I finally got around to attempting to clean some wool fleeces donated to me last year by some friends. It's the first time I have tried this, and so far a simple bath with cheap shampoo and then a rinse and air-drying has made a notable difference in appearance, however there is still a bit of a barnyard smell, to it and a few bits of debris and poop in a few places. I was planning to try a larger project involving wool fleece, given my friends seem amenable to donating more fleece to my cause, however i think i will need to come up with a better cleaning solution, and maybe invest some time and money in a putting together a better processing setup. i did find this interesting blog post(actually a pair of blog-posts) about wool cleaning via suint fermentation method: pretty neat stuff. microbes work miracles! I think i will need to buy some more large plastic bins for washing, and also manufacture some framed screens for rinsing and drying the fleece afterwards. I need to talk more with all interested parties, but I think this might work. here is a pic of my current progress:
I am very sore this morning from working with the teenagers yesterday cutting vines and planting bald cypress along the stream-banks(it's spring break). Bald cypress is not native to the Blue Ridge, and mostly range in the costal deep south, however they seem to do well here if planted in a wet spot. It looks like the Virginia Department of Forestry shop now offers bald cypress(but they are sold out currently): (sold out) continued reading: ...i still need to do taxes.
Red Maple seeds are falling now(left). I also found some of last year's Japanese Maple seeds stuck between the deck-boards(right).
I am not sure if the my lone Japanese maple is producing viable seeds or not? I did order some seeds of Amazon, though they are of a different variety than what we have. There are places that do sell the kind i'm looking for, however i'm having more trouble with various websites these days and so i wasn't able to complete an order. More businesses seem to be riding some Google Chrome wave these days. i guess i just need to buy a new computer?
I took the opportunity this morning to clear my phone again of all the spam text messages from last month. This is such a major pain! One day soon, i need to get around to starting on writing a spam-filter app - the flip-phone community needs one very badly! Note, some spammers were repeat offenders during the past month, and the number 23456 spammed me 3x times!
apr/4/2026 1.571.667.2964 1.585.357.9266 1.771.252.0525 mar/2026 1.984.310.8562 1.602.428.4952 23456 (3x times) 1.512.222.4947 1.920.335.3767 1.202.987.9873 1.771.208.0552 1.843.430.6434 1.771.249.1257 1.313.482.9831 1.771.249.1245 1.984.310.8587 1.771.251.7555 1.231.266.9718 1.771.243.2177 1.628.226.1057 1.804.602.7638 1.405.279.0832 1.770.264.3379 1.651.472.9787 1.651.858.6905 1.855.260.5767 1.651.472.9721 1.771.251.7562 1.406.283.5063 1.770.525.1009 1.984.310.8541 1.771.243.1050 1.804.406.3325 1.517.401.9273 1.571.486.1161 1.380.247.6649 1.704.322.4601 1.771.203.7783 feb/2026 1.770.264.4463 1.970.287.0685 1.771.252.0367 1.616.616.1423 1.332.777.6471 1.771.251.7578 1.770.264.5062 1.210.339.6843 1.877.428.3116 1.517.224.5792
Here is the link to the previous spam-dump from February: p.s. something puts me off about all the current places to get APKs(i can't put my finger on it): https://apk.cafe https://www.apps4flip.com/ https://www.apkmirror.com/
Well, instead of working on one of the various home repair projects i need to do, i collected and scattered Liriodendron tulipifera seeds over on Tinkerland today. Turns out Spring is a good time to collect poplar seeds after all(especially after a hailstorm). I also observed that numerous of my black walnuts i pounded into the soil over there about 4 years back are doing quite well. Many are already taller than me, though others are still struggling to overcome the briars. Once i was done, i ran home to take a picture, as i was covered in ticks(sorry no tick pics). So all in all, it wasn't a bad day, though i am still way behind on everything and i still feel like a big fat animal who can't fit in his own pants. It was good to see some of my trees surviving and some even taking off over there. here are some pics.
also and i feel like i should include this as well too(fortunately we don't have any of this over there right now, however it is everywhere else***EDIT: It looks sort of like walnut when the leaves are on. The leaves smell very different though.***)