iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 08/09/2026

Today I was chipping apple, oak, ash, red maple, poplar, and grey birch, and it ate them all no trouble just stuffing in entire limbs or small trees. I'd read online that it can be hard to get the feed to grab big limbs, but I had no trouble. My wife laughing at me:

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 08/09/2026

Tried out my new woodchipper this afternoon. It's a Woodland Mills TF68, to be run by my '06 Kubota B3030. I expected the Kubota to be a bit underpowered for the chipper, but I only managed to lug the engine once with it, besides when I popped the sheer pin on the base of a 4" ash tree.

Small B303 Kubota tractor with a Woodland Mills TF68 3-point mounted woodchipper on the back sitting in the grass under some trees

Woodchipd from the TF68 spread under an apple tree

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 06/09/2026

We Pressed ~14 gallons of cider with our friends today. I took 1.5 gallons to drink fresh. The rest is getting turned into hard cider. There are tons more apples at various friends' places, and a couple of our trees are still unpicked, but it's a lot of labor and we're done for today at least.

A very rich red apple cider drizzles out the front of a classic wooden apple press into a plastic catch tray.

A couple of bushel-sized containers of apples yellow and red, and green and red apples

A couple of trash cans of red with a little yellow apples, and yellow with a little red apples.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 27/08/2026

It went pretty well. I started with 2 small paddy pan squashes and half of one slightly larger one. I dried them for 4 hours at 135F. I lost a slightly higher proportion than I would've liked trying to get it back off the silicone mats, but not too bad. The vacuum sealing went great.

A vacuum sealed one pine jar full, loosely, with dried shredded paddy-pan squash

Dried shredded paddy-pan squash still laid out on the drying racks, spread across my butcherblock countertop in my kitchen, with silicone mats to keep them from falling through the racks.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 27/08/2026

I'm using our dehydrator for the first time and drying some shredded patty pan squash from the store. I'll vacuum pack them in a jar when they finish.

The closed french-door style front of a dhydrator. Through the glass doors you can vaguely make out shredded patty-pan squash spread on silicone mats on each rack.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 16/08/2026

BTW, here's the other photo I tried to post :D

Pictured is a RAK meshtastic module with the lid off. Attached to the side of the plastic box is an antenna. Inside the box are some electronic boards, attached to one board are black and red wires leading to a small black cylendar (a resistor), the connections to which are covered in yellow heat-shrink tubing.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 16/08/2026

Just turning off resist fingerprinting for everything

A poorly constructed structure with a porch sticking off the front clad in greyed plywood and roofed in low quality metal roofing. Near the roofline on the gable end is a cantelevered brace made of 2x4s about 3 feet long. A small grey box with an antenna on it is mounted to the end of this brace

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 16/08/2026

I added northsky.app to privacy.resistFingerprinting.exemptedDomains, lets see if that works

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 16/08/2026

My meshtastic bridge was supposed to be powered by Power Over Ethernet, but didn't work. Today I ripped a connector out of an old laptop and soldered it to a 2 watt 25 ohm resistor to add enough load so the POE injector would work. And poof! Then I mounted the node up on my shed.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 21/07/2026

I'm sure we'll be fine. There must be dozens of us who aren't trans.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 19/07/2026

I finished building my PV system today. The last step was to ground the panels. The supplied ground holes are half-way up the sides, so I drilled new holes and installed ground lugs at the bottom edge. The wire is bonded to the ground wire for the combiners (in turn bonded to the house EGC).

The back side of the front row of my solar array showing a ground wire running along the bottom of the panels and attaching to ground lugs on the bottom lip. The conduit below that is the power wire running to the far end of the string. The conduit running into the dirt visible in the photo goes to the rear array.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 16/07/2026

I wired up the emergency shutoff so we're all legit and safe with respect to emergency workers (it's 99% for fireman). I also wired the surge protection devices for lightning. I'm waiting for grounding panel lugs to arrive so I can properly ground out the solar panels to really finish up.

A "big red button" is mounted on an exterior wooden wall to the left of an electrical double meter box. There's a story behind why it's a double meter box that I'm happy to tell if anyone asks.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 10/07/2026

#3 on the list of achievable things we can do to reduce global warming. I know not everyone has the money for it or a house to put it on, obviously. If you do have a house the loan payments (if you can get one) still often come out lower than your power bill.

Climate Solutions by Achievable Impact
- Deploy utility Scale Solar PV
- Deploy Onshore Wind Turbines
- Deploy Distributed Solar PV
- Deploy Offshore Wind Turbines
- Improve Diets
- Deploy Alternative Refridgerants
- Improve Windows Glass
- Reduce Food Loss & Waste
- Protect Forests (Tropical)
- Mobilize Electric Cars
- Increase Recycling: Metals
- Improve Non-motorized Transportation
(The list continues)

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 09/07/2026

I turned my solar array on this morning. I have some more work to do to finish up the ground bonding, lightning protection, and emergency shutoff, but it's safe enough to operate now. We haven't used any grid power since I turned it on this morning, and our batteries are back at 100%.

Graphs showing solar power generation and power draws. Most notably the battery is fully charged.

A vertically mounted solar array, 2 rows of 11 large 400W panels each, stands in a field. To the left of the array and towards the camera the ground is recently disturbed from the conduit burial.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 29/06/2026

Just replace "Suppressing fire" with "Ceasefire".

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 26/06/2026

Harvested some lemon balm this morning before the rain hit (after pulling a couple honeysuckle with the tractor, and transplanting a wild St. Johnswort). I'm drying some for tea, and making some tincture. I haven't really used it much, so this'll be fun to try out for things.

Lemon Balm spread out on a table in my basement to dry

A jar stuffed with lemon balm, and then filled with vodka to make tincture.

A wooden gathering basket filled with ~8" lemon balm tops

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 25/06/2026

The tiniest chamomile harvest. Enough for a mug or two of tea. We planted it last year and I harvested the flowers to keep it from going to seed so it'd grow faster. I'd been letting this dry on a table in the basement, but replaced it today with fresh mullein leaves that need drying.

A small quantity of chamomile flowers sit in the bottom of an open pint jelly jar.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 31/05/2026

I set all the adult content filters to show, stupid bluesky.

Synrome meme: "When everything is adult content, Nothing is"

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 09/05/2026

Planted a little orchard today. 2 red haven peach, 2 canadian harmony peach, 2 lapin cherry, 2 black chokeberry, and 2 hazelnut trees. 6 fruit trees "the orchard" are together in the lower field. We don't expect to harvest the hazelnut, those are for native diversity, and hopefully specimen trees.

4 peach and 2 cherry trees planted in just starting to sprout field. The red tags stand out, but the green of the trees farther back are hard to see.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 27/04/2026

Then I limped it home doing 25 with the flashers and Angie driving behind in the FJ. Not sure if the coilver was faulty or just old (and it is kind of old). The coil doesn't contact the A-arm at full droop. It's been making noise, but the mechanic and I thought it was the upper ball joint.

Photo taken by Angie as she followed me down the road heading home, you can see my flashers going. This is on the ~2 miles of paved road before we hit the ~3 mile of dirt road.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 27/04/2026

I couldn't turn sharply without it making terrible noises, so I hit the flashers and backed up a ways to a spot I could park by the side of the road. I caught a *little* cell service and messaged Angie, but she was busy digging a hole for the solar array we're building... so didn't answer.

One post standing in a field, this will be the left side of a "solar fence" that will angle across the field away from the camera.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 27/04/2026

I was going out to pick up concrete and distilled water (for solar mounting and the tractor, respectively, a stick caught the radiator hose). Anyway, I took the Tacoma and this happened just as I hit the main high-speed road. It was folded worse and pressing against the tire and brake hose.

A front coilover is bent at about 20 degrees, nearly touching the tire, the inner shock is clearly snapped/broken.

I check that the wheel can spin after jacking up the truck by the frame allowing the front-right wheel to fully droop (almost, the sway bar is still attached, though I detached it to help get the coilover out)

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 25/04/2026

Ah, got it. Here's what I'm running: www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/pe... It's a total of 3 drives. 2 storage an OS drive... and yeah, it does look like maybe twice the size of the box you're considering.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 21/04/2026

Head cheese, it's just whatever falls off a boiled pigs head left to solidify... basically an aspic but grosser. The image happens to have some added leak. My parents, having raised pigs, made it once but never again.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 19/04/2026

Spent yesterday washing and undercoating my cars. I do it in the spring to get the salt off. I'm now very sore. I also tried to fix a power steering leak at the return hose junction which went very poorly. I did get the Tacoma drivable again but man what a pain.

Two vehicles in a gravel driveway, one is backed onto wooden ramps. The ground under it is wet. There's a pressure washer and an air compressor visible, and forest in the background.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 29/03/2026

Imma let you finish, but the Apple Newton was the greatest PDA of all time. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_N...

An Apple Newton 200 PDA and it's accompanying stylus on a white background.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 29/03/2026

If nothing else, flexing organizing muscles is useful. No Kings 3 here in Montpelier, unlike 1 and 2, had trained and organized peacekeepers and legal observers, a planned backdrop, complex sound, and 2.5 hours of speakers. People who've never been involved before are learning to lead a movement.

Picture of the No Kings 3 rally in front of the vermont statehouse.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 23/03/2026

Here's the basic technique under discussion. The whole point is to threaten to break the wrist, which if followed through on causes permanent damage (as undisputedly occurred in this case). Here's the video that image comes from: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2pd...

Image of a rear wrist lock being demonstrated in a martial arts gym

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 23/03/2026

What about these? My family had one when I was a kid. I believe the mouse pad has a very fine grid of red lines one direction and blue the other. The mouse doesn't work without the specialized mouse pad.

Old school optimal mouse with specialized mousepad

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 19/03/2026

When we installed our front door originally it sat around too long and warped. We tried to compensate but couldn't get the door-frame warped to match, so it's always leaked around the edge. Today we finally added screw-on seals, and it no longer feels cold standing inside in front of the door.

Picture of the upper left hand corner of the outside of my front door, showing newly added seals around the perimeter.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 27/02/2026

I wanted to post a picture of the fabulous bowl @brewergnome.bsky.social made for Angie and me. The thin edge and spout make it ideal for mixing ice-cream as they allow me to get all the mixture in the maker (which needs to be moving as it's poured in). I always spilled some with my steel bowl.

White ceramic mixing bowl with a blue rim and a pour spout on one side

The same bowl being used to pour ice-cream mixture into an ice-cream maker attachment on a kitchen aid.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 21/02/2026

Partially fixed my snowblower today. The sheer bolt on the 2'nd stage fan has opened the hole wider and wider such that it's bending under normal stress. I decided to try filling the hole back in by welding, and drilling it back out. It mostly worked.

Final result after reassembly. The bolt goes through the tab and through the 2'nd stage fan to link the two together so the driveshaft spins the fan.

Picture of a former bolt hole in the 2'nd stage fan that links it to the driveshaft. The hole has been filled in via welding and ground back down smooth.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 16/02/2026

Vermont H.330 S.297 are electronic voting statues that were recently introduced. I feel the following XKCD is probably the best response. A CS prof in college helped his state with election security as a volunteer. The comic is accurate. More details: frontporchforum.com/calendar/eve...

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 30/01/2026

I'm exhausted. Angie and I spent all of yesterday moving our new furniture from near Burlington to home. The furniture is custom made by a local artisan so it can be uncoated. The offgassing from most furniture treatments make me sick, so previous attempts to acquire furniture failed.

An uncoated cherry wood armoire next to a tall uncoated cherry wood dresser, a bed drawer sits on top.

Underbed drawer slid out shows a lid to the drawer that slides open to keep dust off of whatever is tored.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 22/01/2026

Jeffries: "You think 18% approval is low? Hold my beer!" Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune

Observer is held face down on the pavement by two ICE officers while a 3'rd pepper-sprays his face from point-blank range.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 20/01/2026

A simple volume pulseaudio script for #linux. I use this heavily. Getting it to work reliably is tricky, so I thought I'd share. It uses "wob" to display a % bar on wayland. The argument is "+X" or "-X" to change by X percent. "mute" will mute. The script is in the alt text for copy/paste.

$#!/bin/bash change=0 mute="0" if [[ "$1" == "mute" ]]; then mute="1" else change=$1 fi device=$(pactl get-default-sink) cur_vol=$(pactl get-sink-volume ${device} | awk '/front-left:/{gsub("%",""); print $5}') new_vol=$((cur_vol + ${change})) pactl list sinks | awk '/Name:/{print $2}' | while read SINK; do pactl set-sink-volume $SINK ${new_vol}% pactl set-sink-mute ${SINK} ${mute} done (echo ${new_vol}; sleep 0.5) | wob$

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 07/01/2026

My FJ's been throwing codes about the secondary air injection valve on the left side. It's frozen shut before, but it wasn't resolving this time so I finally took it apart. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but that definitely looks broken. I have a new one on order so I can pass inspection.

Picture of a torn black rubber/plastic membrane attached to an older car part. The middle looks like it might be a piston that moves in and out.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 12/12/2025

We got another ~2" last night, so we went out again this afternoon, and got into the forest this time. I failed to find our favorite route but we still had fun. Nothing epic, just a nice jaunt in the woods for a couple of miles.

Angie and I stand in a snowy forest dressed in winter clothes. A ski trail is visible in the snow behind us.

Angie stands on skis in a snowy forest, looking back at me while I take a photo of her. We're on our way back to the house, following the trail we broke on the way out.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 10/12/2025

Angie and I put up our solstice tree yesterday. It's kind of a tradition now that we make a wreath using the lower branches, and use it as a table centerpiece. The ring is yellow birch. We had to let it defrost inside for a couple of hours so it would bend, because it was near 0F out.

A wreath of fir tree fronds in the center of a wooden table. In the middle sits a decorative ceramic dome of sorts with a tee-light inside, 4 more tee lights sit, evenly spaced, on the wreath.

A slightly stringy little "chistmas" tree, lightly decorated, in the corner of a our livingroom. A 5 gallon bucket acts as a tree stand.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 06/12/2025

I think found a porcupine den while wandering my property today. See how it's body leaves a trail in the snow due to short legs. The track there has been walked several times recently and runs from the den to a large hemlock tree ~3' diameter. There's recent urine in a couple spots on the trail.

An animal track in the snow runs under a downed limb.

A hole in a hillside under the roots of some trees, with tracks in front of it in the snow, likely the entrance to an animal den.

Another shot of the animal den, this one shows the tracks more clearly but the entrance to the den itself less clearly.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 05/12/2025

Angie (me wife), today, lighting up our little porch woodstove for the first time. The first burn the paint smokes and offgases, so I'm inside taking pictures through the French doors.

Angie sits in warm outdoor clothes on a wooden chair on a glassed in all wood porch next to a tiny wood stove with the glow of fire in the glass front. Through the glass porch windows can be seen snowy fields and trees.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 19/10/2025

I just realized that I never wrapped up this thread with a completed bridge picture. Here you go:

A gravel road runs through the forest and over a simple wooden bridge. The bridge has no sides, just wooden "curbs", and is supported bu steel beams underneath. Under the bridge is unmortered stacked stone.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 19/10/2025

Spent all day painting the winch plate. The morning was cleaning it with simple green, stripping the protective coating off using a drill and grinder. Then this afternoon I cleaned it with mineral spirits, primed it with 2.5 coats, and painted it with 3. Next break in the weather I can mount it.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 18/10/2025

Photos from the rally-style protest today in VT. Turnout seemed about the same as the last no-kings, but Vermont has a lot more locations this time. So hoping total turnout is far higher as predicted. I'm hearing 200k for DC, vs. 100k last year. Curious to see total numbers in a day or two.

Protestors stand on a lawn in front of the Vermont capital building with various signs and American flags.

A protestor in an inflatable frog costume walks across the lawn in the foreground, in the background is a large crowd in front of the Vermont state house.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 16/10/2025

I spent the morning working on getting a winch on my FJ in the stock bumper. 4'th photo is the winch plate. 3'rd photo is the test fit. I cut a bracket and moved the A/C line, but otherwise things fit well. Next I need to wash the oil and wax off the winch plate and paint it, probably on Sunday.

Fj Cruiser (SUV) with the front fascia and bumper removed

1200lb Electric winch sitting on a bench (the type of bench used for standing on for construction)

Front of an FJ cruiser (SUV) with the grill removed, and and a winch installed on a winch plate in the bumper.

Winch plate sitting on the ground. It's an open-top steel box with various holes in it and parts jutting off to bolt to the vehicle, and to bolt a winch to it.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 02/10/2025

We passed halfway on decking the bridge today. Ethan, one of our contractors, has been coaching us through it. Angie and I have installed the bulk of the boards (2x6 on edge) while he did the hard stuff like install the sleepers. We ran out of wood, and I'm shot, so back to it tomorrow.

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mbrewer ↙↙↙ @smalladventures.net · 18/09/2025

We finally set the beams for our bridge that is replacing an undersized culvert on our long driveway. Today was the big day where we get the beams delivered and swing them into place with a crane. The bridge gets welded together next, then decked, and then the road gets regrade.

A single steel beam sits on concrete peers of going over a dry creek, a crane sits behind it with the hook still attached to the beam, a man stands on the beam unhooking the crane, and another stands in the brook measuring the beams height.

An excavator on a small forested gravel road drags a large steel beam off an 18 wheeler.

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