bits

 We got the taller propane tanks secured into the back of the truck today - which was something we had been working on for a long time.  That meant we could fill up four times the amount I've been getting every other day in the small tanks.  

Then we got some groceries, and came home.  A yellow squash was fifty-nine cents, and the big white onion was one dollar and forty-nine cents.  I bought an apple for sixty-nine cents.  I wanted to compare what the prices were after a while, but really they aren't that high compared to what the news is saying everything is too expensive to buy vegetables.

I made squash and onions with bacon over rice for Esme and I - and a bit of hamburger on the side for each of us while Mark had one.  The other night we made an 'Italian' soup, with a marinara pasta packet and some kale in one pan, and tomatoes, cannellini beans, peppers and onions fried together with some hamburger in another pan - then put it all together into bowls with garlic toast.  That was really good - although I hadn't meant it to be 'soup' until that last moment when I guessed eating it as soup was better than waiting for a much longer time for it to boil down the sauce into a thicker texture.

Tired - headed off to bed.  I played a little bit of Minetest (like Minecraft) earlier while we washed the laundry - and made a good amount of progress.  Yea, it's Luanti, not Lunati but you could understand my mistake.  Lunati looks cool for a name.  Lua-nti makes sense since it is programmed in Lua.

 

A scaffolding (ladder) decoration added to a balcony formation made in the side of my typical stairstep roof.  Another watchtower on a little island across some water - as seen from the balcony.

 

Checked off some new skills / achievements / tests :

Figured out how to sneak finally, and built a long air bridge across a canyon. 

Figured out how to use that shift (sneak) button to descend the ladders - that took forever.

Made the stone spear and then was able to kill the pigs, the creeper things (that looked like saddled pigs but blew up with TNT) and the skunk like creatures.

Found a desert biome and harvested cotton in the wild.  I still haven't seen what else can be made from the cotton except for cotton bales.

Made reed blocks with swamp grass clumps and papyrus.  It can be dried in the furnace to make a different color. Esme said :It's like thatch.

Discovered that potatoes grow in swamp or plains area.  

Found a mixed plains/swamp area where I could plant all of the crops within not too far from each other.

Traded with a villager using the trade book and bought a cactus (still seeing how that will turn out). If only I could find one that would sell me a carrot, now!

Made brick.  It required no clay - just sand and gravel *question mark*

Discovered that yes, indeed, the wheat and cotton and potato will grow two deep away from a water square - but they won't grow well without a water square.

Made two new farms and started naming and completing the interconnection between them so I can travel fairly easily from one to another.  Experimented with new roof styles and using half-blocks as well as the stairs.

Found iron ore and mined it with a stone pickaxe, then discovered how to take the wrought iron ingots to steel and carbon steel using graphite.  I had been wondering what the graphite was for!  Made shears with the carbon steel.  The carbon steel pickaxe cut through rock like butter.

Made flint and steel, and made TNT from base materials (instead of just monster drop).

Made carbon steel and mined gold ore with it.  I kept seeing the gold speck stuff and it would not break with a stone pickaxe.  I didn't know if that was sulfur or gold - because you can't look at things like in the old Minecraft before you break it.  The gold isn't very useful, yet... although one ingot was needed to make the trade book I already had that from the first village having that in a chest.

Still haven't found tin or sulfur, although they are supposed to be out there.  Have found a few locked chests in villages and haven't went through how to open them although there is a tool that can be crafted for that.