Warm Weather Means Earlier Tree Tapping - GF Radio

On the GF Radio podcast, Rick and I talk using a SAD light for beating the winter blues. We them move on to the early start to the sap season, and how we think the warming of the earth, aka climate crisis, affects bees coming out of winter. The popular rolling tool cart hacks video is talked about in depth. Rick uses tool carts for computer and photo work, I keep tools in my rolling toolboxes in the garage and workshop.

I got a compact video light from Rick and its excellent for photography and video work. The light is available here: https://amzn.to/36ZynxI

The SAD light I use in the mornings to help with feeling depressed: https://amzn.to/2S482dD

And we we got a NEW itunes review, thanks to you for writing a review! I appreciate it.

Eric: Hey, how you doing? Thanks for download and garden fork radio. It's the eclectic or perhaps haphazard DIY show. My name is Eric. I had this podcast called garden fork. I have a YouTube channel, the same name, very kind of all over the place, DIY and whatever comes into my head and my friends heads today on the podcast I have one of my closest friends, Rick with me. Hey sir. Good morning Eric. How are you my friend? I'm good. If I could wake up and walk and talk, that's pretty good. You know? Oh yeah, you wake up on this side of the grass

Rick: or as my neighbor down the street says it's always be better to be seen than to be viewed.

Eric: I've actually been using this winter. I'm one of those, it's an led seasonal affective disorder light. When I have breakfast, I have it pointing at me. I have one at me pointing at me right now and it seems to help. Yes. And it was like, I'll link to the one I have, it's like $35. Um, and I'm, I cause cause I was kinda not feeling just having the winter blues there and I thought, you know, I do my meditation. I, I go out, I exercise, let me pull out that led light I bought a while ago. And it's, yeah, it is bright, but you can still read your eyes pad or read a book or whatever while you're having oatmeal. And then I just kind of noticed, you know, I'm not, I'm not as in the dumps in the morning so.

Rick: Well, and that's the reason I've had mine for a good while now. Um, uh, I think I've told the story before. I, I tell every store, I only have three stories, so I had to repeat them here. But, uh, after Vietnam they sent me to masala Japan, which 130, 450 inches of snow a year and I, and it was so dark, I couldn't take it. I had them send me back to Vietnam, you know, it was bright. It was sunny. It wasn't at that time all that dangerous where I was. And, uh, I'd rather be in the tropics than somewhere up far North. So, um, yeah, I'd, I, um, I, I need the sunlight. I'm, I'm like a newborn spider, you know, I just need the warmth and the heat and the sun.

Eric: Alright, so today we're going to talk about the PSAP season and the rolling tool cart video. I just posted this cool led camera light and, um, we have an iTunes review and some mail. Oh, terrific. That's a full show. So up by me where I have my little weekend house in Connecticut, Northwest Connecticut in the middle of nowhere in the woods PSAP season. The maple syrup tapping trees date that we usually tap trees is president's day, or as my neighbors referred to it, Daytona 500 day. And, uh,

Eric: and I've been looking at the weather. I use the weather underground app, which I really like. And some of my friends are like, we should start tapping, you know, my, some of my friends that just tap a couple of buckets and they bring their SAP over to my house to boil. And I'm like, yeah, it's too early. And then I looked at the, the weather history and the weather coming and we're having subfreezing nights and warm days that I'm like, we're, we're three weeks early here. Yeah. So I went out, I tapped some trees last weekend and I'm going to measure the sugar content. Cause my, the old timers that I talked to that tap trees, they said, your sugar content is going to be incredibly low. It's too early. The PSAP, the sugar content will be too low and not worth boiling. So I'm kind of curious to see what will happen.

Rick: Yeah, well, you know, um, this is also what I call killing weather. And, um, you know, we, uh, bees need either constant warp and when we were down in San Antonio, they, they did what really well, uh, or up far North where you are, where it generally stays, you know, below 45, regardless. Uh, here we're having a run of, uh, between 60 and 75 degree days. In the middle of February, the bees have broken cluster. Uh, they're out flying. They're not finding any, uh, flowers to get peg, uh, pollen or nectar from. And so they're burning all that energy and eating all your honey and sugar on the hive. And the queen I am certain is has wandered way down into the brood hive away from the cluster where they can stay warm and she's down there laying eggs. And uh, Saturday I think we had this massive cold front that's going to push through.

Rick: The temperature's going to plunge to around 30, and none of the bees are going to be able to get back up onto the honey and form that, uh, that cluster, which keeps the queen alive, which keeps the, it keeps everyone alive, keeps the queen live and all the other bees, they, they sit there and they shiver and eat honey and shiver and eat honey and that makes heat. And, uh, they're, they're of course cold blooded animals and they're, they're just bugs in a box and they don't really understand. They have not looked at the weather charts and don't know what's coming. And so, uh, I expect we'll have another really bad, uh, bee die off this year.

Eric: Yeah. I think, I mean, we're science-based here at garden fork and I, I think this is all related to the climate crisis. I mean, we don't, I don't know. I'm just, I've seen because of gardening and beekeeping and, uh, maple syrup season, I'm very attuned to the weather and it's gotten warmer earlier, almost every year for the past 15 years of me doing this kind of thing. So,

Rick: We've been here about 15 years. We're seeing the same thing. Uh, daffodils are already coming up. Uh, some of the flowering trees, cherries are blooming already and that's just a, um, a sure sign that they're going to get a hard freeze and that SAP is going to split the, uh, the limbs and the trunk and uh, we'll probably lose some of those trees.

Eric: Well, let's move on to something more uplifting,

Rick:which that's not uplifting,

Eric: which is the fun you can have with a rolling tool cart.

Rick: Oh, you know, we both did the same project at almost the same time. And uh, uh, you want to talk about yours?

Eric: Yeah, I bought a, a, I bought a craftsmen red, uh, you know, the classic red tool cart with the drawers and in the big drawer at the bottom and it has wheels and you can roll it around your garage or your shop. I actually have two of them. I have one in my basement workshop and I wanted one for the garage cause I, I saved up my garden fork money and I had a dirt floor garage and my neighbor poured me a concrete slab and I feel like an adult now. And I have this now, I have a huge shop that I can do welding and build boats and all this stuff. But the cart had, um, some, well I'll just say crappy wheels. Okay. And I thought, you know, how, how else can I upgrade the cart? And so I made a video about it and it has proven to be one of the most popular recent videos I've done. Oh really? So I'm going to make another one. I have people in the comments have listed all sorts of other modifications or hacks you can do to your rolling tool cart. So this week I'm going to shoot another one.

Rick: Oh wow. You know, I had, we bought exactly the same cart. It's a, you know, five drawer. Yup. Uh, and you know, there, I think two small ones, one medium, two fairly deep ones. Yep. And we both went to the same, um, cheap tool place down the road that sends you a coupon every 30 minutes and, uh, took our wheels that came with the cart, which were cheap plastic, crappy wheels that won't roll over. I mean a speck of dirt underneath them and they jam. Yeah. And, uh, we went down there and matched the whole pattern on the plate to, uh, put it on the, um, the cart and bought some really nice, uh, high quality, uh, castor wheels. Now got forecaster wheels per um, cart wheels. The ones that swim. Yeah, the ones that, the ones that swivel and I got four of those, which is pretty good, except we're on a pier and beam house.

Rick: And I found out our house isn't really as level as I thought it would. It was my office here. Yeah. And, and so, uh, I have to keep one of the carts locked to the wheels locked, uh, in order to, uh, have it not just migrate across the room at various times, but mine are in the bedroom. I have two. One is from camera gear and the other is for computer gear. And um, you know, they're, they're just amazingly versatile. Each drawer will hold 100 pounds. And so I've cut a board, um, that's the width of an open drawer and are the depth of an open drawer in the, in the course of width to lay across it and uh, covered it and that um, Oh foam kind of a layer stuff that you put in the bottom of these drawers to keep things quiet.

Rick: And so I have, uh, essentially a work bitch, a pull out work bench next to my desk. Here are my computer, um, trolley that my computer's on where I can do find work, set up lights, put a clamp on a vice, uh, do electronics work. Um, I'm filling around a lot with a raspberry pie right now, small, small little computer. And so it drops in there. I can roll the two together and put a door between them and have a standing desk there. I'm really working on a bigger project, or if I'm doing some sort of photo project that needs more space and they rolled to the other end of the room, used her B hit the uh, Mike, didn't ya? Yeah, yeah. Uh, I'm talking my hands again. Yeah. But they rolled to the other rooms so I can pull down a back screen, uh, that's mounted to the wall, uh, for, uh, you know, just to do photo work with and have, you know, kind of a multipurpose room. So everything that's rooms on wheels now except me. And, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about some skates and so it's really wonderful to, uh, to have something that's well-built and versatile and you know, you can do all kinds of things with it. So I'm thrilled.

Eric: I love the idea of everything on wheels. I am, I actually did a video quite a while ago. I have the plastic storage shelves that are modular snapped together. You buy them at the orange store, the blue store. Right. And I built very simple, again, I bought the inexpensive castor swivel wheels and built a little wood frame underneath that. And so each of those big shelves is on wheels now. So in the basement I can move stuff out of the way if I need to. Uh, um, I sometimes shoot video down there or if I just need to sweep up the place or vacuum, you can move the shells out cause they're on wheels vacuum underneath there and put them back. And to extend that I would like things on wheels are off the floor in the house so I can run my robot vacuum everywhere and I don't have to like, it gets it vacuums underneath everything that way.

Rick: Oh wow. Yeah. Good idea. Yeah. What is, what are the dogs think about the vacuum

Eric: one could care less and the other one freaks out

Rick: really. So I'm always seeing these, uh, I don't watch a lot of cat videos, but uh, if it's a Roomba and a cat sitting on top of it, some reason that just fascinates me.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, if you would start with getting them acclimated to the vacuum or a, you know, a robot vacuum when they were puppies, that would probably help a lot. And also kind of associate it with fun. Um, like you could be playing with the ball and the vacuum of the robot is running around in the same room. And so they associate that sound with positiveness rather than negativeness cause I, you know, dogs, animals pick up on your, uh, ESP, maybe use the word, but you know, your vibe about okay is the dog gonna get wound up about this vacuum, you know, and you're wound up about the vacuum upsetting the dog, you know.

Rick: Right. And, you know, that's really the way I had a dog. Uh, our last set of dog scruffy that just ran full tilt into the, the, um, sliding glass door and I thought he might've broken his neck, you know, and I, instead of running over and picking him up and checking on him, uh, Sydney, our other dog got there first and she took two sniffs of him and walked away. And it was like, you're not hurt, get up. And he, and he did, and he hopped up and he was a little wobbly, but, and, um, you know, went on about doing his stuff and if you grab him up and you start, you know, making them a big deal, you, um, are you hurt? Are you hurt? Are you hurt? Then that kind of like, I am hurt. Something's wrong. So yeah, it'd be like a dog. Just take two snips and say, get off your butt. You know,

Eric: my dad had this rule about us, um, working in the workshop, he said, you can build whatever you want. Just don't bleed on my floor.

Rick: Yeah. Well, when I was growing up, um, all of us kids had this, uh, this rule, you know, if you cried, you had to go home, you know? Yeah. If he couldn't talk it out, being around the gang or whatever group of us there were, and there a bunch of us around the neighborhood having dirt club fights and, and they, they used to have these, um, little circulars papers that, uh, they'd throw out, uh, with all the ads and still do that. Do like, uh, we, we don't have them here but um, you know, we'd soak them in water and then have fights and so, uh, they, you know quite often that you've got a uh, uh, a bruise or a something that stung a lot and the rule was if you're, if you're going to cry, you can't stay.

Eric: Hey, would you like more of garden fork or more of Eric would you like to get it in your email inbox? I send out just about every week I send out a little email about Eric's world and new stuff I posted. I even talk about podcasts I've listened to or just interesting stuff and usually almost always at least one picture of the Labradors and Regan Charlie, you can get that by signing up for Eric's garden fork email newsletter thing. There should be a link in the notes to the show. Just scroll down to the description of the podcast in your app and I'm hope it's a clickable link. It should be or go to garden fork.tv and on almost every page at the top of the page. So would be a sign up. If you're on a mobile device, you might have to tap on the little, there's a little menu bar and then hopefully there will be a signup or scroll the bottom of a post and you can sign up. There should be a link in the app here. More of Eric. It would be fun to have you along for the ride. It's kind of more brain dump Eric. Cool stuff. All right,

Eric: so moving to a new subject here. The other day box came and I hadn't ordered anything and so I texted my father in law and I'm like, did you send me something? I got this box I didn't order. He goes, well let's hope it's not a bomb. You know, cause he is not on the internet, you know, and he's, he's always, I don't know, you know, he was always like, are you sure you're okay being on the internet the way you are? I'm like, yeah, that's fine. You know. And I said, people send me things, it's very interesting. And I open it up. It's this very cool, compact led light that is about four inches by three inches, I'd say. And it can create different colors and also the color white in a range of color temperatures. And it's amazing and you can control it on the little light or with an app. And it ends up that Rick sent this to me. I did, I,

Rick: I saw one on the internet, uh, of a YouTube video and I was fascinated by it. Uh, and what actually made me think of sending it to you in your cook last cooking video where you did the stew.

Eric: Yep. Oh yeah. Alison Roman stew. Yeah. The,

Rick: yeah, the, the chick pea soup or stew. Um, you had just mentioned briefly as you're going on that you'd done, you had a CTO, your, your, uh, glass your window. And I figured most people didn't realize it, what that was, but I knew because you, you know, you're educated in photography and I have a just, uh, amateurs background knowledge. Then what you would done is put an orange gel, what's called gel, but it's actually like cellophane over your glass because it clash. The bright sunshine, the color, the temperature, we call it the sunshine coming through that glass clashes with the lights, uh, above your range and, and uh, there's your Island that you're working on. Right. And it makes it look funny and I've noticed in your video when those Mitch mismatches before, probably most people don't, but um, I, this light will actually generate a, um, a CTO temperature for you. Uh, and it has lots of other great features.

Eric: Yeah. So Frameline's CTO is called color temperature orange orange, but it changes the color temperature of sunlight as a very blue, white and your indoor lights, the bulbs are usually warm white, so it's more of an orange kind of white. And if you shoot video with window light and indoor light, it can look kind of weird. So you buy this inexpensive material at BNH photo and I just stick it up on all the windows and it changes the color temperature warms up the blue outdoor like to match the indoor bulbs kind of close. And so it just looks, it's looks lit a little more evenly.

Rick: Yeah. If you're a, if you take magazines like town and country and I don't know, horse and hound or something, uh, where they're shooting these beautiful indoor pictures and there are big skylights in the picture or there, there's big, um, uh, sliding glass doors. A crew has spent most of the day, uh, before usually, uh, putting CTO over all that glass so that it will match the inside temperature of the picture when they're shooting natural light of these beautiful furnishings and, and, uh, lavish layouts on tables and that kind of thing. So it's a big deal in photography.

Eric: Yeah. Also, instead of trying to change the outdoor life when we would shoot stuff like that, this is why I wouldn't work for architectural photographers, is you can change the color temperature of the indoor bulbs. So we would actually gel the lights inside to, to be a cold blue rather than jelling the hole. It just depended on the job. But I've spent a lot of time changing the color temperature sunlight.

Rick: Well, and I've now, one of the things I think is most fascinating about the human brain, and this is kind of one of the things that got me into photography is particularly back in the film day before you had a white balance control on digital cameras, right? Uh, you would take a picture and it looked perfectly normal to you indoors next to a lamp and it was a group thing and it looked perfect to you. But when the picture turned out, everyone was orange colored. Yup. Or if it was under fluorescents, everyone was green colored, but they looked perfectly normal when you saw them. And that's because that color in the picture is the actual color that's, that is, is there. And you have this knob in your brain that adjust to real life color to change the color temperature of the scene to match what you think it ought to be,

Eric: right? It's the automatic white balance in your brain.

Rick: Yeah. And it is the most, one of the most phenomenal things I can think of about the Brian and I'm sure it does other things. Mine doesn't. But uh, it might be other things.

Eric: So the go back, go back to the light though. Yeah. Um, what's I love about it is it has a hot shoe Mount and so you can put on top of my video camcorder or a DSLR and it's a great for a fill light, like you have to jam the camera and like I'm doing a video about rebuilding the snowblower that got full of mice, a mouse nest so you can light small areas that wouldn't normally be lit. It's works really well for that. And also it's a great what's called [inaudible]. It will fill out a face if you're doing a portrait or doing closeup of someone talking. It's quite well

Rick: and yeah, you control both the temperature, the color temperature, but you also can control the intensity. So you get a lot of variability with it. And it has a magnet on the back of it.

Eric: Yeah, I had it on the frigerator the other day.

Rick: Yeah. And so you can stick it up inside something as you're working on it and have some light flooding down and make it a little more photographic or photogenic. Uh, and then of course it has the toy Mo modes, which I think are, are really great. Uh, one of them is a fireplace on campfire and you point it towards your face and you set the, uh, set at the campfire and it flickers like you're sitting in front of the campfire. So if you see Eric doing that, you'll know he's actually faking it. And, uh, then it has, uh, several different police car modes of flashing lights. And so when, uh, Eric's pulled over for DWI again, well then he'll, uh, you know, you'll, you'll never know if it's real or not because he might be. So

Eric: you could have that off-camera coming through, uh, it be at night and you could have that led light coming through a window and you're like, Oh my gosh, the police are here.

Rick: Yeah, exactly. And never happens to us, but yeah. Yeah. And then there's fireworks mode. And so yeah, it's like you can look up and, and uh, in flash on your face, like you were watching fireworks pop.

Eric: What the really fun. So to the extent of, uh, in the, uh, the pre show part, we were, had a little talk that our patrons get to listen to you by the way. Um, Rick asked me what I'm doing with the light and I said I don't have the light. And he's like, well where is it? And I'm like, well I'll save that for the show. So my father-in-law came to visit and he is a electrical engineer and a photography, uh, hobbyist hobby, very high end hobbyist photography guy. And I just left it out on the counter when he came and I thought, well, he's going to open this box and look at this thing. And I went out somewhere cause I have to get away from my father in law sometimes.

Rick: Apparently he doesn't listen to the podcast.

Eric: No, he doesn't. I tried to get him on the podcast because he's amazing, but he, um, he had the light blinking and mag and the magnet had it. He had it on the side of the frigerator and it goes boom, boom, boom, boom. And he's like, yeah, what are you going to do with that thing? You know? And I'm like, I'm like, you don't know what this lights for, do you? I didn't say that, but I said, well here are different. Let me show you what else it'll do. So I put the hot shoe Mount on the bottom, which screws right into the bottom and I slide it on top of my DSLR and I turn it on as a fill light. I said, now it's a fill light for portraits. And he's like, Oh, let me try that. So he slides it on his DSLR, which is a much bigger big camera.

Eric: And he took some pictures and instead of using flash to fill in your face, you know, or if you have a backlight situation or something, this is a much kind of softer light. And the light bulb went off in his head. And so he's running around the whole house taking pictures. I, everyone with the, with the led fill light on top of the DSLR. And it looks so much better than flash photography, doesn't it? And then he said, so he came to visit because he was going on a trip with his wife to Ecuador. They love to travel and they come through to ne New York to get a flight or a cruise boat or something. So the next day he's like, I'm taking this to Ecuador.

Rick:  You took my light. Well, I'm not going to send you another one. He could buy me one, you know? Oh yeah. But I think it's just a fascinating technology and it simplifies, uh, any kind of photography you're doing. You know, if you just need a little fill light, then it looks like you need a kind of a golden reflection from one side of the face. Uh, you know, you can turn the intensity way down, but skill get just a little bit of something to silhouette that nose and the lips and stuff. And I, I think it's just a, uh, a terrific product and, you know, it's only a hundred bucks. I'm a professional photography and video crews are buying these by the tens because yeah, you can, uh, coordinate them and turn them on and off and set different groups to have one fill and another group to have a different bill and uh, they're long lived so you can take, uh, uh, you can use them for an hour and a half or two hours, which is pretty good for this kind of product. That's great.

Eric: So we've been, while we've been talking for a while here, so we have a couple more things to touch on and then we should let our listeners go. Other way. I have made

Rick: you're a father in law and he's a great gun. Oh, that's right. You did. Right. We are passing through a, we're actually exchanging a cabins on the ship, almost a a she who must be obeyed, uh, wanting to come back from England on the queen Mary two. And it docks right in your front yard almost. Yeah. And uh, your father know you came to pick us up so we could visit for a little while and your father-in-law and um, mother-in-law were there. Uh, and they were just getting ready to go board that ship. And so, uh, it was good to spend some time with them and always good to spend time with you and the camera operator.

Eric: Yeah. Hanging out in my kitchen. I'm like, when will all of these people leave?

Rick: That's my feeling. I didn't know you felt that way.

Eric: I, you know, people always want to get together and meet and I'm like, you know, I'm good for about 10 minutes.

Rick: Yeah. And I just shrink. I got things to do. We had a company for, uh, four days and it just, it seemed like forever. Um, you gotta be on your best behavior. You can't do the things you want to do. It's just, you know, I'll meet you somewhere. Let's just go meet in a hotel in Florida and spend two or three days doing something. Don't come to my house.

Eric: Okay. So onto some are more fun things. We have a new iTunes review.

Rick: Okay. We don't get enough of those and I'm disappointed in everyone for not doing them an iTunes review, make Rick happy, do an iTunes, iTunes review of the podcast. And give it at least five stars, 15 stars, if you can do it.

Eric: Well, this one is a five star, so it says fun podcast, five stars, and it's by drawing maniac. See that's the kind of people we draw. That's our core audience, right? They're maniacs. So, and they said in this negative world, this podcast is always comforting, informative, and very enjoyable to listen to. Eric and his friends have a way to make everything they do. Interesting. Even things I never thought I would be interested in. Oh well drawing that AIX, skip past the first half of the podcast where we talk about the climate crisis. Um, but thank you. Thank you very much for that. Whenever we, whenever I ask people to do a review on the show, usually one person will do it. So that's one out of 1200 so that's, that's pretty good, isn't it? That's a point. 1% return.

Rick: Wait, wait, wait. We could have 1200 out of 1200 do a review.

Eric: Well, there are, there are 234 reviews over the life of the podcast, but the podcast is 10 years old now.

Rick: Something like that. Yeah, yeah. I think we're in some sort of backwater.

Eric: No, we're not. We're, you know, it's, it's a, it's a core group and they're a good group of people. So it kind of, it, it just, I don't know. I like doing it and I'm in a room with 1200 other people. That's, that's how I look at it.

Rick: Yeah. And uh, you know, we've got the Facebook group, a garden fork discussion group, and uh, lots of those same listeners hang out there, by the way, will Wallaces um, video, uh, on, uh, pine cone cabin, pine cone cabin, and the solar arrays and everything is really worth watching. I wished I had one 10th. The energy that man has,

Eric: well, he'll be on the show soon. Um, I did help him with that video. I gave some, uh, constructive comments to improve it.

Rick: So, uh, yeah, words you shouldn't say some back channel discussion there.

Eric: All right. So I imagine people, uh, have arrived at work, their commute using public transit or maybe they rode their bike. If you're riding your bike, maybe you shouldn't be listening to podcasts.

Rick: Oh, I listened to podcast all the time on the bike. Well, if you're in traffic though, you know, but yeah, but it keeps me from being scared to death, but people running up behind me.

Eric: All right. So if you would take a moment and write a review, you can do it within the pod. The Apple podcast app. I don't know about the other ones, but

Rick: you can on overcast, but it just goes to the overcast community. Oh, all right.

Eric: Well, right. That would make sense. I mean, they don't really have an API to the Apple, but the Apple podcast app actually had it really herps helps with the search. You know, I guess if you're looking for a DIY podcast,

Rick: You know, I'm, I'm thinking about doing some, a hydroponics, a not, yeah, I'd been doing aquaponics in the past, but uh, some pre, you know, kind of scary stuff coming out about grief. He have grief. He leans, uh, leafy greens, uh, and consumer report had an interesting piece on it and I'm like, you know, I can grow my own hydroponic, um, uh, lettuce and, um, kale and all these leafy greens though Swiss chard and um, uh, so I'm, I may be actually contributing to the, uh, the community when I get this build done. I'll show people how I'm doing it.

Eric: Oh, cool. All right, so that's on Facebook. We'll link to that in the show notes here. Everyone have a good day.