Very yummy! #cooking #baking #harvest

Last tomatoes from the community garden plot. The second half of the cover crop is seeded at the plot, now that the squash, peppers and tomatoes are close to being done. It's late for cover crop, but if I get a mature growth of about 4 inches (10cm) or so, it'll […] [Original post on dice.camp]

So the ArianeGroup, France-based aerospace company, is making good progress on an European reusable rocket. They currently are testing a vehicle called Themis for short hops. Their next vehicle will do medium altitude hops, like SpaceX's Grasshopper. It's called T1E. Please, please, please […]

Built a Northern Tools 4x8 trailer and added a plywood deck to it. Sealed the connections and lights with marine silicon sealant. Works great for the Pond Prowler, ready to fish! #fishing #boat

This satirical blog post really illustrates the problem with a lot of technical writing. Amazing technical writing is so good and then everything else reads like this https://anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-a-non-developer-read-the-tutorial-you-a-developer-wrote-for-me-a-beginner

Probably the last big harvest of multiple vegetables - pumpkins, butternut squash, bell peppers and tomatoes. The bell peppers were RELENTLESS! I can't believe how many I've gotten this year from these 12 plants - 10 at community plot, 2 in backyard. So many bags […] [Original post on dice.camp]

@chgowiz Sage's most recent post was on LinkedIn, indicating a major job change in August. That may be part of the radio silence? I suppose one of us could reach out to Sage and see what's up. But yeah, discussing migration alternatives might be smart all the same.

Saw a post that dice.camp's moderator @sage may be AWOL. They've not posted on their account since early April 2025, and their blog has been quiet since May. Anyone know if they're OK? And if it's radio-silence, what's the opinion on a dice.camp-like server (similar rules/feel/themes) to […]

My dwarf blackberry bushes finally produced this year! Took them a couple of years to get to this point, as well as surviving nearly fully eaten by a rabbit. Only four berries, but we all enjoyed them! #gardening #harvest

Time to play my Traveller/BSG game! The players have found a planet inhabited by colonists from Kobol - and a Cylon transport ship flying about! They've made contact with a super-religious tribe who wear all body suits and identify with numbers. They have strange technology, but it seems […]

It's the Fall Equinox 2025: September 22, 20:19:33 CEST / 18:19:33 UTC #equinox #heregoesthesun #sun #autumnequinox

A regular reminder.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4YrGaR8E4

My morale patch for my range bag.

Have ALL THE MARIGOLDS! #gardening #bloomscrolling

"This is it. This is the end " From starting from seed, making mistakes with the seedlings. Then wondering through June if the spindly plants were ever going to produce. I can't complain about the harvest I got from these romas. I've gotten three batches of […] [Original post on dice.camp]

This morning's harvest - a lot of black beans and an amaranth seed head that I somehow missed?! The aphids, daddy-long-legs, squash bugs and spiders that came along for the ride in the beans and seed head were not impressed by how I treated them after we got home! […] [Original post on dice.camp]

The amaranth finally started shedding seeds when I rub the seed heads, so they were ready to harvest! First time doing this and I don't have the bandwidth to go daily to rub seed heads, so I did the next best thing. I cut them off and brought them home. I can take […] [Original post on dice.camp]

Boat test successful! #fishing

So I might have gotten a boat... #fishing

I'm beginning to see the end for my Roma tomatoes. While there are green and slightly yellow fruit on the vines, and we're going to have a few days of warm weather to get those going, that's about it. What I got this morning is roughly half of what's left. I'm […] [Original post on dice.camp]

Question for the experienced salsa canners: I'm thinking about doing the "Tomato Taco Salsa" recipe from here: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/canning-salsa/tomato-taco-sauce/ Another page on uga's site says that I can substitute bell peppers for the chile peppers. ( […]

The chaos of the rest of my garden. The previous post showed the craziness of my amaranth and my black bean vines. I have a lot of Roma tomatoes ripening, but this will be the last for my tired looking tomato plants. The alyssum between the tomatoes went crazy […] [Original post on dice.camp]

Thank you for sharing my dried bean question yesterday. I got great advice and today, a small harvest. These are "Trail of Tears" black beans from Victory Seeds. They're part of my Three Sisters row, and... I may have overplanted. This represents a very tiny […] [Original post on dice.camp]

QUESTION to bean growers who dry them on the vine I'm a first time bean dryer, growing black beans. Goal is to have dry beans for use later. A few of the pods are feeling "dry" but I'm not sure. ? What do you look for when dried beans are ready to harvest ? Is […] [Original post on dice.camp]

And because I wasn't busy enough... fresh baked sourdough bread. I made it a bit different, in weighing the quantities in grams versus cups/tbs. The dough was a bit more soft and pliable and bread is much more soft. Me (to Mrs Chgowiz): I know you won't like it […] [Original post on dice.camp]

Approx 15 lbs (6.8 kg) of tomatoes processed down to 8 pints of "crushed tomatoes" and juice. This went more quickly now that I've gotten experience at how this all works. Coring tomatoes is not fun! Next up is probably some "taco salsa" using my many.many.many […] [Original post on dice.camp]

The magic happens! #cooking

[Food preparation, meat] Last spring's turkey harvest is becoming turkey tetrazzini. I let the leg/thigh slow cook in the crock pot for 8 hours, and it just fell apart, with no tendons/ligaments left. Now Mrs Chgowiz is doing her magic!

Backyard garden update - my greens plot now has fall sprouts! I sowed lettuce and spinach about 6 days ago and in the cool weather we've had, the sprouts came up like gangbusters. Naturally, we're headed towards near 90F this coming weekend. So lots of water and […] [Original post on dice.camp]

Me (in June): OK players, what kind of BSG do you want in Season 2 of our campaign? 2003 grimdark or 1978 hopecamp? Players: WE WANT GRIMDARK! Me: (today) Here's the situation... Players: Wait, wait, wait... this is quite a moral quandary we're in! 🤣🤣🤣 #battlestargalactica #traveller

Old fashioned and backyard fire in the pit, great ending to family visit and dinner

Warming up the deep fryer for some bass and crappie fish fry. So naturally, I'm listening to Big Black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWn6L6KPO30